Why street art? On an aesthetic level, graffiti is a branch of hip-hop. Graffiti is beautiful! I’m just calling it street art because of the methods, legality, and acceptance that has evolved over time.
On a personal level, I grew up in a city that is famous in its own rights for graffiti. An odd thing to brag about, no? Also, for many many reasons, I love discovering, exposing and learning about subjects that are untold and marginalized.
So on an academic level… street art is a forum for people to claim their space by altering that space, particularly people who lack other means to do so. That’s one of why graffiti often involves trespassing. If we don’t own property, we can’t paint on our own property. So instead, we’ll paint on yours and make you recognize that we exist. Noticing street art is like having my finger on the pulse of marginalized popular opinion.
Consider the first two photos I’m sharing this month:
1) This was written on a Fruitvale BART bench a few days after Oscar Grant was killed by BART police, at this same station.
I just noticed today the inverted exclamation marks. The exclamation marks suggest that either the tagger was Latino, a Spanish speaker and/or supporting black and Latino solidarity. I love it! It demonstrates how this medium represents human change and cultural evolution. (It may help to understand that the Fruitvale district houses Oakland’s largest Latino population and readers should keep in mind historical black and Latino conflict as well.)
2) I took this today, a piece done by the corner of Kearney and Post in SF. This exemplifies the theme of making noise where one is not wanted. In the opposite corner stands a Ralph Lauren, down the street is Burberry, DeBeers, Cartier… Need I say more?
I should also mention that street art relies on context. If you are not from the area, some aspect of the piece will be hidden to you, whether it be the locale, the image, the letters, the artist, or current events. It harks again to the issue of access and ownership. Artists select their audiences by referencing restricted themes and locations. Of course this is not a strictly controlled method of selection, but the element of choice is there.
Some other pics from the day:
I ate this today, imported to SF from one of Oakland’s taco truck. My first this summer...
Learned a lot about myself, America, and Robert Frank through the SFMoma’s exhibit on the photographer.
The curators wrote that the fourth section in his book The Americans presented a critique that implied
that the American political system drowns out the voices of it average citizens; that Americans worship false idols, such as cowboys and movie stars; that their work is restrictive and unsatisfactory; and that their rich are arrogant, their poor are meek, and their middle class are lulled into quiet submission by a consumer culture.
It was a free museum day. Lots of people of diverse class, age, and race that you don’t see often in museums. Good stuff.
Then I found Waldo.
Does that count as street art?
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