Beyond wallpaper: street art works

Photo courtesy of Hyuro
Photo courtesy of Hyuro

Note: This post is in adaptation of what I presented last month at The Art Conference in London. So if you were curious about that talk, here you go.

As Rafael Schacter has argued, street art has moved “from dissident to decorative.” We’ve gone from politically radical drawings in New York subway stations to decorating music festivals so that attendees are a bit less bored while they sip beer and wait for Kanye to take the stage.

I call that safe public art “wallpaper.” Wallpaper is what you get when you mix street art with plop art, those huge, random, mostly abstract or minimalist sculptures that show up in semi-public squares as a result Percent For Art programs. When a developer is legally required to install some public art in front of their building, they often just go for something big, expensive, and (most importantly) benign. Wallpaper, like plop art before it, reinforces existing power structures.

We live in a world of wallpaper. Mural festivals provide plenty of examples. When I see yet another mural by a globe-trotting artist who does most of their sketching on transcontinental flights, I have to ask, “Is this wallpaper productive?” There’s only so much funding for murals each year. Artists only have so much brainspace to create. Maybe more wallpaper isn’t the best use of our resources. Wallpaper is like sugar. Good in small doses, terrible in large doses, and we tend to overdo it.

Lady Aiko at the Coney Art Walls (2015). Photo by RJ Rushmore.
Lady Aiko at the Coney Art Walls (2015). Photo by RJ Rushmore.

Take the Coney Art Walls, a project that I actually do enjoy. In many ways, the Coney Art Walls are a prime example of wallpaper: concrete slabs installed solely for the sake of murals, high-end food trucks that the murals are meant to get you to eat at, a neighborhood that functions as an amusement park, funding from a controversial property developer… But unlike most wallpaper festivals, the Coney Art Walls are well curated, there’s a wide range of artists who are well paid and allowed to take risks, and many of the murals reference the historic neighborhood. Still, if the Coney Art Walls is among the best that the street art festival model can offer, it’s safe to say that festivals and similar mural projects generally do not live up street art’s radical roots.

On a good day, what can street art do, when we think beyond wallpaper? It can transform and empower. It can bring people together. It can propose better versions of public space.

Continue reading “Beyond wallpaper: street art works”

The life and death of Detroit’s Brewster Projects

Slits, February 2014
Slits, February 2014

My first encounter with the Brewster Projects was in June of 2012. In the middle of a sunny afternoon, the heat was relentless. The sun bleached, weed filled center circle drive stood out in harsh contrast to the dark empty windowed towers looming around in a group. On my first trip to Detroit at the time, I was too intimidated to venture any further than the ground level perimeter of the site. I had been told it was a sketchy neighborhood and that there was security. I never saw any and there were no fences, so I took pics of Flying Fortress and Nychos hitting up the bottoms of the towers.

In the summer of 2012 the European graffiti crew JBCB (Juke Box Cow Boys) were in town along with other international artists involved with the Detroit Beautification Project.

By the time I got to Detroit there were only 4 remaining of the big, 15-story towers. There used to be 6, but 2 were torn down in 2003. The towers were called the Frederick Douglas Apartments and were built in the 40s and 50s. This was the housing project where singer Diana Ross grew up and where, in the rec center, boxer Joe Lewis trained. The projects are right across the freeway from Ford Field and downtown Detroit. There were other low rise apartment houses there too, but they have been removed in pieces over the years.

Juke Box Coy Boys
Juke Box Coy Boys, June 2012
Nychos
Nychos, June 2012
rem and ff
Nychos and Flying Fortress, June 2012
Flying Fortress and Nychos
Flying Fortress and Nychos, June 2012
Nychos and Flying Fortress
Nychos and Flying Fortress, June 2012

I moved to the Detroit area in the fall of 2013 and made it back to the Brewster towers in October of 2013 determined to check out the inside. On that trip I made it to the top of one tower. In the 15 months since I’d last been there, tons of graffiti had been added to the towers. The bottoms were now grilled with tags, throws and pieces. More noticeably, 3 epic 15-story top to bottom rollers had been executed. In addition, Gats, Feral Child, and Ghost Owl had done rollers at the top of another tower, prominently placed and visible to highway traffic heading south into downtown Detroit. As I climbed I noticed preparations for demolition, but didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. There had been ongoing delays and interruptions in the effort to complete the removal of the projects.

Aerub, October 2013
Aerub, October 2013
Feral, Gats, Ghost Owl and more, October 2013.
Feral Child, Gats, Ghost Owl and more, October 2013

Continue reading “The life and death of Detroit’s Brewster Projects”

Nychos the Weird leaves his eerie visions in NYC

Nychos with Mexican artist Smithe at the Bushwick Collective
Nychos with Mexican artist Smithe at the Bushwick Collective. Photo by Dani Mozeson.

Working alone and collaboratively with other first-rate artists, Austrian artist Nychos brought his wonderfully weird visions to NYC last month.

In Bushwick
On Bogart Street in Bushwick. Photo by Tara Murray.
Nychos with Buff Monster, Tristan Eaton, Sheryo & the Yok at the Bushwick Collective
Nychos with Buff Monster, Tristan Eaton, Sheryo & the Yok at the Bushwick Collective. Photo by Dani Mozeson.

And although his hugely successful exhibit at Mighty Tanaka closed this past Friday, his works can be viewed online and a few of his pieces are still available for purchase.

Photos by Dani Mozeson and Tara Murray

King Brown issue 9 launch party

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NYC is having a good couple of weeks for magazine launch parties. Today was the Very Nearly Almost issue with Faile on the cover, and August 10th is the launch of King Brown issue 9. This issue comes in a bag with designs by Unga of Broken Fingaz and Ed Templeton and the magazine includes features on Ed Templeton, Unga, Nychos, Huskmitnavn, Dabs Myla, Ghostpatrol and others. Issue 9 will be launched at Schoolhouse Gallery (330 Ellery St Brooklyn – Flushing Ave stop off the JMZ) on August 10th from 6-10pm. The launch party will include music by Fake Hooker and live painting by The Yok, Sheryo and Nychos. All good things. Except that I won’t be there, so please have fun for me.

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Photos courtesy of King Brown

Nychos in Detroit: A wall, a print, a show and an Indiegogo

Nychos and Persue. Click ti view large.
Nychos and Persue. Click to view large.

Nychos is in Detroit at the moment and he’s making the most of the trip. First, there’s his solo show opening this Friday evening at Inner State Gallery. I’d Like To Meat You! opens on Friday, runs through July 18th, and sounds like it will feature lots of his trademark dissection works on paper, canvas and wood. And today 1xRun released their latest print by Nychos. Longtime Nychos fans will recognize the rabbit in the print as a dissected version of the Rabbit Eye Movement throw-up. The print is almost sold out though. There’s just 7 left out of 100 as I write this. If that print isn’t to your liking or it sells out too quickly, Nychos is currently in the midst of an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to get some money to make a documentary film and there are some great prizes (including prints) for that. Finally, Nychos and Persue just finished the above mural in Detroit.

On a related note, I really want to get out to Detroit sometime soon… So much interesting stuff going on out there.

Photo by Sal Rodriguez courtesy of 1xRun

Weekend link-o-rama

Peter Fuss
Peter Fuss

I wish I had time for a weekend…

Photo by Peter Fuss

Back from Boston link-o-rama

Rowdy and Gold Peg in Leeds
Rowdy and Gold Peg in Leeds

I missed last week’s link-o-rama because I was in Boston for the Barry McGee show at the ICA Boston. So worth the trip (more on that soon), but for now here’s what I missed:

Photo courtesy of Rowdy

Weekend link-o-rama

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As I tweeted the other day, my mind is kinda stuck on how much I wish the Parra show at Jonathan Levine Gallery opened today and not on Saturday so that I could go see it. So while I’ve been distracted by that point, here’s some of what I almost missed this week:

  • KATSU’s April Fools prank is a bit early, but still pretty funny.
  • The Outsiders / Lazarides has some really nice prints by Ron English. They are variations on his Figment image, aka Andy Warhol wig and a skull.
  • Barry McGee, Chris Johanson and Laurie Reid are showing together at City College and SF starting today.
  • Here’s a new piece from the always-interesting 0331c, but if you don’t know 0331c’s work, here’s an introduction.
  • Nice video of Eine updating one of his walls in London from saying PRO PRO PRO to PROTAGONIST. Interesting comment about street art being a thing that “looked like it would offer what graffiti promised but didn’t deliver.”
  • Nychos x Jeff Soto = Yes!
  • New work from Isaac Cordal.
  • Woah. Nice work from How and Nosm in San Fransisco.
  • Jonathan Jones is up to his old tricks of dissing Banksy to get more hits for his column, and I’m biting. He writes, “Banksy, as an artist, stops existing when there is no news about him.” Even if that is the case, is that the end of the world? Does that relegate Banksy to “art-lite”? No. Banksy is one of the most talked-about artists in the world. I would bet that the same criticism was leveled against Warhol, who I believe Jones likes. Banksy’s manipulation of the media, playing it like a damn violin sometimes, is some of his greatest artwork of all. He manipulates the media to spread a message. The best example of this was probably him going to Bethlehem to paint on the separation wall because he knew that the media would cover it. He was able to play the media to draw attention to an issue that he felt strongly about. Banksy’s paintings are sometimes great and sometimes not. But his ability to make people fascinated with him and his paintings is just as much of an art, and that shouldn’t discredit him.

Photo by Luna Park

Weekend link-o-rama

Kid Acne
Kid Acne at Village Underground in London

Sorry for the late link-o-rama. Caroline came to visit on Thursday, so I’ve been trying to stay offline.

Photo by HowAboutNo!

Sunday link-o-rama

NEKST. Photo by C-Monster
NEKST. Photo by C-Monster.net

So much news this week, but first and foremost is the untimely death of NEKST, a globally respected writer.

Photo by C-Monster.net