fluoro speaks to CDH
Despite adorning the streets of Melbourne, Australia with his message for over a decade, CDH’s true identity still remains unknown. fluoro spoke with CDH about his passion for the acceptance of street art and the strange exchanges that come with remaining unidentified.
CDH believes “anonymity is about taking the anti-celebrity position; putting the art in the spotlight and staying backstage, in the shadows.” Attempting to make the “community better with [his] street art,” CDH has, through a series of projects, used his works as a appeal for the acceptance of street art.
Two notable projects by CDH include the famed Weeping Portraits, which reveal works of art when exposed to liquid. Another, The Trojan Petition, saw CDH and twenty artists collaborate and abandon an installation on at the entrance of the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (NGV). The NGV took on that piece and exhibited the petition within the foyer for five days.
(f) Has the City of Melbourne Council reacted to your work? How?
(CDH) Until the late 2000s, they reacted by buffing it into street art heaven. Since Banksy, street art has gained increasing mainstream appeal. It’s become a premiere tourist attraction and it’s integrating into the national identity. So increasingly councils have tried to preserve street works. These days I have weird email exchanges with councils about what to do with unsolicited work when a resident complains. Twilight zone.
(f) With reference to projects like Weeping Portraits and Rebuffed, your work is very responsive to the interaction of those who view it. Tell us more about the importance of dialogue within your work.
(CDH) When art is used as a tool of communication, it needs an audience to be realised. Without the audience, it becomes as useless as a hammer without a hand to wield it. For me, street art has often been about finding new environments and forms of discourse, outside of galleries.
(f) Would you have expected the NGV to exhibit The Trojan Petition? Why?/ Why not?
(CDH) No. At the outset, I openly gave us one chance in five of that outcome. It was a complete roll of the dice. We [the Trojan Petition members] got lucky; Tony Ellwood became the new director of the NGV just a couple of weeks before. He is more open-minded to the idea of street art as art, rather than just a cultural practice.
(f) As an activist for the acceptance of street art, you have mentioned that a legal status for street art will not stop local people from repainting their walls. What is your vision for street art?
(CDH) I’d like to see street art developed as a second system of art, outside of the contemporary art market; an alternative and more egalitarian mechanism for selecting and elevating culture. I don’t think that will happen though because given the opportunity, most street artists elect to go into commercial galleries and sell art. But I’ve been wrong before (see question above).
(f) What changes in street art, particularly in Melbourne, do you see in the future?
(CDH) Over the past decade, street art has been co-opted into mainstream culture. People often misconceive street art as a counter-culture but it’s actually become the most mainstream contemporary art practice. It fills shopping malls whose very commercial viability is contingent on securing the broadest consumer appeal.
Street art aesthetics are used to advertise everything from cars to tampons. I think this cultural appropriation is going to continue until all of the street cred is finally wringed out of it, then the empty husk will be discarded by mainstream culture. At first that sounds a bit depressing but I think it will be good for street art as art; it will be judged more by its intrinsic merits as art, rather than being able to trade on the street cred of the practice.
—
CDH plans one major project each year; last year was the Trojan Petition, the year before was the Atlas Hammer. This year fluoro are told there is anfother surprise in the making. Stay tuned.
