KATSU

KATSU
KATSU is a vandal, artist and hacker
Known for	Graffiti, Graphic Design, Hacking, Technology, Social commentary

KATSU is a prolific artist, vandal and hacker who emerged in New York City in the late 1990s. He tags both with “KATSU” and has also developed a single stroke skull icon. He has executed a number of high-profile pieces that have brought him both recognition and notoriety.
Within the graffiti world, KATSU is often considered an anomaly for conceptually blending vandalism with commercialism and technology.^[1] As a result his work includes traditional graffiti, digital media and conceptual artwork.
KATSU is infamous for his use of customized fire extinguishers as a graffiti tool most notably used in his vandalism of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. In 2011 he replaced approximately 100 phone booth posters around New York City with fake advertisements featuring his tag juxtaposed with famous personalities and corporate logos, such as Nike and MoMA.^[2]

MOCA Tag Controversy and Fire Extinguisher Graffiti

Mixed Media Installation, KATSU x Ari Marcopoulos

In April 2011, days before the opening of the show “Art in the Street” curated by Jeffrey Deitch, KATSU executed an extinguisher tag on the facade of The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. The show was already under media scrutiny for being a “thoroughly sanitized history of graffiti and street art”^[3] as a result the event received wide media attention with the original YouTube video^[4] of the piece going viral. KATSU has since said that the tag was an “attempt to test Jeffrey Deitch’s motives”.^[5] The piece was immediately buffed by Museum authorities despite reported efforts by artists Neckface, Barry McGee and Shepard Fairey to leave it be for the duration of the event.^[6] The Artist continued to experiment with the medium and in January 2013 several buildings around Detroit, MI were reported to have been vandalized with large scribbles that appeared to be made with paint and enamel filled fire extinguishers. These were attributed to him after three large “KATSU” tags carried out with similar customized fire extinguishers appeared in the area shortly after.^[7]

Graffiti Artist KATSU with photographer Ari Marcopoulos

KATSU also executed a fire extinguisher piece^[8] on the facade of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center as part of the F.A.T. GOLD retrospective.

Working in collaboration with photographer Ari Marcopoulos KATSU took over a vacant lot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn creating a mixed media extinguisher piece.^[9] Produced by Art publisher Dashwood, Marcopoulos and KATSU released a book documenting the piece, 6-23 '13 - N6 Street - Brooklyn, in 2014.

Phone Booth and Wild Posting campaigns

KATSU Phonebooth Takeover

In April 2011 KATSU took over approximately 100 phone booths around New York City, replacing the advertisements with his own posters featuring celebrities and the logos of prominent corporations and institutions such as the MoMA and Apple.

As part of a Free Art and Technology Lab exhibition at Eyebeam, In 2013 the artist executed a wild posting campaign in New York City featuring an image of Mark Zuckerberg, photoshopped with a black eye, around New York City. Later commenting on it, KATSU responded "We're at the fork in the road with the web. It is being understood as a fundamental part of our evolution as a species. There are some that are fighting to protect privacy, anonymity and freedom and those who are trying to control, monitor and make profits. I want to let people know my beliefs."^[10]

Technology and Graffiti

Through his digital projects "KATSU easily dupes audiences while questioning the nuances that separate reality and fiction—he also looks at the notion that graffiti doesn’t have to be a physical product, instead it can exist purely digitally".^[11]

In 2010 two doctored videos of the artist vandal surfaced on YouTube- the first showing KATSU tagging in front of the White House^[12] and the second, of him tagging Picasso’s “Girl Before a Mirror" at the MoMA.^[13] Both brought widespread speculation about their authenticity and validity. In a later interview KATSU spoke of the videos saying the digital pieces “themselves are tags just in the form of video, and found on the internet” and were intended to “get graffiti writers to rethink the method[s] one could use in getting notoriety”.^[14]

Blending graffiti and digital technology, his film The Powers of KATSU,^[15] the title referencing Charles and Ray Eames classic film Powers of Ten, in which he reproduces his skull tag from the scale of 1/20 of an inch, a grain of rice, to 120 feet, a New York rooftop – and an image visible from Google Earth.^[16] The video was later shortlisted for the Guggenheim Museum's YouTube Play Show^[17]

KATSU X Minecraft

In 2013 12 Oz prophet reported that KATSU was constructing his tags in the online multiplayer game Minecraft. Later commenting on it in a blog post he said “the future of graffiti for me will be in the form of black hat tactics”.^[18]

KATSU has previously collaborated with Graffiti Research Lab, a collective of technologists, artists and hackers. He is currently a research fellow at the Free Art and Technology Lab where, along with artist and programmer Theo Watson, he developed the iPhone app Fat Tag Graffiti Deluxe-KATSU Edition.

Graffiti Drone created by KATSU

After several months of experimentation with quadcopter drones and in collaboration with FAT Lab member, Becky Stern, KATSU developed a prototype mountable remote sprayer- the resultant device was dubbed the Graffiti Drone. A press release from The Hole Gallery the described the process of its refinement as testing with "weight of the paint, the straw for the sprayer, the sensor for the can activation, the flight of the drone and different paint and surfaces".^[19] A series of abstract paintings created using the graffiti drone were displayed by the Hole Gallery at the Silicon Valley Contemporary Art fair in April 2014. Reactions to the graffiti drone paintings ranged from speculation about its use in vandalism and references to mechanical abstract expressionism. Commenting on the significance of the work the artist explains that "drones are becoming this extension of human beings in the same way that we’re growing so close to our smartphones and devices...It’s really exciting to see and understand and think about what it means that many of the aesthetic decisions in these paintings are not my decisions. They’re these collaborative decisions with this technology".^[20]

Participatory Art

KATSU encourages the public to become participants and not just observers, by using his works as canvas for their own graffiti efforts.

References