All posts tagged: gender identity

The Transgendered Self as Muse: Julien de Casabianca and His New Outing

The Transgendered Self as Muse: Julien de Casabianca and His New Outing

“Grand Mozeur Feukeur.”


French Street Artist Julien de Casabianca is debuting a new series of photographs that may appear as a surprising departure from his previous multi-year multi-city OUTINGS project, but a closer examination contains many similarities between that one and “Grand Mozeur Feukeur”.

The street artist’s pastings for his OUTINGS Project featured scenes from figurative artworks, classical and modern, from museum collections. Julien de Casabianca wanted the images displayed on facades of buildings in public view rather than hidden away for a limited audience. By bringing outside these selected artworks from cultural institutions worldwide, the artist created a genuinely new category of street art, which doesn’t occur with the frequency you might expect.

From Poland to Mexico to Palestine and Vietnam, OUTINGS expanded to be many things at once, including a form of public service that exposed passersby to cloistered artists whose works were prized but generally unseen by the everyday citizen, therefore unconsidered. Everyone was required to re-think the artworks as well as their pre-conceptions of propriety.

Two acts of sexual congress pasted by the OUTINGS project (©Julien de Casabianca)

Sometimes partnering directly with local art institutions, Casabianca traveled the world, bringing images into the light of day. Considered anew in this city street context, these excised images took on newly discovered relevance, weights, and character. While some appeared as ghosts of the past, others were remarkably contemporary in these modern surroundings. With the implied or explicit imprimatur of academics and art institutions, his novel approach to art on the streets was timely and of our time, short-circuiting convention and garnering countless press articles in cities and cultures widespread.

Shocking to audiences a hundred years ago, a self-portrait by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele pasted on this Parisian street certainly alerted passersby in a way that few street art wheat-pastes do (© Julian de Casabianca for the OUTINGS project)

For one campaign, he selected only “sex scenes,” as he calls them. Motivated by his disappointment at the lack of sexual themes in the street art scene, Julien de Casabianca isolated duos and polyamorous parties engaged in the erotic arts. “It was my first step of questioning sex, gender, and body in street art,” he tells us in an exclusive interview. A redefining of the street art scene, which can be ironically conventional considering its unconventional origins, was necessary.

“My pasting work used characters taken directly from classical paintings – and I put them in the streets,” he says. “There were dozen of sex scenes – heterosexuals and homosexuals – extracted from classical paintings.”

The impulse to expose audiences to these images was liberating, leading him to publish a manifesto on the streets of his home city, Paris. The long screed excoriated his fellow street artists worldwide for what he perceived as their lack of bravery and possibly hypocrisy by avoiding explicitly sexual scenes.

One excerpt says, “What’s wrong with you guys? Street artists are the purest of them all, then? The least ballsy, apparently. The least boobsy too.”

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

Today, following his own counsel, Casabianca presents a personal campaign in photographs that again introduces themes infrequently seen on the street, this time using himself as muse and canvas. As LGBTQ issues have mingled with a volley of newly coined terms and freshly minted (often self-appointed) experts in the academy, the media, and the street, many everyday persons have continued to navigate through life with seemingly new definitions of gender identity. This new campaign may clarify, or not.

As an artist familiar with both public display and figurative artwork, Casabianca models here his unique flair for fashion. He also displays a previously little-known relationship with gender, sexuality, and our coding guidelines for classification of each. In this new project, he models dresses that he has collected, each endowed with several associations and assumptions.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

As in the OUTINGS project, these photographs are excised from their original intended context, if you will, and given a new venue for consideration. Along with the quality of materials and construction, the viewer will evaluate categories such as “day” or “evening,” occasion, income level, social status, age, gender, sexuality, sexual availability, and degrees of masculinity or femininity.

“This new series of pictures presents my body as a form of street art. I do not see the body used in street art either, but I believe it can be a kind of contemporary art performance,” he says in his description of the new project he’s calling “Grand Mozeur Feukeur.”

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

Paired with footwear that is not typical for the styles of dress, he poses with some deadpan expressions, occasionally appearing as solicitous, coy, non-plussed, or decisive. You may even say they are a parody of the poses in classical antiquity or fashion magazines. This is a very personal act of self-exposure, and the project reveals his questioning of identity and the paradox of self-expression – and society’s propensity for categorizing.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

In total, “Grand Mozeur Feukeur” is a very intimate, provocative presentation that may surprise and draw closer examination by viewers. Grand, severe, and even humorous, the performer/muse/artist places himself against a “typical” scene of urban aerosol graffiti tags on walls. – It’s not exactly street art, yet you can imagine some of these images may end up on the street in a city near you.

“This work questions gender,” he says. “There is a malaise in the masculine aspect in our society at this moment, and I’m uncomfortable with manhood. I’m not gay; I’m a boy-girl, maybe. I’m attracted to women but not attracted to the heterosexual way of being. I identify as queer, and I’m sexually attracted to people who identify as this as well. Heterosexuality is a lifestyle. I may be something like a cross-dyke, because “dyke” at one time was a slang term for a well-dressed man. A well-dressed man for me is a man in a dress. A man cross-dressed.”

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA interviewed Julien de Casabianca about his new project:


Brooklyn Street Art (BSA): Can you talk about what led you from your previous street art project to this new one? A number of those pasted works focused on sexual and erotic themes. Is the new project related to each other in any way?

Julien de Casabianca (JC): My OUTINGS work uses characters removed from classical paintings to paste them in the streets. I pasted a dozen sex scenes extracted from classical paintings in Paris streets, and I published the series in Nuart Journal. Some were heterosexuals in nature, and some were homosexual. So this was my first step in questioning sex and gender in street art. And I discovered how sex and gender are rare in street art.

Sexuality is seldom discussed, except in a way meant to be comical. Homosexuality is rarely addressed, except in a political way, in defense of visibility, for example. Rarely are these themes presented for just what they are: sex and love. So once I realized this, it opened my eyes, and I decided to continue to work on these queer questions.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA: The dresses present a traditional look at female gender roles. Here they are contrasted with perhaps more modern classic male presentation. How is a costume/dress selected?

JC: These are only “old lady” dresses, grand-mother style. I’m fascinated by kitsch and how there can be a beautiful state in the sublimation of ugly. I think these dresses fit me really well. Since I was 15 years old, I always wore these dresses when I went to a queer party. I did not intend it as a travesty or an absurdity, not just to “dress up.” It is just because I’m beautiful in it! I don’t act like a girl. I’m a man, with my virility intact, and I’m absolutely not androgynous. And some are funny, yes. I have a huge collection, around 150.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA: The footwear and socks are frequently well-matched to the color scheme of the dress, yet they are not directly related to the style. Is this intentional?

JC: Yes, I’m a sneaker addict, and I always wear sneakers, even in a dress. And I’m in urban style all the time, and it’s my job, so I wanted absolutely to create this mix between old-school and contemporary.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA: Does posing before heavily graffitied walls make these modeling sessions more “street” or “urban”?

JC: Yes, I’m a street artist, and this wall is in my home. There are two ways to connect this series of photography in the continuity of my street art work: the urban style association of the sneakers and the walls covered in graff.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA: Are you challenging gender roles and definitions, or are you expressing identity and sexuality?

JC: This work questions gender. There is a malaise in the masculine in our society. I’m uncomfortable with manhood. I’m not gay; I’m a boy-girl, maybe. I’m attracted to women but not attracted to the typical heterosexual way of being. I identify as queer, and I’m sexual attracted to people who identify as this. Heterosexuality is a lifestyle. Maybe I am something like a cross-dyke, because people used to use “dyke” as slang for a well-dressed man. And a well-dressed man for me is a man in a dress. A man cross-dressed.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA: Is there comedy here?

JC: There is comedy too, sometimes, because I’m funny in my life and the photographs are my work. But these styles are from my nightlife. At my house, my decor is full of old-lady stuff. I’m in love with those things. They are deeply moving.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

BSA: In terms of society and your personal evolution, could this project have occurred in 1991? 2001? Or is there something about 2021 that makes it feel “right”?

JC: It has been an incredible evolution in the last few years in the overall recognition by people of the variety of genders that exist. Ten years ago, people would have regarded my looks as travesty or comedy, period. I’m not either one, not traditionally hetero. I’m queer. During the day, I wear what could be considered a “heterosexual urban” style – maybe androgynous. At night I’m wearing old lady dresses while keeping my virility and masculine behavior.

Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
Julien de Casabianca. (photo © Julien de Casabianca)
In a piece de resistance, Julien de Casabianca models a wedding dress in front of one his installations from the OUTINGS project in Paris, 19th Arrondissement (photo © Julien de Casabianca)

Learn more at
https://www.instagram.com/grand_mozeur_feukeur/

https://www.instagram.com/julien_de_casabianca/

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Kashink Uses Hairy Four-Eyed Men to Examine Gender Assumptions

Kashink Uses Hairy Four-Eyed Men to Examine Gender Assumptions

The international Street Art scene boasts a small percentage of women artists and KASHINK may perplex even that statistic with her mustache. It’s the same mustache you’ll see on many of her big hairy four-eyed men that she paints in Europe and North America that look like “badass yet sensitive gangsters,” as she describes them. Similarly, her own mustache is drawn on with a marker or paint brush. It’s the absurdity of gender role-play that she likes to examine in her colorful comical way and the Paris-based KASHINK says she considers her street art to be an expression of activism that questions it.

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Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With the same vivid colors and absurdly intelligent wit that Gilbert and George might use to make fun, KASHINK takes her paintings into a folkloric milieu and adds superhero flatness, depicting her (mostly) men as probably well-meaning dolts, if also conflicted and sensitive. As with most comedy there may be a critique as well.

As an activist the artist has lent her art and her support in a very big and public way to the cause of Marriage Equality in France, where hundreds of thousands of angry anti-gay marchers thronged through the streets to stop its passage. With characteristic wittiness (and fortitude) KASHINK created nearly 200 murals depicting many a gay couple gazing dreamily at one another over a big ornate wedding cake; a series she humorously named “50 Cakes of Gay”.

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Kashink. ActUp. Paris, France. (photo © Kashink)

Recently in New York, a number of her men showed up on walls on the street, and we had the opportunity ask her some questions about optimism, gender conventions, the French love for old skool graffiti and hip-hop, and those two black marker lines above her lip.

Brooklyn Street Art: Your characters have similarities to illustrations found in comic books from the thick lines and bold colors to multiple eyes and the comedic sense they have. Even your name “KASHINK” has a comic book sound. Did you hide in the attic with a stack of comic books when you were a child?
KASHINK: KASHINK is definitely onomatopoeic; I’ve always been fond of comic books. In France there is was always a really big scene and as a teenager I was also into American superheroes as well.

I still buy comics and illustrations and I have a lot of comic book artist friends. I recently painted a wall with JANO, an old school artist who was very famous in France the 80’s; I loved his work when I was a kid. It was pretty cool to teach him how to spray-paint!

I guess I got inspired a lot by all these, but I also get inspired by traditional crafts from around the world. These thick lines and bright colors are quite similar in many different countries.

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Kashink. Paris, France 2011. (photo © Kashink)

Brooklyn Street Art: Speaking of gender, most (all?) of the characters you create are male, and many have a mustache like yours. Societies have experimented with the fluidity of gender and roles over history. Are you continuing that experimentation?
KASHINK: When I started painting walls, I quickly decided not to paint women. It seemed really complicated to me to paint a female character free from any kind of aesthetic codes. I also noticed that there was a strong tradition of female street artists painting really sexy female characters, and I didn’t relate to that trend, I wanted to do something more personal somehow.

I’ve always been interested in the absurdity of gender representation. Since I was a kid I always felt like a tomboy but I also loved to get dolled up and look nice, in my own style.

I’m very interested in the amazing diversity of humanity, and how easy it is to break the codes in a fun way. The characters I paint are mostly male, preferably fat and hairy. Even though they look quite manly I like to put them in unexpected situations where they would express their feelings. They fall in love, they call their mom on the phone, they are sad or scared. It’s just a funnier and more meaningful experimentation than another representation of a tough female.

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Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: There are some references to queer culture in your art. Would you describe any of your work as “activist” in nature? Or are you just depicting life/imagination?
KASHINK: I’m an activist, not only as an artist but also as a person. This moustache I wear every day is the best example I guess. I think it’s fun to underline the absurdity of traditional female make up. Two black symmetrical lines as eyebrows or eyeliner are perfectly accepted, but the same lines 4 inches lower on the same face are not. I also like the idea of playing with this very old school typically male ornamentation code.

My personal life and my tendency to paint sensitive big hairy guys also led me to paint gay men in obvious situations. In 2011 I even had a solo show I called GAYFFITI. Then I worked with Act Up for a little bit and started painting walls related to gay marriage and equal rights. In December 2012, the first protests started in Paris. It was very shocking to see all this aggressiveness and all the energy some people were ready to put in order for other people not to have rights, especially in France.

I thought it was interesting to start using a strong symbol that anybody could understand and relate to positive memories. Everybody loves cake. So I started my project “50 Cakes of Gay”. At first I thought I’d paint only 50 in total but I’ve been painting more than 200 now in 9 different countries, and there are more to come!

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Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Where did the text come from that appears on the new series of hand painted posters you put up in Brooklyn recently? News headlines? Songs? Stories?
KASHINK: I’ve been adding text to my characters for a while. Especially on these paste-ups I call “The Johns”. I like the idea of starting a story and encouraging people’s imagination. These phrases could be interpreted in many ways; they could all be part of very different stories, like a part of a comic book. Sometimes they also are lyrics of my favorite songs, depending on my inspiration.

I’ve been wheat pasting those for a little while, and when I visit a different country I write the text in the local language. I did some in French of course, but also some in Polish, Greek, Arabic and Basque for example.

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Kashink with Lister hovering. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Why is it valuable to put art in public spaces?
KASHINK: Well I guess we need to keep in mind it’s not valuable for everybody. Some people are not that interested in art and don’t really see the point. As an artist, I like the idea of sharing my stuff and make it visible, it’s a good way for me to share my ideas as well; in that way it seems valuable to me at least.

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Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Your drawings appear very optimistic and full of color. Would you describe yourself as generally optimistic?
KASHINK: I’m definitely an optimistic person. I realized recently that since I was born I’ve constantly heard about deforestation, pollution, ozone holes, economic crisis, unemployment, and all kinds of disasters.

I think that nowadays we’re at the crossroads of our history, many things changed drastically in the past 50 years and it’s going faster and faster. I’m very curious about the coming next 10 or 20 years, and I don’t want to be pessimistic. Of course we’re all going to die, but I want to believe things can also evolve in a good way somehow.

I see more and more people who want a better quality of life, who quit a job they hate for something else, where they might get less money but a better environment.

There are more and more people of our generation who are not interested in consumerism, who don’t want a TV, who try to think for themselves. It’s pretty interesting.

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Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Many French art fans are very loyal and enthusiastic followers of the original 70s/80s New York graffiti artists and hip hop scene. Growing up in Paris, did graffiti culture interest you as well?
KASHINK: I guess that the French hip-hop scene has probably been the biggest in Europe. I grew up in what they call “la banlieue”, and I would take the train to go to Paris. The tracks were covered in throw ups, and in the city there always was a lot of tagging. I was attracted to graffiti and to the music as well, I remember when the Wu Tang started being known in France, I also liked Onyx and A Tribe Called Quest a lot. But I was a metal head, and back then it was weird to like both in France.

When the original soundtrack of “Judgment Night” came out, I was thrilled to see that my favorite metal bands and rappers could collaborate. It was awesome !!! Then Ice T came out with “Body Count,” which was very exciting too.

But I guess I was already more attracted to characters than styles back then. I remember seeing some pieces from Honet when I would go to Paris as a teenager; they were very different from what I was used to, in a way I got inspired by his style.

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Kashink (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Last year we did an extensive article on Wynwood and its first all-female artists edition. How was your experience in Miami painting along such an internationally known group of intelligent, talented, opinionated and fun-loving women?
KASHINK: Being in that show was an amazing opportunity, it was also very cool for me to get to meet all these great artists. I was actually very curious to ask them about how it feels to be in that game for a longer period of time. Most of them are older than me and some got tired of painting walls after a while, some others still paint but not necessarily only their own stuff. I spent a few hours smoking spliffs with Lady Pink on the roof of our hotel and asking her about all this, it was really interesting.

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Kashink collaboration with Foxx Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kashink collaboration with Foxx Face (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Kashink with CB23 trying to pass unnoticed on the bottom. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post.

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