Wheatpaste
Encyclopedia
Wheatpaste is a liquid
adhesive
made from vegetable starch
and water. It has been used since ancient times for various arts and crafts such as book binding, decoupage
, collage
, and papier-mâché
. It is also made for the purpose of adhering paper
poster
s to walls and other surfaces (often in graffiti
). Closely resembling wallpaper paste
, it is often made by mixing roughly equal portions of flour
and water and heating it until it thickens, or by smearing cooked rice
into a paste.
. It can also be used to create papier-mâché
.
In the fine arts, it is often used in preparation and presentation, due to its low acidity and reversibility.
Activists and various subculture
proponents often use this adhesive to flypost
propaganda
and artwork. It has also commonly been used by commercial bill posters since the nineteenth century. In particular, it was widely used by 19th and 20th century circus
bill posters, who developed a substantial culture around paste manufacture and postering campaigns. In the field of alcohol
and nightclub
advertising, in the 1890s, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
'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 newsprint
, works well, as it can be briefly dipped in the mixture to saturate the fibres.
When hanging unauthorized billboards or signage
, to reduce the danger of being apprehended, wheatpasters frequently work in teams or affinity group
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."
, and pastry
have a common heritage, deriving from the Late Latin
pasta (dough
or pastry cake), itself deriving from the ancient Greek
pasta, meaning "barley
porridge
". In English, paste is used as would be "dough" in the 12th century, or "glue" in the 15th century.
Liquid
Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter . Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly...
adhesive
Adhesive
An adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. The types of materials that can be bonded are vast but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials...
made from vegetable starch
Starch
Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...
and water. It has been used since ancient times for various arts and crafts such as book binding, decoupage
Decoupage
Decoupage 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...
, collage
Collage
A 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-mâché
Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché , alternatively, paper-mache, is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste....
. It is also made for the purpose of adhering paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing 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....
poster
Poster
A 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 text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
s to walls and other surfaces (often in graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
). Closely resembling wallpaper paste
Wallpaper paste
Wallpaper adhesive or wallpaper paste is a specific adhesive, based on modified starch or methylcellulose, used to fix wallpaper to walls.Wallpaper pastes have a typical shear thinning viscosity and a high wet adhesive tack...
, it is often made by mixing roughly equal portions of flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, 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, or by smearing cooked rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
into a paste.
Uses
A common use is in the construction of chains of paper rings made from colored construction paperConstruction paper
Construction paper is a tough, coarse, colored paper. The texture is slightly rough, and the surface is unfinished. Due to the source material, small particles are visible on the paper’s surface. It is used for projects or crafts....
. It can also be used to create papier-mâché
Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché , alternatively, paper-mache, is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste....
.
In the fine arts, it is often used in preparation and presentation, due to its low acidity and reversibility.
Activists and various subculture
Subculture
In 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.- Definition :...
proponents often use this adhesive to flypost
Flyposting
Flyposting is a guerilla marketing tactic through the act of placing advertising posters or flyers in legal or illegal places. In the United States, these posters are known as bandit signs, snipe signs, or street spam. Posters are adhered to construction site barricades, building facades, in...
propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and artwork. It has also commonly been used by commercial bill posters since the nineteenth century. In particular, it was widely used by 19th and 20th century circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
bill posters, who developed a substantial culture around paste manufacture and postering campaigns. In the field of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
and nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
advertising, in the 1890s, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, 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 newsprint
Newsprint
Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper most commonly used to print newspapers, and other publications and advertising material. It usually has an off-white cast and distinctive feel. It is designed for use in printing presses that employ a long web of paper rather than individual sheets of...
, works well, as it can be briefly dipped in the mixture to saturate the fibres.
When hanging unauthorized billboards or signage
Flyposting
Flyposting is a guerilla marketing tactic through the act of placing advertising posters or flyers in legal or illegal places. In the United States, these posters are known as bandit signs, snipe signs, or street spam. Posters are adhered to construction site barricades, building facades, in...
, to reduce the danger of being apprehended, wheatpasters frequently work in teams or affinity group
Affinity group
An 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...
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
Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...
, and pastry
Pastry
Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked products are called "pastries."...
have a common heritage, deriving from the Late Latin
Late Latin
Late 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 (dough
Dough
Dough 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 , flatbreads, noodles, pastry, and similar items)...
or pastry cake), itself deriving from the ancient Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
pasta, meaning "barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
porridge
Porridge
Porridge is a dish made by boiling oats or other cereal meals in water, milk, or both. It is usually served hot 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
- PosterchildPosterchild (street artist)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 FaireyShepard FaireyFrank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary 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 supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His...
of Obey Giant campaign - Esm-artificialEsm-artificiala.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 AngleBeautiful AngleBeautiful 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 :In...
- SwoonSwoon (artist)Swoon is a street artist born in New London, Connecticut, and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. She moved to New York City at age nineteen, and specializes in life-size wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts of figures...
- D*face
- Faile
See also
- Street poster artStreet Poster ArtStreet poster art is a kind of graffiti, more specifically categorized as "street art". Posters are usually hand-made or printed graphics on thin paper...
- FlypostingFlypostingFlyposting is a guerilla marketing tactic through the act of placing advertising posters or flyers in legal or illegal places. In the United States, these posters are known as bandit signs, snipe signs, or street spam. Posters are adhered to construction site barricades, building facades, in...
- Street artStreet artStreet 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...
- GraffitiGraffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
- Guerilla art
- Sticker artSticker artSticker art is a form of street art in which an image or message is publicly displayed using stickers...
- Culture jammingCulture jammingCulture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
- Papier-mâchéPapier-mâchéPapier-mâché , alternatively, paper-mache, is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste....