Hacker Speak

The mainstream artworld has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the “good press” side, gifted creatives such as Banksy have made walls a place to put a political point across, utilising stencils to create technically tricky graphics with a nuanced political point. This kind of graffiti was likely to become fashionable with both the masses and the art critics : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This sort of graffiti is even bought as printed canvas art, and placed on the walls of middleclass homes and office reception areas.

Even so, when it comes to your down and dirty graffiti - the tagger, the gangbanger sort - this kind of graffiti is often seen as vandalism, an offence perpetrated by the talentless. But is graffiti merely an artform? To many people, it’s not only art, but a means to put your stamp on a neighbourhood, or even two fingers up at society : anti-art, anti-social, anti-establishment.

Graffiti has invariably been a secret pursuit, even though the effects are public facing. The intended audience is often unknown. Is it for a rival gang? A message to a single person? To the public? Or….maybe it’s just uncalled-for and out of nothing to do.

Whatever the reasons may be, there appears to be a unremitting demand to spray on walls. Some towns have admitted that graffiti isn’t going to go away, so they’ve marked off zones where graffiti is allowed - normally uninhabited areas, but from time to time busier zones like temporary boarding around inner city construction sites.

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Antique lacquer was always highly valued for its lasting qualities and strength. A very high gloss could be achieved, proving impervious to alcohol, acids and hot liquids. It would also have appealed to the Zen Buddhism ideals of ‘Yin and Yang’, as lacquer appears to be so delicately beautiful and light in weight. Yet, it is hard, impermeable and enduring.

However great care still needs to be taken when handling antique Japanese lacquer inro (especially when complete with ojime and a netsuke, or manju) as the inro can so easily be damaged by knocks. The most common cause of damage occurs when an inro is first picked up. If the netsuke, or manju, is allowed to swing and bump into the inro, the lacquer will certainly dent and worse still might chip.

The best and correct way to pick up an inro, is to firstly pick up the netsuke, or manju, then to hold and use the silk cord to turn the inro around to look at the other side when inspecting Inro, rather than to finger the lacquer, as there is something in our perspiration that dulls the shine in time. As an alternative some people only handle lacquer whilst wearing very soft gloves.

All lacquer is best kept in a reasonably humid atmosphere, avoiding any sudden changes of temperature. In some climates this is difficult to arrange, without having good airconditioning. It is also a good idea to keep a bowl, or two, of water where ever the inro are stored, but even more important to avoid the use of any hot spot lights within the same cabinet.

Antique Japanese lacquer Inro and boxes are such incredibly beautiful works of art, that I consider many of them to rate very highly, amongst the finest treasures of the World! So it is well worth while taking good care of them.

The author has been a very keen Asian antique collector for many years helping to create ‘The Cohen collection’. http://www.jncohen.net/Cohen_collection/index.htm

For more information with lots of photographs please use the following link: -
http://www.jncohen.net/homepage.htm

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