Following Odysseus Not the end of the world Amarna city of light ...

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Hand artOutside the Franco-Cantabrianregion, early prehistoric handstencilshave been found in caves inArgentina, North America, South-East Asia and Australia.Located on the Pinturas Riverin Patagonia, Argentina is theCueva de las Manos (Cave ofthe Hands). This rock art,which includes human figures,guanacos, rheas and felines, isbelieved to date to around 9000years BC. In one part of the cave isa panel covered in carefully superimposedhand-stencils, somepainted in red, others in white.According to archaeologists, theyare all left hands and appear to bepainted by one person, probably ayoung initiate who may have beenmaking his, or her, mark in order toreach adulthood.Further afield, hand-stencilsappear in great numbers inAustralian aboriginal art, bothancient and contemporary. A handstenciltaken by the rock art specialistProfessor Paul Taçon at theDjulirri site, in the WellingtonRange, Arnhem Land, NorthernTerritory, is believed to be between9,000 and 12,000 years old (2).Although we can never reallyknow why or by whom such evocativemotifs were placed on a cavewall thousands of years ago, we canget a few hints from the anthropologicalrecord.Interestingly, both ancient andcontemporary hand-stencils sometimesappear on the same panel, andmore hand-stencils are added on aperiodic basis, thus updating thevisual narrative, forming a plethoraof personal signatures. Based on theanthropological and ethnographicrecords, the most popular interpretationof hand-stencils and handprintsis that they are personalsignatures. However, is there anythingmore we can say about them?It is believed that the position ofaboriginal hand-stencils definesrank within tribal clans and, whenreplicated on a number of panels,defines territoriality. Within therock art panel narrative it is consideredthat the higher the stencil is inrelation to others, the greater therank attained; by due process children’shand-stencils are usuallylocated at the base of the panel.Based on individuals using thispanel, the panel is in the legitimateownership of the clan rather than asingle artist. Saying this though, theproduction and panel position ofhand-stencils would have been53. Banksy’s CleansUp – Cave Painting,created in May 2008in Leake Street, southLondon.4. Classic taggingformed by intricatetext across doorsin Shoreditch, eastLondon.5. Location of handstencilsin Città Alta,Bergamo.3controlled by Big Men; they alonewould have possessed the directpower between paint, image, rockand the spirit world (known as theSealing Ritual); by touching therock surface with one’s hand adirect contact with the spirit worldis made. But what of the symbolicmeaning of the handprint or stencilof the graffiti artist?Throughout recent history thehand (and the clenched hand or fist)has been a powerful statement ofdefiance or solidarity, or both.Graffiti and multiple tagging are acommon sight in urban areas, madefamous by a number of once subversiveand notorious street artistswho have now become not onlylegitimate but recognised creatorsof expensive artwork. Banksy,kELzO and Aerosol Arabic are justthree of these artists who are nowconsidered to be mainstream (3). Ininterviews about ancient and modernrock art conducted by theauthor for a series of programmesfor the BBC, three graffiti artistsclaimed that their induction to thisdynamic and sometimes dangerousart form was through tagging.Tagging is one of the most commonand simplest styles of graffiti,usually textual in form, reflectingthe name or initials of the artist, oron occasions representing a crew/gang name or community area (4).This highly personalisedkind of signature, whichfirst appeared on thestreets of Philadelphiain the early 1970s, isusually repeated on many surfaces,arguably laying artistic claimto a particular neighbourhood. Inmost cases tagging is a complexencrypted signature thatinvolves the skill of linkingindividual letters to form aword or phrase. The identity andmeaning of tagging is very muchrestricted to a peer group, usuallyinvolving the artist, his or her crewand some neighboring crews.Strategically placed along themain thoroughfares and connectingside streets of the medieval quarterof Bergamo (known as Città Alta)are a series of distinctive handprintmotifs(5). The handprints appear tobe the work of one person andcould represent a pictorial personalsignature or tag.The handprints in Bergamo’sCittà Alta started to appear during2009 and were initially confinedto the main north-west/south-eastthoroughfare, formed by two interconnectingstreets, Via Bartolomeoand Via Gombito (6).These two narrow streets, flankedby imposing medieval tenementsconstructed of worked and dressedstone, form the main commercialhub of the Città Alta. Leading offthe two main streets are several sidestreets that again have been targeted4Minerva November/December 2012 27
69by handprint graffiti artists (7).The handprinters, who have beenactive for at least four years, seemto target mainly business premises.Rather surprisingly, the city authoritieshave made no attempt toremove these or other graffiti suchas the (anti) ‘Putin’ stencil that isprominent on a wall on one of theside streets (8).Away from the main hub of theold town, handprints and otherforms of tagging are absent, exceptfor three that have been painted onthe walls of a medieval apartmentbuilding (9) and a granite bollard(10) along a pedestrian walkwayknown as the Via San Salvatore,within a residential area south ofthe commercial centre and theBasilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.As with the hand-stencils thatadorn many caves throughout theearly prehistoric world, the distributionof painted handprints inBergamo’s Città Alta appears to bedeliberate and strategic. It is not76. to 10. Handprintsand graffiti inBergamo:6. On commercialpremises along theVia Bartolomeo inthe city centre.7. A single handprintwith the sloganPalestina Libera(Free Palestine).8. Blue stencilled faceof Putin with his namewritten alongside.9. A series of redhandprints on thewall of a medievalapartment buildingaway from Bergamo’scommercial hub.10. Handprint on agranite bollard on apedestrian walkway.11. The Red Handof Ulster, a Loyalistsymbol, alongside theUnion Flag, paintedon a wall just off theShankill Road in WestBelfast in 1983.10coincidental that the artist has targetedthe two streets that form thecommercial hub of the Old Town,and it is more than likely that thesevery visual statements are making apolitical point.Recent blogging activity on theinternet suggests that Bergamo’shandprints represent Red Hands –Red Heart, an extreme left-wingsymbol that may hark back to thedays of the extreme ideology of theRed Brigades, a radical group activeduring a rather dark period in Italy’srecent history. Alternatively, redhandprints could represent aromantic gesture, say between theartist and his or her lover. The strategiclocation of the prints, though,suggests some form of protestagainst capitalism, commercialisationand commerce.The majority of the handprintsand sprayed stencils are righthandedand, unlike their prehistoriccounterparts, all are anatomicallycorrect (all have four fingers and athumb). Based on the finger alignment,all are male (and were probablyexecuted by a male artist).Many appear to have been painted/sprayed in haste; paint dripping ispresent on many handprints andlimited contact between the stenciland the surface of the wall hasresulted in webbing around thelower section of many hands.Elsewhere, tagging has been usedas a territorial marker by both passivetaggers and rival gangs.In Northern Ireland during thebloody civil insurrection of theTroubles, the Red Hand of Ulsterwas used to identify certain areas ofBelfast as belonging to Loyalists(11). Ironically, this symbol wasoriginally a heraldic emblem usedby the Uí Néill clan during the NineYears War (1594-1603) against theEnglish; the war-cry in Gaelic wasLámh Dhearg Abú! (‘Red Handto Victory’).In both archaeological and contemporarygraffiti contexts, singleand multiple hand-stencils representthe epitome of signature and identity.From the prehistoric record, allsections of the family unit are represented,while in the graffiti worldthe hand-stencil represents theideology of the individual and his orher peer group.Although both groups aremoving around their respectivelandscapes, both also establish adegree of permanency throughboundaries held by the mark of thehand, and the hand stencils ofBergamo and Belfast are no exceptionto this rule. n8 1100Minerva November/December 2012
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