Lady K
MULTIPLE WRITING FORMS IN SERVICE OF A COMMITMENT
COURSE
How did you become an artist? When did you start out busking?
At what point does one become an artist? Is it by registering with the Maison des Artistes (Artists' House)? By receiving a degree from the Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts)? Is it a matter of personal conviction? I've been drawing and growing up in an artistic environment since I was very young. My father was a sculptor and interior designer, my uncle painted with an airbrush, and my grandfather was a photographer. My mother, for her part, creates beautiful faux marble, ceruse finishes, patinas… As a pre-teen, I didn't really know what I wanted to do when everyone asked me. Since many of my drawings resembled fashion design, people asked me if I should pursue that path. I liked it, but other things attracted me more. I adored Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, John Galliano… without it really resonating with me. One day, I decided that I wanted to become an artist, a bit like Picasso, and write a thesis.
The transition to street life was a gradual process. I discovered letters in 5th I found it pretty and fashionable with hip-hop, but I mainly created things inspired by the Surrealists and Dadaism, while researching art history and theory, questioning the meaning of my practice. I did a few tags, then many more a little before I turned twenty, urban experiments where I explored (in addition to tagging) stencils, logos, phrases, and flops… When I arrived at art school, I was creating rather figurative canvases, and it was from the second year onward that I abandoned a studio practice based on Figuration and Abstraction to devote myself to tags and pieces, to writing, and to a greater involvement in the street.
MULTIPLE WRITINGS
There are different writing practices, ranging from writing to tagging, including graffiti. For each of them, a different relationship with the street is created, some being very quick and others requiring more time.
I believe there's a difference in meaning between the words "writing" and "graffiti." Since I work with letters, I do "writing"; I also enjoy creating tags, for which I also try to develop a style, giving shapes to the letters. I have a fairly recognizable style that I try to evolve, working on new forms at home before reproducing them outdoors. Looking at them, you can see that they transform while maintaining a common foundation.
Since the arrival of the mobile phone, I've also been thinking more about the placement of the tag, its context, and also about producing a good image. I now associate my tag much more with the idea of keeping a record. Indeed, before mobile phones, it was difficult to want to keep a photo of all your tags. The idea was really to do as many as possible.
You are thus developing these two practices in parallel.
In my opinion, there are really two different aspects to writing: I see graffiti as a critique of society, and the pieces I spend several hours or days on as its re-enchantment. These two rather different things are perceived as one and the same by most people: but people love colorful pieces with characters, while they have much more trouble understanding graffiti.
Is graffiti meant to be liked if it's a critique of society?
Some will love it, and others will be disturbed. It may find an audience among those who feel and understand its intention and desire change in society, while it may also challenge more conservative people. It is an art form that has decided to break the law. Yet, legislation is what governs our economic and social relationships, exploiting society and life itself for the benefit of the economy. Deforestation, the extinction of certain animal species, political refugees, and the unemployment rate are all indicators of this fact. If we had a more epicurean political structure, I think the world wouldn't reach such extremes.
Is graffiti the equivalent, for society's image, of what legislation sometimes allows us to experience? I'll take the example of prostitution and pornography. These are forms of violence against women, against those who experience them, of course, but also against the very concept of a woman employed here to serve men for money. It's a tolerated form of slavery and paid rape. I think the same of surrogate mothers, women without money who are forced to rent their bodies, while many living children have no parents. Legislation, in shaping the world, authorizes this kind of thing and permits unemployment, begging, or even the bombing of another country…
Could we not then see in graffiti a societal desire to modify an environment governed by legislation that is not entirely at the service of life? The violence mentioned above is justified by the hierarchy that establishes relationships of dominance and submission. Can we see in the act of modifying urban space through inscription (which stems from the same essence that structures society: the word) a desire to reverse certain hierarchical values that place the population below the state, and thereby assert a desire to participate in shaping the world?
It's true that it's not necessarily common to have both practices and that people often specialize, but there are also those who like to do a bit of everything: tags, trains, pieces in the field, canvases…
For your larger pieces, does the choice of typography or colors stem from a pre-thought-out approach to the aesthetics of the letter, or is it the expression of a state of mind?
My style is based on letters inspired by English calligraphy, quite rounded. I wanted to find in my letters a feminine stereotype that suited them, that they be soft, not too aggressive or sharp. I didn't want people to feel worried or disturbed, uncomfortable like in front of a Basquiat, but rather protected or happy like in front of a Niki de Saint Phalle. I'm always asking myself what I want to communicate to the viewer, while also seeking movement.
Letter art is a composition of round, square, or pointed shapes. While pointed shapes are ideal for adding dynamism to a design, I didn't want too many of them, favoring curves and using points, angles, and straight lines to evoke a feeling of joy and gentleness. The choice of colors and elements also reflects this. Some are inherent to lettering, like stars and crowns.
Sometimes you also reinterpret these classic motifs, for example transforming the points into pen nibs.
I can use other types of motifs, like chess pieces or flowers. The crown can be like the queen's or king's in chess, with small balls or crosses, but also more elaborate with small, realistic diamonds. As for colors, sometimes I leave home with only a few colors, other times I approach the wall freestyle. I rarely have a sketch, unless it's a new concept or I want to paint a character. Generally, I have a fairly vague idea that becomes clearer once I'm in front of the wall.
ENGAGING INTO THE STREET
The street is undeniably a space for activism for you, whether through your stage name (not chosen at the very beginning but now affirming this feminine side), your style, or your activism through the femicide posters. You thus position yourself at the crossroads of the worlds of art and politics.
When we talk about it like that, I get the impression that all the work I'm currently producing revolves around femininity, whether through the name, the clothing, or the aesthetic. But I disagree with you; the femicide collages don't oppose Art and politics, they are both art And policy. Since the 1970s, art has been able to enter universities through this engaged dimension, which is not new, as avant-garde movements often had a clear connection to politics. Manifestos were frequently linked to an ambition to organize society and for art to occupy a dedicated place within it. Other movements sought to build a more egalitarian world, drawing inspiration from Saint-Simonianism.
I met Marguerite Stern, who doesn't consider herself an artist. I've always told her that her work, however, has its place in art museums, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it exhibited at the Centre Pompidou. Why do I think it's art? Like the political messages of May '68, a visual practice displayed on walls can claim to be artistic as long as it transcends the mass-produced communication of a graphic designer. The handwritten script, applied with a brush on paper, might suggest contemporary calligraphy, and the collage adheres to the conventions of street art, which doesn't preclude a very strong political dimension. In my opinion, it's a form of politicized art or a form of aestheticized politics.
This raises the question of intentionality: can one create Art in spite of oneself?
The question of intentionality is crucial. Perhaps for Marguerite Stern, the primary intention is to say stop. But given her artistic background, this dimension cannot be overlooked, even if she doesn't explicitly acknowledge it. Her priority isn't sales, but rather ensuring her message has an impact so that violence against women ends.
So, for you, is the street an obvious space for political engagement?
For me, yes, but that's not the case for everyone. When you go to Rue Saint-Denis and see women whose papers have been stolen, forced to sell their bodies, it's no longer about commitment, but about slavery.
As a teenager, I took to the streets primarily to rebel against the hierarchy to which I was subjected. Our entire system is based on a pyramidal hierarchy: men dominate women, adults dominate children, humans dominate animals. This allows us to exploit others: the rich man can exploit the poor man, the poor man can exploit children… light-skinned men could exploit dark-skinned men, dark-skinned men can exploit dark-skinned women… The root of the problem is this hierarchy of relationships between the dominant and the dominated.
When I started out, it was as a human being, demanding equality, engaging with a shared political environment to assert my existence, to influence the world, to be recognized and heard as a full-fledged individual, equal to adults and not an object for whom everything is decided. As I grew older, perhaps my focus shifted more towards my condition as a woman, towards how I am treated in the world. All the issues women face became apparent to me: the wage gap, the disparity between the number of female art students and those who can make a living from their artistic work. We can also go further and look at the number of women who are victims of domestic violence and homicide, human trafficking, street harassment, workplace harassment, assaults, and rape…
THE WRITER'S IDENTITY
What is your view on illegality?
In the 1970s, Interventionists took to the streets to modify the environment through performances rooted in a desire for direct democracy. Reflecting on this, I realized that writers were doing exactly the same thing, situating themselves within a legacy that could be described as modificationist. I find there's an element of direct democracy in this act of altering the margins of the landscape and the urban environment.
Over time, you have developed a true persona, which challenges the usual perception of the anonymous urban artist.
Anonymity is one of the rules of graffiti writing, but I think it sometimes bothered me to have to disappear in favor of the artwork, revealing a lack of ego. We constantly hear that there's an egocentric dimension to tagging, yet we constantly efface ourselves before the piece, without even revealing our true identity. We adopt a pseudonym, whether it's an object, a disease, a mythological figure, an animal, or even a non-existent word. Painters who aren't doing anything illegal are more inclined to show their faces because it's not reprehensible.
Personally, I think I've always been quite eccentric, but this duality between anonymity and a created persona is frequently found in writing, with some embodying it, for example, by wearing masks. It's not uncommon, but since I'm a woman, my persona is also much more feminine than a bear or psychopath mask could ever be. The way I dress is part of me, just like what I draw. Fashion is an inherent part of hip-hop, which is more connected to streetwear than to Jean-Paul Gaultier. However, I've always loved haute couture, so it's not so improbable that I might want to appear in a dress and stilettos. And here again, using a mobile phone has allowed me to have much more fun with the image.
How important is the crew in your creative process?
THE crew is an important thing in writing. It demonstrates belonging to a group. As Aristotle said, "Man is by nature a political animal." As a woman, being accepted into a crew of men as their equal is important, perhaps even more important than creating my own.
WRITING AND TIME
Psyckoze talks about the aesthetics of urgency. To what extent is your practice influenced by the speed of creation?
It's good that Psyckoze emphasizes this dimension, because we don't think enough about the temporality of the act, focusing instead on the ephemeral nature of the work. Perhaps this concentrated attention on the work is more characteristic of commentators and spectators than of practitioners. But we've known since Einstein that space and time go hand in hand: when you have two minutes to create a piece and modify the environment, you have to make the most of them to become faster, more alert, while being careful not to create any problems. The goal is for it to be beautiful and for the piece to exist while taking all these parameters into account.
What is your perspective on the relationship to time inherent in urban creation, between its ephemeral nature, photography, and social networks?
People think that street writers produce ephemeral things, but we actually seek to combat this ephemerality, particularly by choosing specific and difficult-to-reach locations. When you create in the street, you want it to last as long as possible. Indeed, video and social media will allow the work to withstand the passage of time. Other pieces are not made to last but for performance, for the act itself: this is, for example, the case of the action at the Louvre-Rivoli metro station. There can thus be a dual objective in street writing: the fight against the passage of time, against consumerism; but also the goal of creating a piece that will be seen by as many people as possible. This is what will make it live the longest, or at least the most intensely, thereby fighting against its ephemeral nature. Painting in dangerous places is also a way of fighting against temporality, the temporality of our bodies, by emerging alive or unarrested from these locations, such as the subway or building facades created by rappelling or climbing. Arrest can also represent a kind of ephemerality in the work of a painter who would then prefer not to produce this type of modification of their environment. Furthermore, it is much easier to record everything we produce today than in the days of film or digital photography. The phone has become the essential object, indispensable to us. As I began to spend time on social media, I wondered how to produce beautiful images capable of leaving a lasting impression.
Do you feel that writing is an artistic movement? How does it relate to urban art?
I think street art is a period in art history, just like modern or contemporary art. These periods follow one another and are defined by certain common characteristics, a shared vocabulary: modern art is based on the use of real-world objects, with Picasso using matchsticks in his paintings. Contemporary art, for example, accumulates objects to create a single work of art. With street art, we are now painting. on reality.
I would include writing in Street Art because it takes place outdoors and doesn't relate to either Figuration or Abstraction, but rather positions itself as a new form of expression. It's also not calligraphy because it brings writing into the realm of painting through the use of contours, surfaces, shadows, and light, whereas calligraphy is a much more codified technique. The letter is distorted according to the artist's interpretation.
Let's take the example of Abstraction (whose true pioneer is the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint): is it a part of Modern Art, or did it emerge with the Moderns to become an artistic category in its own right? Once we answer this question, we resolve the issue of writing: is it a form of representing reality that defies space and time? In that case, it cannot be considered Street Art, but writers can be considered street artists. However, if Street Art is a subdivision of Art, then writers will be part of that period. I see myself as following in the footsteps of the precursors of the 1970s, who themselves followed in the footsteps of the Lettrists. The history of Art is not made up of clean breaks but of elements that agglomerate to become new objects, like a solar system and its agglomeration of particles that assemble to form something else.
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