13 April 2011

MOCA - Art in the Streets

The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Art in the Streets





The press release says "the first major U.S. museum exhibition of the history of graffiti and street art" but looking at the line-up what they mean is that this is a survey of U.S. artists with a few foriegners thrown in.

How can you have a survey of the 'history of street art' and leave out all the Europeans? And leave out Wooster and Blek le Rat? Two of the most significant players.

more info from MOCA's blog
http://www.moca.org/audio/blog/?p=1522#more-1522

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"Just five years ago, street art was an underground thing, very renegade," says one of the show's curators, Aaron Rose. But now, he says, "it's an established art movement." And, speaking like an established art historian, Rose divides the movement into three phases, starting with New York and L.A. tagging in the '70s and culminating with Banksy setting an auction record in 2007 of more than $1.8 million for a single painting.

"This is not just a big street-art free-for-all," adds the museum's director, Jeffrey Deitch. "We are trying to see its history through a critical framework and identify where the innovations occur: the invention of Wild Style [graffiti] in New York, its adaptation in L.A. and the innovations in cholo graffiti and skateboard culture in L.A."

full article
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-street-art-pioneers-chaz-bojorquez-20110410,0,6070396.story

(or perhaps they mean this is a history of Street Art in LA?)

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there's 56 comments like this
http://www.moca.org/audio/blog/?p=1522&cpage=1#comments

"Although the description is wrong, it is not the “first major US museum exhibition of graffiti and street art”. San Diego’s MCASD just had it’s “VIVA LA REVOLUCION” last summer."
http://www.mcasd.org/exhibitions/616/viva-la-revolucion

I recognize that this is a great effort – althought a little premature and despite of the false propaganda (the Tate had a similar show about 5-6 years ago).

"This show pretty much just dissed the LA graffiti artist community. Big Ups and Respect to Risk, Saber, Retna, Revok, Chaz and Robbie Conal for representing LA, but this show is a joke. This show barley skims the surface. Dietch bite off a subject that he can;t due justice and is trying to claim to be the first and the most comprehensive."

or this criptic statement lol

"looks like Banksy dropped out of the show…"


1 comment:

blakkbyrd said...

They're still at it.
"Despite residents' complaints about the spike in graffiti, Linton observes that "all this activity is especially exciting for Los Angeles, as it is becoming known as the worldwide mecca for street art." "