Grafitti Deconstructed

Jon Løvøen (born 1974) is a contemporary artist from Borøy, outside of Tvedestrand. He graduated from the Art Academy of Bergen in 2002 and is known for letting his true, uncensored self be the centre of his art and for using talk shows with fictional art-interviews in his video- and performance art.

For the last couple of years, Løvøen has been making paintings; an artform he previously considered easy and overrated. His current project is a mix of theft and recycling.

By deconstructing and twisting known expressions, he attempts to gain new insights and new forms of expression. In the dark of night the artist has placed boards of plywood on graffiti walls across Oslo, left them hanging for a while and then collected them again; now with layers of pieces ready to be processed in his studio.

In the project Graffiti Deconstructed the artist takes control of the freedom of expression of taggers and graffiti artists by stealing their expressions and edit them in an archaeological process using a sanding machine. He restricts his own expression by limiting himself to the surfaces that are already tagged down. At the same time he takes control of these expressions by his own processing. It is a kind of fake user participation where the previously mentioned taggers and graffiti artists are invited to express themselves and participate in Løvøens art project without being aware of it.

We are happy to present the result here at TM51 in September 2012.