Wheatpaste (also known as
potato paste,
flour paste,
rice paste,
Marxist glue, or simply
paste) is a
liquidLiquid is one of the principal states of matter. A liquid is a fluid that has the particles loose and can freely form a distinct surface at the boundaries of its bulk material. The surface is a free surface where the liquid is not constrained by a container....
adhesiveAdhesive or glue is a compound in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. Some modern adhesives are extremely strong, and are becoming increasingly important in modern construction and industry...
made from vegetable
starchStarch or amylum is a polysaccharide carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds.Starch is produced by all green plants as an energy store and is a major food source for humans....
and water. It has been used since ancient times for various arts and crafts such as book binding,
decoupageDecoupage is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf and so on. Commonly an object like a small box or an item of furniture is covered by cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers...
,
collageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, and
papier-mâchéPapier-mâché , sometimes called paper-mâché, is a construction material that consists of pieces of paper, sometimes reinforced with textiles, stuck together using a wet paste...
. It is also made for the purpose of adhering
paperPaper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
posterA poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly textual. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and convey information...
s to walls and other surfaces (often in
graffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
). Closely resembling
wallpaperWallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. They are usually sold in rolls and are put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
paste, it is often made by mixing roughly equal portions of
flourFlour is a powder made of cereal grains or roots. It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many civilizations, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
and water and heating it until it thickens.
Wheatpaste (also known as
potato paste,
flour paste,
rice paste,
Marxist glue, or simply
paste) is a
liquidLiquid is one of the principal states of matter. A liquid is a fluid that has the particles loose and can freely form a distinct surface at the boundaries of its bulk material. The surface is a free surface where the liquid is not constrained by a container....
adhesiveAdhesive or glue is a compound in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. Some modern adhesives are extremely strong, and are becoming increasingly important in modern construction and industry...
made from vegetable
starchStarch or amylum is a polysaccharide carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds.Starch is produced by all green plants as an energy store and is a major food source for humans....
and water. It has been used since ancient times for various arts and crafts such as book binding,
decoupageDecoupage is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf and so on. Commonly an object like a small box or an item of furniture is covered by cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers...
,
collageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, and
papier-mâchéPapier-mâché , sometimes called paper-mâché, is a construction material that consists of pieces of paper, sometimes reinforced with textiles, stuck together using a wet paste...
. It is also made for the purpose of adhering
paperPaper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
posterA poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly textual. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and convey information...
s to walls and other surfaces (often in
graffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
). Closely resembling
wallpaperWallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. They are usually sold in rolls and are put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
paste, it is often made by mixing roughly equal portions of
flourFlour is a powder made of cereal grains or roots. It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many civilizations, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
and water and heating it until it thickens. A similar flour and water formula is taught in elementary school minus the low heat simmer as an easy substitute for ready-made adhesive.
Uses
A common use is in the construction of chains of paper rings made from colored
construction paperConstruction paper or sugar paper is a tougher type of coarse colored paper typically available in large sheets. The texture is slightly rough, and the surface is unfinished...
. It can also be used to create
papier-mâchéPapier-mâché , sometimes called paper-mâché, is a construction material that consists of pieces of paper, sometimes reinforced with textiles, stuck together using a wet paste...
.
In the fine arts, it is often used in preparation and presentation, due to its low acidity and reversibility.
Activists and various
subcultureIn sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong...
proponents often use this adhesive to
flypostFlyposting is the act of placing advertising posters or flyers in illegal places. In the U.S., these posters are known as bandit signs, snipe signs, or street spam, and the process of flyposting is called wheatpasting....
propagandaPropaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience...
and artwork. It has also commonly been used by commercial bill posters since the nineteenth century. In particular, it was widely used by nineteenth and twentieth century
circusA circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include acrobats, clowns, animals, trapeze acts, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists. The word also describes the performance that they give, which is usually a series of acts that are...
bill posters, who developed a substantial culture around paste manufacture and postering campaigns. In the field of
alcoholIn chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. An important group of acohols is formed by the simple acyclic alcohols, the general formula for which is C
nH
2n+1OH...
and
nightclubA nightclub is a drinking, dancing and entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. People who frequent nightclubs are known as clubbers...
advertising, in the 1890s,
Henri de Toulouse-LautrecHenri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
's posters were so popular that instructions were published on how to peel down the pasted posters without damage. Until the 1970s, commercial poster hangers always "cooked" their own paste, but since then many have bought pre-cooked instant pastes. It is applied to the backside of paper then placed on flat surfaces, particularly concrete and metal as it doesn't adhere well to wood or plastic. Cheap rough paper, such as
newsprintNewsprint is low-cost, non-archival paper most commonly used to print newspapers, plus other publications and advertising material. It usually has an off-white cast and distinctive feel. It is designed for use on printing presses that employ a long web of paper rather than individual sheets of paper...
, works well, as it can be briefly dipped in the mixture to saturate the fibres. Due to danger of being apprehended, wheatpasters frequently work in teams or
affinity groupAn affinity group is usually a small group of activists who work together on direct action.Affinity groups are organized in a non-hierarchical manner, usually using consensus decision making, and are often made up of trusted friends of a common ideology...
s. In the USA and Canada this process is typically called "wheatpasting" or "poster bombing," even when using commercial wallpaper paste instead of traditional wheat paste. In Britain the term for the verb "wheatpasting" is "flyposting."
Etymology
The words
paste,
pastaPasta is a generic term for foods made from an unleavened dough of flour and water, and sometimes a combination of egg and flour. Pastas include noodles in various lengths, widths and shapes, and varieties that are filled with other ingredients like ravioli and tortellini...
, and
pastryPastry is the name given to various kinds of baked goods made from ingredients such as flour, butter, shortening, baking powder or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked goods are called "pastries"....
have a common heritage, deriving from the
Late LatinLate Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD. extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...
pasta (
doughDough is a paste made out of any cereals or leguminous crops by mixing flour with a small amount of water and/or other liquid. This process is a precursor to making a wide variety of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items , including flatbreads, and pancakes, noodles, crusts,...
or pastry cake), itself deriving from the ancient
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
pasta, meaning "
barleyBarley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food. It is used in soups, stews and barley bread in various countries, such as Scotland and in Africa...
porridgePorridge is a dish made by boiling oats or sometimes another cereal in water, milk, or both. It is usually served in a bowl or dish....
". In English,
paste is used as would be "dough" in the 12th century, or "glue" in the 15th century.
Wheatpaste artists
- Posterchild
Posterchild is the nom de plume of a street artist based in Toronto, Canada who may be best known for his Mario Blocks project, the purpose of which is to install homemade Mario blocks in public spaces...
- Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey is a contemporary artist, graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic super market tabloid Weekly World News. His work...
of Obey Giant campaign
- Esm-artificial
Kenn Sakurai a.k.a. esm-artificial is a Canadian Pop-culture graphic designer/artist and satirist.-Biography:Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, this Canadian artist/designer graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design or ECI in 1999...
- Beautiful Angle
Beautiful Angle is a guerrilla arts poster project in Tacoma, Washington.. Approximately once per month, graphic designer Lance Kagey and writer Tom Llewellyn create hand-crafted, letterpress posters and then distribute them around the city's downtown core via wheat paste and staples..- History...
- Swoon
SWOON is a street artist from New York City who specializes in life-size wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts of figures. Swoon studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and started doing street art around 1999. Swoon does not release her real name to the public to avoid prosecution for...
- D*face
- Faile
See also
- Street poster art
Street poster art is a kind of graffiti, more specifically categorized as "street art". Posters are usually hand-made or printed graphics on thin paper...
- Flyposting
Flyposting is the act of placing advertising posters or flyers in illegal places. In the U.S., these posters are known as bandit signs, snipe signs, or street spam, and the process of flyposting is called wheatpasting....
- Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art,...
- Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
- Guerilla art
- Sticker art
Sticker art is a form of street art in which an image or message is publicly displayed using stickers. These stickers may promote a political agenda, comment on a policy or issue, or comprise an avantgarde art campaign...
- Culture jamming
Culture jamming is a tactic in which an activist attempts to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions or corporate advertising. Culture jamming is usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity...
- Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché , sometimes called paper-mâché, is a construction material that consists of pieces of paper, sometimes reinforced with textiles, stuck together using a wet paste...
External links