"Wouldn't sell sh*t to Saatchi" - 'The Saint' review

"Ben Goulter calls his exhibition documentation rather than art, but his photography, and even his title, play with the controversial question; what exactly is art? Goulter say that “since prehistoric times, man has always had an obsession with ruining a perfectly decent wall (or cave). Only since the invention of the pressure washer have councils been obsessed with the destruction of this work.”

He visited the same wall in London several times since 2008, photographing graffiti artists work and documenting the change art. What is clear from his photographs is that this is art, although urban and London-based, is very unlike Banksy in that it is communal; the paint has converged so that it is impossible to see where one artist’s work begins and another ends. It’s a much more romantic and perhaps less elitist aspect of art, that art can be all around you and how that interplays with the people is captured by Goulter in two photographs. One is of a kid skateboarding surrounded by the street art; so the art has become his scenery and the grey concrete pavement slabs in comparison look very dismal. The lone skateboarder looks like the aforementioned prehistoric man in a dark cave covered in art that means something to him, but is unclear to us. The other photo has captured a woman oblivious or used to the street art on the wall behind her, which is of two men and at first glance it is hard to determine if they are 3D or not. Street art is playful and interested in trickery. This ties in with his title in which Goulter mocks the YBA group that included Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst and their connection with art collector Charles Saatchi.

His best photographs is of an isolated image that bears the message “BELIEVE IN THE SPRAY CAN”; which really sums up Goulter’s position on so-called vandalisation."

- Laura Hamilton (The Saint April 2011)