PUT DOWN THE CAMERA, PICK UP A BRICK

From windows, I see lights flashing
and maybe
somebody's takin pictures...

HEY LISTEN... do you have photographic imagez of or pertaining to thee Iron Rail? Newer? Older? Whenever? Us (derrick) tabling? The outside of the space? The inside of the space? The big Kimya Dawson love-in? The Rail defiantly open during police curfew? Something expecially clever written on the open-door chalkboard?

Please make such photographic materials available via a link in the comments, and/or e-mail it to nolabookcollective@hotmail.com . We'd like to put it on our website, and we will give you a credit & link if ya want...

Thanks! 

p.s. FNOPD

SUPPORT GOVERNMENT-PERSECUTED LOCAL ARTIST: SUNDAY JAN 11

This is going to be quick, because I have to hurry help prepare for tonight's IRON RAIL HOLIDAY PARTY, which I neither think sounds fun nor plan to attend. If you are less of an asshole than I, contact an Iron Rail Collective member for details or swing by the Iron Rail itself before 7 p.m. I'm sure someone will give you the 411.

Moving on: SUNDAY, January the ELEVENTH, (postponed from the 10th) there is going to be a NoLa RiSiNg PaInT PaRtY in the 3000 block of St. Peter.

Why? To support Willow Schroeder, a local artist whose scumbag gentrifying neighbors moved in across the street and then decided they didn't like the house they'd moved in across the street from because it artistically commemorates Willow's son who got shot to death.

Willow's bullying, ugly persecutors, the Taylors, are as bad as it gets. They're working hand in hand with scumbag Robert Mendoza at City Hall to try to destroy Schroeder's life. Already Schroeder has been forced to make alterations and tear down some of her work... but villainous monsters like the Taylors cannot be appeased.

To learn about this ongoing anti-art, anti-artist outrage, visit http://davidshouse.wordpress.com/ or read this choice-quote-laden article from the Times-Pic.

We at the Iron Rail salute NoLa Rising for helping draw attention and publicity to Schroeder's persecution, and stand in solidarity with ALL artists against the oppression of the state and the conformist would-be-dominance of "people" like the Taylors.

This is not at all a direct action... it's more like a fund-raiser kind of thing... but please do come by JANUARY 11, SUNDAY at ONE PM to help out or at least get more acquainted with Schroeder's work and her struggle... who knows what kind of interesting ideas you might get?

ART WARS: SWOON GOES OVER BANKSY

In most contexts, one graffiti artist even partially covering or overlapping another's work means it's on, big time. Not sure that will be the case here.

But has this specific thing ever happened before, anywhere? In any other city in the world, have these two international super-monsters of politically aware street art hit the same corner, the exact same spot, within weeks of each other, to the point where you have Swoon's trademark paper cutouts wheatpasted DIRECTLY on Banksy's stenciled spraypaint? What are the odds of that? I love you, New Orleans, I love you so much, every day.

Background on Swoon: Swoon discusses street art vs. museums, Swoon talks about her influences

FRED GOTS IT

The National Guardsmen near the Rail are now painted over. Why and by whom? A righteous patriot who found the depiction offensive? Some total weirdo making an ironically complex gesture of anti-art? The building's owner, afraid of thieves stealing his wall? Fred himself, using his penis as a brush? Doesn't matter. Really, really doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's greyed over. Fred is greying, and all greying accrues to him.

I liked the Guardsmen stencil-- hell, I loved the piece, even more than I love Banksy's other work-- but the half-assed buffing of the artwork does resolve the tension of how long it would last and what would become of it. Vulnerability is part of what makes Banksy's work and all graffiti exciting. Now it's grey again, or mostly grey.

We've reached a point where we can pretty much ascribe public artwork's inevitable reversion to grey to a natural process. It's no longer an insult, no moreso than litter on your stoop or mold spots on your linens. Call it an environmental quirk, endemic to the area. Fred has made himself the status quo, but he isn't just the status quo, he's ours. He's us. Banksy visited, graced our city with several glorious artworks, more than one of which specifically critiqued the Grey Ghost... did you really think some foreigner, some out-of-towner, would be allowed the last word over New Orleans' own Duke of Desaturation?

Maybe you're tired of Fred, and tired of hearing or reading about him. Only two more short paragraphs.

No-one can still deny Fred's tireless labor has created our city's contemporary visual reality. It's a distinctive, recognizable look, as pervasive as summer heat. It's locally characteristic, full stop. The WWL radio promos like to say, "As New Orleans as the St. Louis Cathedral." "As New Orleans as Filé Gumbo." As New Orleans as Fred Radtke.

I should be funnier, but I don't want anyone to mistake my tone. We might as well own this, and we might as well recognize the buffing of Banksy's National Guard stencil for what it is: an assertion of authentic New Orleans ugliness destroying a colorful, beautiful contribution from someone from somewhere else. It happens every day, and in ways much worse than paint on a wall. Don't try to distance this from yourself. If you love our city, go pose for a snapshot in front of the eradicated Guardsmen. There's your postcard: New Orleans 2008.

FRAUD RADTKE

What is this nonsense? Some dupes are claiming Fred Radtke painted over Dr. Bob's Bywater sign? BULLSHIT. I know my boy's handiwork. I know his technique, and I know his approach. I know the brushstrokes-- rollerstrokes-- that make a Radtke a Radtke; I see them in my dreams.

This hasty, half-assed hackwork, this sloppy, slipshod slapdashery is NOT an authentic Radtke. I say it, and I will pin my reputation as a Radtkologist upon it. The photos tell the story, and examination in person certainly confirms it beyond all doubt, or certainly would if I was to ever venture somewhere as déclassé as the Bywater. Pay nothing for this piece, and reprove its provenance, 'cuz it's straight-up a FORGERY!

Whatever one thinks of the gesture-- the effacing of beloved, cheerful public art with magisterial grey-- this gesture was not carried out by the maestro, but by some imitative Other. The incomplete coverage, the awkward mélange of horizontal and vertical strokes... dead giveaways.

What then does it mean? What motivated this copycadtke? ...can it be? Can this be the time long foretold by Mayan calendars, convicts' knucklebones, and Jackson Square tarot readings? It is! The hour is finally upon us when other painters admit defeat and each take up the mighty grey torch, spreading it to a grey conflagration. Let remaining taggers, sign-painters and muralists tremble! This is the great crisis, the birthing of the future! Secure all tray tables in the upright and locked position: we are in final approach to a glorious Grauenacht!

OR

maybe this is someone's attempt to make Radtke look bad. If that's the case, while I generally avoid passing any sort of judgement, it does seem to me that you have in this case achieved an un-victory. Of course you have outraged those whose whole lifestyle and worldview is founded upon their own outrage-- but that's no accomplishment. Those people are professional shriekers; Radtke is just one dark deity in their teeming personal pantheons of put-uponness. Career complainants, eternally victimized by the less enlightened. Oh how dare he! I bet he won't vote for Obama, either! Radtke, blasting Pop Country from a Humvee... there, I just made them all quit reading, 'cuz they fainted.

No, if you're trying to make Radtke look bad, I deem it an un-victory because the quality of your work stands in such stark, unflattering contrast to Radtke's. It's a travesty that anyone could mistake your work for his! Many think what Radtke does is easy, in part because he executes an individual work relatively quickly, but first of all, any given Radtke is just a piece of the larger Ur-Radtke, and second of all, his technique, honed over more than a decade, is explicated in the parable of the zen ceramicist:

"Master, how can you sell that pot for eighty dollars? It took you only ten minutes to create it on your potting wheel."
"Grasshopper, creating this pot took me my entire life, and ten minutes."

That's where Radtke's at. Second or third- or whwhatever... fuck these are strong ... of all, when you use Radtke's language, the grey language of obliteration, you are totally in his power, even moreso than the reactive, semi-satirical school of "Radtke-critical" art that has sprung up in supposed opposition to him (a school of art ferociously excoriated at the tragically American-spelling-of-grey-employing therealgrayghost.blogspot.com). By trying to make a point about Grey with grey, you are playing poker with his chips, so when the chips are down, they're always gonna be his chips. It's trying to tear down the Grey Master's house with the Grey Master's tools, y'erdme?

BUT

If you're just some dipshit who thought it would be funny to stir the pot by Greying a giant, prominent Dr. Bob piece, then baby, let's get drunk and screw, because you're my kind of reckless, socially irresponsible adolescent nihilist!

In conclusion : not a real Radtke : portends a new era in Radtkism I am too fucked-up at present to figure out : author needs a disco nap.

--the mighty respiratory-infection-riddled d-block

FRED RADTKE IS NEW ORLEANS

I'm tired of the bitching and whining about Fred Radtke, aka "The Grey Ghost." I'm tired of the cutesy t-shirts, tired of people moaning that he should be arrested, tired of the endless internet threats and letters to the editor. Fred Radtke is fucking amazing. Not only is he the best at what he does, but he represents a number of mind-blowing conceptual breakthroughs, bold steps forward in a long-stagnant "graf" scene.

For those not familiar, Radtke is the artist responsible for the huge variously grey blotches you see all over the city. A good Radtke has a mesmerizing, existentially provocative post-Rothko quality: a quilt of overlapping neutral shades addressing notions of totality and aspiration. It's miles (and yet mere millimeters) above most of the amateur-hour 'art' writers our city has to offer. Beyond his work itself and its awesome omnipresence-- both of which are significant in their own rights-- Fred is notable for his revolutionary methods and approach. He goes out in his old van with a bunch of grey paint and some rollers, and slathers it all over anything that catches his eye. Someone put a bumper sticker on a stop sign? SPLAP: the whole sign's just a big grey octagon now. Someone wrote "RIP Li'l Stinky, 1992-2008" in chalk on the brick wall of an abandoned 19th-century factory building? SPLUP: thick grey paint, eight feet square.

Quik-print plastic signs stapled to a telephone pole, advertising 2 gold teeth for $150? SPLOOP! 'Lost Dog' flyer? SPLUPP! Cringe-inducingly earnest NOLA RISING folk-art? SPLAPP! Radtke is a machine, a marvelous, superhuman grey-paint juggernaut, and if you have any problem with what he does, up to and including his fondness for violently assaulting passers-by and threatening to shoot them, do you know what you are?

Jealous. You're a hater, nothing more. I understand your petty resentment; Radtke is the king of New Orleans, and you're nobody. I sympathize; you're living in his horizon-spanning grey shadow. It must rankle. But please, stop hating. If you're a graffiti artist or sign-maker or DPW employee, take a minute to appreciate just how massively outplayed you are.

Radtke doesn't creep around with a bandanna over his face, furtively scribbling, toting a clanking backpack. No, he's out in the sunshine, getting up right on front street all day err' day. You approach him, he pulls a gun on you, or maybe splits your head open. He's real gangster, and cowboy paints where he wants when he wants. Historic French Quarter facades, traffic signs, private residences, corner stores, churches, Radtke don't give a fuck. SPLOPP! grey paint.

Everyone knows his tag, because he's all-city in a way no-one else is. The cops don't bother him, the City funds him, the paint store welcomes his business. He's taken it to the next level. Authorities turn a blind eye to his work, because he's outsmarted them. He's gotten their blessing to establish his tag on every surface in every neighborhood, and by god, he doesn't half-ass it. He has subverted the 'buff' and made it his personal trademark. How sick is that??

NOLA RISING tried to fuck with him, and NOLA RISING got knocked. Fred Radtke is the face of New Orleans graffiti, and to me, he's much bigger than high-concept clowns like Banksy or whoever else populates coffee-table "street art" books these days. Radtke doesn't need words, doesn't need appropriated 70s underground-comix imagery, doesn't need scene cred or 'authenticity.' His tag is primordial, both pre- and post-verbal. His tag is an entire PALETTE... he is the color grey, bitches, and you all know it. He goes over everything. You can love him or hate him-- he's way beyond you-- but give the man the respect he deserves. He IS graffiti, he IS the king, and he IS New Orleans. Keep talking shit... Radtke's out painting.


--the mighty d-block