Review

Untitled, Archival Inkjet Print.

Andrea Fuhrman

9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire St.
Lawrence, KS
785.843.2787

Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday-Sunday.
Runs through: Feb. 15

Artist's site: http://www.andreafuhrmanfineart.com
Gallery site: http://www.lawrenceartscenter.com

Given the number of railroad crossings in this town, sooner or later you're going to get caught waiting for a train. (The Johnson Drive crossing in Merriam gets me at least twice a week, sometimes more.)

As the cars roll by, it's hard not to notice the spray-painted additions.

Some of them, quick (and almost unreadable to the outsider) strokes of single color, proclaim gang loyalties. Occasionally, there's a declaration of school spirit or undying love.

And then there's the art. If you're lucky enough to get a front-row seat, and you're not the sort to get carsick from watching the train go by, each delay becomes a movable exhibition.

Or is it, as The Law would argue, an egregious display of vandalism?

That question, while as old as graffiti itself (just try running a Google search on "graffiti art"), is always worth examining. Andrea Fuhrman's new works at the Lawrence Arts Center provide a collage artist's perspective on the issue, with detail shots of graffiti tags assembled into a larger whole.

I photograph train graffiti, as if an art supply or a diary of moments, Fuhrman writes. Trains are vandalized with spray paint. I appropriate. I transform. I steal. I document so a secret language is not lost. I am scribe, translating engrossed. I find passages that are poetic, calligraphic remnants made by others. And though the act of spray painting on trains is illegal, is it not a revolutionary act?

Whether revolutionary or rebellious (yes, there's a difference) it's certainly a colorful fist in the face of conformity. The choice of trains is in large part utilitarian — I have paint; I need a large flat surface — but with a philosophical undertone.

After all, how do we refer to authoritarians? They make the trains run on time. (This attribute was originally ascribed to Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini, but an analysis proved that he failed on that front, too.)

Through Fuhrman's lens, and in her hands, the train paintings are deconstructed into their basic elements of color, line and curve. (Sometimes a bit of context seeps through, as in the clearly visible "G" in today's featured image.) Her arrangement of the shots highlights the complements and contrasts of those key components.

For all of that color, the issue remains in a gray area. Gang graffiti is clearly vandalism; art tagging is not. (Seriously. It's a train car. Unpainted train cars are boring.) How do you permit — in an ideal world, encourage — the creativity of the tagger without giving similar free rein to the spray-painted gang manifesto?

Asking Fuhrman's show to solve that conundrum would be unfair. But she does provide more evidence that not everything of which The Law disapproves is truly a crime.

Sometimes, it's art on rails.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Updating...