ART FOR THE PEOPLE Yo, Brooklyn! Is Brooklyn in the house? ROTO! SNAK! NCB! Where you at?! Well, it looks like they won’t be at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see the Art in the Streets exhibit. More on that in a bit. Right now, let’s go back in time and to the west coast. When I was a little kid, a trip to the Pacoima, CA post office was no ordinary errand. I would accompany my mother and/or father and be spellbound. The mural that emblazoned the outside of the post office’s main exterior wall never ceased to mesmerize me. Each time I would pass it, depending on the pace of the day, I would either stop to gaze; searching for a detail I might have missed during my last visit or quickly glance; taking in a burst of bright color or the intricacy of a peculiar shape. In the midst of, at that time, the San Fernando Valley’s Ghettrio (a Ghetto and Barrio) was this fantastic work of art…for all to see.
Pacoima Post Office mural Courtesy of the CSUN Delmar T. Oviatt Library. Urban Archives Center: The Papers of Pacoima Revitalization, Inc.
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ART FOR THE PEOPLE
The post office wasn’t the only public place where art was featured. Thanks to the now defunct Pacoima Revitalization, Inc., the Community Development Department of the City of Los Angeles, and the United States. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development; the façades of many government buildings were ornately adorned.
Mural of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Courtesy of the CSUN Delmar T. Oviatt Library Urban Archives Center: The Papers of Pacoima Revitalization, Inc.
Mural on a San Fernando Gardens housing project wall. Courtesy of the CSUN Delmar T. Oviatt Library Urban Archives Center: The Papers of Pacoima Revitalization, Inc.
Mural on a San Fernando Gardens housing project wall. Courtesy of the CSUN Delmar T. Oviatt Library Urban Archives Center: The Papers of Pacoima Revitalization, Inc.
These public pieces of art made the Ghettrio less gritty, less dangerous, and less hostile. They were gentle yet bold reminders that people lived here and that these people embroiled in governmental benign neglect, crime, police harassment, liquor stores, drugs, storefront churches, economic apartheid, and a psychological pathos only found in these manufactured places of deprivation; could appreciate beauty.
Mural on the San Fernando Gardens housing project wall. Courtesy of the CSUN Delmar T. Oviatt Library: Urban Archives Center The Papers of Pacoima Revitalization, Inc.
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ART FOR THE PEOPLE Outside of the mural movement, graffiti in Los Angeles served a very specific purpose. Graffiti in Los Angles was a form of urban hieroglyphics and secret code; decipherable by those well versed in the vast gang culture that saturated the City of Angels.
Detail of Cholo writing, c. 1970s. (photo: Howard Gribble) Courtesy of Cholo Writing: Latino Gang Graffiti in Los Angeles (Dokument Press), by Franรงois Chastanet,
PLACAS. Courtesy of http://espvisuals.blogspot.com
Courtesy of http://espvisuals.blogspot.com Courtesy of Mister Cartoon
Pre-crack gang culture in Los Angeles rode a wave of street gentility that kept the murals free from urban hieroglyphic desecration. They placed their PLACAS (territory plaques) elsewhere. Moreover, socioeconomic programs, like Pacoima Revitalization, Inc., were able to commission many gang scribes to channel their talents into mural creation. Imagine if New York would have done something similar when graffiti enveloped that city.
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ART FOR THE PEOPLE The “tagging” plague that made its way from CornBread’s Philadelphia to New York literally and figuratively “bombed” the city. It was as if a massive permanent marker ink and spray paint explosive detonated on the Big Apple. Young people silenced, alienated, and marginalized; shrieked, hollered, shouted, and howled their alter egos from the subway walls and tenement halls. “You will notice ME!”, they declared. “I exist!”, they implored. “I will gain FAME via my name!” “Getting up”, “Running lines” and going “all city” was the goal. As SKEME stated in Style Wars, he was out to “bomb” and “destroy all lines”.
80’s tagged up NYC Subway Car. Courtesy of Joe McNally
Lexington Ave Express with El Marko 174 tag. Courtesy of Jack Stewart
Over time, the tags became more elaborate. Different writing styles developed. Writers were “throwing up” everywhere. Burners would take up whole cars from top to bottom. Huge murals showed up on handball courts, store security grates, the sides of buildings and other makeshift janky canvases. The drab wasteland that was mid 1970s to early 1980s New York became an artist’s palate dripping with a multitude of color.
DONDI – Children of the Grave Part 3. Courtesy of http://feedgrids.com/originals/post/graffiti_legends_artists_that_spark ed_pop_culture_phenomenon
LEE – Hell Express. Courtesy of http://memoiredungraffeur.overblog.com/categorie-11365030.html
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ART FOR THE PEOPLE The powers that be cracked down hard on the defacers of the city. The young outsider artists were not brought into the mainstream en masse. Programs like CityArts were far and few in between. Like it’s siblings MCing, DJing, and breaking; writing went underground. It would later emerge as the worldwide phenomenon we now know as Hip Hop culture. Wild styles would be seen world wide; appropriated to sell and market everything from Snickers to sneakers. New York style graffiti went from “all city” to “all world”.
Cold Crush Brother GrandMaster Caz. Courtesy of Angelo King
Cold Crush Brother DJ Charlie Chase. Courtesy of Angelo King
80s NYC B-Boys. Courtesy of Martha Cooper
With all the fame and fortune brought to the city via Hip Hop, I find it disheartening that New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art is now denying one of its most famous outside children a homecoming. The Art in the Streets exhibit presently at Los Angeles’ Temporary Contemporary (known to new art heads as The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA) is a revolutionary installation. Like 2006’s The DownTown Show that graced the Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library and the interactive Graffiti exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum; Art in the Streets embraces and legitimizes this heretofore considered Art Brut, Raw Art, Folk Art, Naïve Art, Outsider Art…what have you. Art in the Streets devotes sections to NYC hometown heroes like Rammellzee, Fab 5 Freddy, Martha Cooper, Henry Chalfant, Futura, and Lee Quiñones.
Partial Art in the Streets exhibit layout. Courtesy of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
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ART FOR THE PEOPLE The reasons given by the Brooklyn Museum of Art for canceling the Art in the Streets exhibit are weak and disingenuous at best. The official word from museum reps is a lack of funding. Having held the 2006 Graffiti show; why spend money on a variation of the same theme? The unofficial but more honest word from government and corporate concerns is such a show will inspire and spawn a new rash of defacers. Was this the reaction to the 2006 show? If New York fears a graffiti bomb resurgence, with all the private money it has and public money, if they would tax the wealthy accordingly, they could channel these defacers into public art programs en masse. I’m sure public schools, folks like Hugo Martinez, and organizations like CityArts would welcome the influx of cash and resources to expand their art programs. Here in LA, on Thursday evenings from 17:00 to closing the exhibition is free to the public. Thanks to exhibit featured artist Banksy, the exhibition is now also free to the public during its hours of operation on Mondays. I’ve seen the exhibit twice. Both times I went when it was free. Each time I went the museum was packed. Moreover, I have never seen so many young people of color in an art museum. When I first viewed the Wild Style section, I actually shed tears. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision this type of creative expression receiving acknowledgement from the mainstream. Not that it ever had to, but the sentiment was not lost on me. Yo, Brooklyn! Where you at?!
Art in the Streets exhibit brochure. Courtesy of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
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