One of Roa’s best pieces — even by his own admission — during his Brooklyn sojourn. (click to enlarge)

It’s a perpetual refrain among street art watchers that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to street art but I don’t subscribe to that theory. As soon as the warmer weather hits, New York in general — and Brooklyn in particular — always seems to explode with new visual energy that suggests street art still has a lot of life left in it.

This is my highlights for the year with tons of Flickr and blog links that will take you for a tour around the web.

Best in Show

Adam Wissing, Kenny Komer, and Boris Rasin’s street art poster mashed up the New Museum with the Jeff Koons-designed yacht for Dakis Joannou with the New Museum (click to enlarge)

The most notable contributions this season were the door pieces by Ema and Kid Acne (more here, here, here & here) who worked in unison to saturate the street art scape. Their pieces weren’t very loud or large but they were ubiquitous, diverse, and always well-placed — they proved that quantity doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice quality.

Another notable player was El Sol 25, whose large scale mash-ups showed a new level of skill that I hadn’t previously noticed in his hand-painted images, but that coupled with their ability to stay up without being disturbed on some major spots (1, 2) made him a force to be reckoned with.

Adam Wissing, Kenny Komer, and Boris Rasin may not really be dedicated “street artists” but they sure made a splash with their creative mash-up of the Jeff Koons-designed yacht for Dakis Joannou with a PR-ready image of the New Museum. They brought a new level of Photoshop expertise to a field that is still dominated — for better or worse — by hand-drawn works. They get a special award because the word on the street is that the trio were contacted by the New Museum who didn’t like that they consciously blurred their luxury brand.

Sometimes there are moments in street art watching when you say to yourself, “I wish I did that!” And last month, TrustCorp was the target of my latest bout of street art jealousy. The group pulled off what I consider the biggest coup of the year with their placement of a very witty “Islam Welcome Here” sign at the site of what has come to be known in the right-wing media as the “Ground Zero mosque,” even though it is really called the Cordoba Center. They struck at the height of the anti-Cordoba hysteria, and their pro-tolerance message even confused Fox News. TrustCorp gets an A+.

Big Boys, Big Problems

In terms of big street art brands, we have to mention that Banksy blew into town during his movie premiere a few months ago and, unfortunately, he seemed to bring his b-game to New York (1, 2, 3, 4 … ) stenciling images that didn’t seem all that worthy of his reputation. Even though his New York street pieces may not have been his best, it was still a little sad that they were quickly covered up by graffiti writer Omar (who is apparently a middle-aged old skool graff’er trying to get back in the game) and others. We shed a tear … but moved on.

Even when Fairey’s mural on Bowery & Houston was covered up it couldn’t catch a break from the graff’ers (photo via Luna Park)

Shepard Fairey was also in New York for Deitch Project’s swan song show titled May Day, and the LA-based artist got in trouble with the city’s Department of Buildings when it wasn’t obvious if the Deitch Wall he plastered with his distinctive manner of collage was an advertisement for his SoHo show or an art work — sorry, dude, you can’t have it both ways.

Fairey’s Houston mural was also a magnet for angry graffiti writers, who did everything possible to mess up his mural — including punching huge holes into it. It almost makes you wonder if Barry McGee’s piece for the same wall was a peace offering to the graff community.

Top, The original Fairey wall piece at the beginning of May, Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn (photo by Jake Dobkin); bottom left, Obey gets graffiti’d up by Poster Boy & others; bottom right, Specter “Law & Order: SUV”-ups the Fairey. (click to enlarge)

Speaking of Fairey, yesterday I noticed that one of his crew’s Williamsburg murals has been altered in such a crafty way that I had to go back to make sure it was in fact not in the original mural image. Props to the street artist remixer, most probably Specter, who, according to The Street Spot, devised similar interventions on pieces by Swoon, Faile, Bast & Skewville. I should also mention that Specter produced a series of fantastic sculptures (another one) that were definitely a high point of the past six months.

The Os Gemeos twins were one of two truly world-renowned global street artists to avoid graffiti haters and their (sanctioned) mural — painted last month — continues to stand tall in Chelsea. Swoon is the other street artist that graff’ers seem to like, and her cut outs continue to wow though there’s nothing really new here.

Certainly Notable

In terms of other noteworthy additions to the streetscape, here are some quick links that give you a taste of the riches that were there to be had.

There were the sanctioned pieces by Belgian street star Roa who was in town for his solo show at Factory Fresh. His monochromatic large-scale animal murals in Astoria, Bushwick, and Williamsburg were beautifully executed and striking.

White Cocoa turned heads with her distinctive drawings, like this one in East Williamsburg.

White Cocoa seemed to come out of nowhere, and her hand-drawn portraits were particularly riveting for their sense of movement (1, 2, 3, 4).

Overunder took care to place his striking pieces (1, 2, 3, 4) on color backgrounds to give them a sense of vibrancy.

Aakash Nihalani pulled off a geometric intervention on a stop sign in DUMBO that even bent looked pretty arresting.

Dan Witz is a veteran of street art but he hasn’t been slowing down. This year he is back at his super-realist hijinx that are often overlooked by the uniniated (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 … ).

The big (street art nerd) news of the season is that the inevitable has happened and some anonymous talent in Greenpoint grew tired of the Dick Chicken and Pussy Ham’s mating ritual and decided to take matters into their own hands to consummate the very public courting and turn them into Chicken Ham.

Various & Gould of Germany had a show at Brooklynite earlier this year and during that period they made sure to give the citizens of New York a taste of their colorful creativity, which included (I think) jugglers, plumbers, and composite figures that I can’t even pretend to characterize.

Other visitors of note were Brits Sweet Toof and Nick Walker, Paris-based Jef Aerosol, French artist Ludo (1, 2, 3), Dolk from Norway, and Melbourne-based Miso was also in town with her Art Deco-inspired wheatpastes (1, 2).

Primo at the Lorimer L stop. (click to enlarge)

A few talents that pulled off a few eye-catching pieces were Veng of Robots Will Kill, Alison Corrie, Dude Company, Elbowtoe, and Primo (1, 2).

Showta was everywhere this year but the quality of his work oscillates between pretty damn good to meh.

Paul Richard has been up to his conceptual street art antics again, and his signs near various unsanctioned works have been getting funnier and funnier.

Sometimes I come across things that I can’t figure out, and this sculpture on Driggs Avenue back in April was short-lived but pretty impressive in that it explored a whole new direction for street art sculpture. Kudos to whoever it was by.

I also want to mention that Brooklyn-based Faile, who has been pretty dull in the last few years, up’d their game recently and I started noticing them again. Though, if you ask me they really need to shake things up a bit (1, 2, 3, 4).

One last thing, Mr. Brainwash arrived in the spring for his vanity gallery show in the Meatpacking District, but thankfully TrustCorp let him know that his brand of shlocky street art isn’t really welcome in them these parts.

Politics on the Street

Who knew Che & Mussolini worked so well together. (click to enlarge)

I was rather sad that there was only one really good New York street art response to the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but thankfully it was rather clever (if not perfectly executed) — it was also anonymous.

In terms of politics, there was no one more provocative that an artist whose name I don’t know. Whoever he is (and I’ve been told it is a he), he combined the figures of Che Guevara with Benito Mussolini to create a few memorable images (separate, combined).

Unfortunately, someone told me that the regular street art peeps don’t like him very much (“he looks like a cop,” someone mentioned) and his stuff got covered up in some nasty ways — though the intensity of the splash on his piece on Roebling Avenue makes me wonder if there isn’t some anti-communist or anti-fascist anger involved in the vandalism of the vandalism.

Originality Award

This octopus is obviously a New Yorker (click to enlarge)

And now finally, the hands down winner of the unofficial Hyperallergic Street Art Originality award goes to a brand new anonymous piece by MRtoll [thanks Luna Park for the tip!] that I’ve been obsessed with since Hyperallergic publisher Veken Gueyikian spotted it last Sunday morning. It depicts a blue octopus eating a slice of extra cheese pizza — how’s that for excellence in subject matter.

The small piece, which is glued in place on a quiet stretch of North 8th Street in Williamsburg, has a marvelous Futurama meets Rosemarie Fiore feel to it. Sure, it’s hilarious, absurd, and doesn’t have a chance in hell of surviving the streets of New York (I give it two weeks), but it’s one of those unusual finds that makes you fall in love with street art … yet again.

It just goes to prove that it’s never dull in New York and everyone fits in.

A view of Swoon's "Switchback Sisters" show at the Deitch Project's space in Long Island City (photo by Luna Park & used with permission)

Now that the ethical issue of Jeffrey Deitch’s appointment as the Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has dissipated a little (though there’s still the issue of his personal art collection that remains unresolved), I want to discuss possible meanings of his appointment and where they can — and in some ways, I hope will — lead.

One issue in particular that interests me is the assertion that Jeffrey Deitch had a seminal role in introducing street art to New York. That point has come up again and again probably because it’s one of the primary things that distinguishes his art tastes from those of his gallery dealer peers. It’s a funny thing to hear as someone who has been a careful observer of street art but who usually avoids his gallery. Even though Deitch Projects exhibits the work of artists who are considered “street artists” (Keith Haring, Chris Johanson, Barry McGee, Dash Snow, Swoon, and more recently Os Gemeos and Shepard Fairey) I never really cared for his gallery’s take. It may be a surprising thing to say considering how much time and money he spent developing his stable in the field, but while he appeared to revel in the carnivalesque of street art, he always seemed to do it in a way that robbed it of its weird quirkiness, it’s unpredictableness, and ultimately any bite.

A view of the wall across from the Deitch Project's space on Wooster. (click to enlarge)

When he showed the work of Swoon it felt sanitized, even if it was intensely beautiful. The wall at the corner of Houston and Bowery, which is curated by his soon-to-be-closed gallery (it debuted with a resurrected Haring mural followed by the current Os Gemeos mural) feels precious in the same way that his gallery shows do. The very public spot is flooded with light that makes it appear luxurious, expensive and … well, that word again … sanitized — all things I don’t usually associate with street art. Perhaps it should be expected when street culture collides with high-end gallery culture.

I’m not discrediting what he accomplished as he was able to bring street art to a demographic that hadn’t purchased it before, but he wasn’t the only one. In my opinion, his biggest contribution to the field was the street art outside his gallery, which street artists clamored to fill. Those walls hosted some of the best stuff in that neighborhood and their proximity to Deitch makes me think it was more than coincidental.

But what I can’t stomach is the false notion that he had a major role in street art’s triumphal “arrival” to New York. It’s a falsehood that even Roberta Smith regurgitated in her article in the New York Times a few months ago:

An early advocate of graffiti art in the 1980s, he has more or less introduced New York to its vibrant successor, street art, which originated in San Francisco in the 1990s among artists on the fringe of the skateboard scene.

Too bad it isn’t true. Roberta Smith, who is normally a really interesting critic, has had difficulty with writing about street art before. When she reviewed the Os Gemeos mural she seemed at a loss and resorted to boring descriptions of what she saw with no insight and no critical perspective. I’m guessing she really meant to say that Deitch introduced street art to her slice of the art world at the time but she doesn’t say that. And even that isn’t entirely true.

One of the “Beautiful Losers” (via)

What did Deitch really do? He packaged the “Beautiful Losers” group out of the Bay Area, which included McGee, Johanson, Fairey, for high-end consumption.

The fact is that street art was truly invented in New York, where the perfect storm of an exploding graffiti scene, a sophisticated art scene, a movement to empower nontraditional voices, and a plethora of derelict public spaces sowed the seeds of a movement that was ready to flower. Even if by the 1990s the city’s street art scene was less active it never went away.

For those interested in the early period, a great source is Allan Schwartzman’s Street Art, which was published in 1985! Most of those images will look familiar to street art lovers today. That early generation did things that look remarkably current (versions of wheatpastes, illegal public interventions, culture jamming, … ) and their talent will surprise you. They are an unsung generation and only a few names are familiar to today’s art world, including Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, but I hope that changes. The fact that they are not well-known today is why we often see street art that isn’t in fact original but lauded as such by people with no sense of history about the scene (for instance, compare John Fekner c.1980s to unknown artist c.2009).

Left: Don Leicht with one of his “space invaders” he created with John Fekner in the early 1980s at the cutting-edge Fashion Moda in the South Bronx; right: a work by street artist Space Invader on the streets of London, April 2010.

While it’s great to have advocates of street art, like Deitch, in all levels of the art world, let’s not rewrite history and claim he accomplished something he didn’t.

Which leads me to another issue I’ve been thinking about, namely what is Deitch really trying to accomplish? I felt like he gave us a clue in the New York Times profile of artist William Powhida last December:

Jeffrey Deitch, founder of the high-profile New York gallery Deitch Projects, which sponsored a murals project here in addition to its booth, argued that the show’s slick commercialism and the emphasis on celebrity artists simply reflected a broader shift. He described it as “the collapse between the avant-garde and mainstream pop culture.”

He added:

“What’s happening is that there is this completely new audience of young people who are coming to art in the way they used to come to rock music or hip-hop. That’s a very positive thing.”

I have been thinking quite a bit about these paragraphs since I read them online. They seem to reveal a lot about the gallery owner-cum-museum-director’s ambitions. My instinct says it is about creating a new strata of the art world, which has the same relationship to fine art as television has to cinema. We have to face one thing, street art is not the same as what we have come to define as contemporary gallery art. It’s not that street art may not aspire to the same status but that it isn’t always as substantive. The rebellious world of street art simply plays by a different set of rules that involves memes, placement, and populist discourse, to name a few of the distinctions that make its voice powerful and unique. Like all generalizations, these are not always true.

Would Isa Genzken’s “Mutter Mit Kind” (2004) make any sense on a Brooklyn street? (via www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk)

The fact is that they are not the same thing and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Often street art looks more traditional than contemporary fine art, in that wheatpastes and poster, can feel almost conservative in their aesthetics, and much of contemporary art would lose its power and status if it was removed from the white box and placed on the street. Imagine a work by Isa Genzken at the corner of N7th and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg — it would be dull and forgettable. Placed in a gallery, Genzken’s work is “activated.” It requires the context of the white box to make it relevant. When street art pioneer Dan Witz began his career in the 1970s, he told me during an interview last year that he experimented by placing objects on shelves around the Lower East Side. He used found objects — batteries, plastic caps, anything really — but no one seemed to realize they were art and since he (or anyone else) ever documented them they disappeared into the ether. Only when he started painting super-realistic objects like hummingbirds on derelict spots around the neighborhood did people start to notice. In a recent conversation with street artist Gaia, he emphasized the point, “You need it to look like ‘art’ so that people don’t overlook it on the street.”

What I’m suggesting is that the language of street art and fine art represents two parallel avenues that may cross, blur, and energize one another but they lead to different destinations, even if sometimes they end up in the same zip code. People talk about Shepard Fairey as a major figure in the street art movement, but his aesthetics don’t interest me as much as his creativity at finding new modes of cultural distribution. Fairey distributes posters online that sell out in a matter of minutes. Other street artists do the same, this is pretty amazing, and they often do it without a gallery system or even an outside service.

If Deitch can find a way to expand the art world and incorporate new groups, modes of production, and ideas into it, I’m all for it. The man has an obvious knack for promotion. He can make things that others may dismiss feel exciting and interesting to a general audience — that’s his skill. The art world today is bigger than ever. In the 1940s, New York’s art world numbered only a few hundred people, by the 1970s (according to Tom Wolfe’s snarky The Painted Word) it numbered a few thousand, and today it is probably in the tens of thousands, if not more. With the bigger industry and audience there will have to be a way to feed their hunger for art. Like what happened with cinema during the advent of television, new forms will emerge. At first they may seem awkward and puerile, but eventually they will mature and be a force in their own right. Today, in the era of reality TV, art house cinema still exists, as does the Hollywood blockbuster, the experimental film, and YouTube. They are all parallel, though some may not stand the test of time. But contemporary art is just that, about now, and the more the merrier in my opinion, but don’t expect all of it to be good.

General view of Baltimore street before Gaia’s intervention (via Google Streetview) (click to enlarge)

The scroll (click to enlarge)

Coming across a work by Gaia on the street is a special experience. His work is intelligent, emotional, well-executed, and informed by the wider world. He looks beyond pop culture, where most street art gets stuck. His linocut prints and drawings, often of animals, are beautifully rendered and react to the intensity of the urbanscape and its manmade fauna.

His latest wheatpaste, “St. John” (2010), was recently unveiled in Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill neighborhood and is one of his most lyrical to date. When I first saw the image, I didn’t realize it would be the subject of an experiment that I’d been eager to try since first meeting Gaia back in 2008. At the time, I was interviewing him for an article I was writing, and we discussed the possibililty that street art criticism could be directly engaged with art on the street. The excitement over the idea seemed to spring from our mutual interest in exploring the limits of street-based visual dialogue. There are precedents for this type of street level critical engagement, though the existing examples are either anonymous or tongue-in-cheek — neither strategy appealed to me.

Gaia approached me to put our idea into action, and I immediately started working on a piece that would appear next to his work.

It felt daunting at first having never seen the art in person but what became clear to me was not what I wanted my companion piece to be but what it shouldn’t be, namely ironic or sarcastic. I treated this experiment with the utmost seriousness.

From a pedestrian’s angle (click to enlarge)

Good criticism has the same aspirations as art, it seeks to illuminate ideas but only after a process of exploration and reflection.

Street art tends to exist in neglected spaces that are often, according to Gaia, “reactivated with a new kind of attention that does not find its generation from within the delinquent property owner, but instead from the exterior of autonomous artists.” How does the critic fit into this relationship, if at all? Words on the street have a natural association with advertising and , which have trained us to see text in public as a way to sell something. I wanted the art criticism I was preparing to appear removed from the commercial world. It wasn’t going to be a quick and easy read.

Close-up of the top portion (click to enlarge)

Can criticism on the streeet activate the viewer in ways that an art work cannot? I wanted to spend time explaining the historical allusions in the work and propose ways of interpreting it without restricting other ways of seeing the art.

While it is true that street art often lives in neglected spaces, it is also true that these places are also quite volatile. They are transient zones that change based on whim.

There is another reality I was clear about in my mind. I am not a street artist, I am a critic, writer and blogger, my medium is text and images, without both components my work feels incomplete.

What resulted from my exploration is “Natural Apparition.” After the text was complete I decided that it needed to be printed in black and white (which seems well-suited to the nearby wheatpaste) on letter-size pages that should be posted vertically so that they appeared like a scroll robbed of its spindles. It was something that should be revealed all at once and not incrementally.

The document is signed with my Twitter handle. It is filled with art historical references. It places “St. John” in a continuity that emerges from myth. By looking elsewhere for his artistic language, Gaia’s work was well suited to my critical companion piece. I’d like to think of my work as a friend to “St. John,” connecting it to the rest of the world.

A critic friend mentioned to me the other day that Baltimore has excellent art museums (Baltimore Museum of Art, Walters Art Museum) that are very well attended by the local population. It was a fact that makes me curious about the reaction to my text, and how it may impact the reaction to Gaia’s wheatpaste. I wonder if someone will reach out to me via Twitter to ask what it means … probably not, but serious criticism that is draped in secrecy and anonymity can be tiresome. The great thing about the life of art on the street is that there’s never an easy answer but a lot of questions.

Read “Natural Apparition” here.

Gaia’s Juxtapoz post on the collaboration here and on Vandalog here.

Left to right, “Natural Apparition” and Gaia’s “St. John” (2010)

The unfortunately titled Skin Fruit has already opened on the platinum coast of downtown Manhattan, formerly known as the Bowery. And guess what, not everyone is happy. I know, I know, you’re shocked.

Last weekend while avoiding the art fairs, I spotted a fantastic street poster in Chelsea that lampooned the New Museum and its newfound taste for caviar. Adding to the already hilarious poster was the fact that someone had slapped on a sticker of Hargo’s fantastic CA$H FOR YOUR WARHOL campaign on top so that it appeared as one of the blocks of the structure. It was the type of moment that made me realize how much I love the streets of New York, so full of life … and discontent.

Since my discovery I’ve been looking for the image’s source. I asked street art photographer Luna Park for a possible answer, and she was at a loss after pointing out the poster’s high production values (and no name attached to it) excluded the usual street art suspects.

The infamous poster (click to enlarge)

I wondered if the poster was the work of Bruce High Quality Foundation and their spoof culture, but those guys are so eager to be co-opted by the art system — oh wait, they already are — that I doubt they would flay such a powerful art institution publicly and with such panache!

I finally tracked down the image hidden on the website of Shellac, a New York-based company that does post-production for films.

After a quick phone call, I discovered the brilliant campaign was the brain child of three friends, Adam Wissing, Kenny Komer, and Boris Rasin. The same crew was also responsible for the fantastic wild posting campaign last fall that pitted incumbent New York mayor Michael Bloomberg against fictional millionaire Monty Burns of Simpsons fame.

“It was fun to run an out of touch millionaire against an out of touch billionaire,” Adam said during our phone chat about their first street project that garnered major attention and was part of the Art in Odd Places festival last fall. “We like Bloomberg but he’s changing the rules of the game [for better or worse] and we want to point that out.”

Their latest campaign is a dig at the New Museum and they use the museum’s own ad slogan, “New Art, New Ideas,” against them. “The New Museum says they are about new ideas, but Jeff Koons is the biggest artist out there and so establishment. He’s curating the collection of Dakis, who is one of the biggest collectors, and the value of his collection will go up. There are so many levels to this and it is all being shown in a nonprofit museum. I’m excited to see the show but it’s not ‘new ideas,’” Adam says.

Do the New Museum's pens lie? (image via newmuseumstore.org) (click to enlarge)

Like their previous campaign, the trio aren’t interested in politics as much as pointing out the obvious problems.  “It’s more about creating a dialogue and finding fun and interesting ways of getting people talking about things,” he says.

“Kenny and Boris are more involved in the art world, I’m more of an outsider,” he explains.

The group posted the posters across the city the day before the press preview at the New Museum. They thought about releasing a statement about their campaign but chose not to. “We want to create a dialogue, it’s not about ‘check out our work,’” he says.

If the campaign is obviously critical to art world insiders, the posters impact may be harder to discern for non-art world peeps. A friend of mine on Twitter posted a photo of the posters this morning. When I asked him if he knew the source, he responded that he “had assumed they were done in-house.” Adam wasn’t surprised when I told him that my intelligent Twitter buddy didn’t understand the spoof immediately. “We were debating if it was too similar to the New Museum’s own branding or not,” he says.

Part of me wonders if people simply think the institution has no ethics anymore and will do anything for splash and attention.

The Anti-Establishment poster mashes together the absurd coloring of Dakis Joannou’s Jeff Koons-designed yacht, the New Museum’s iconic (and expensive) structure with a sentiment many of us are wondering for some time now, “Oh, New Museum, when did you become so establishment?”

But even if people don’t get it, it’s really really funny.

A photo of Fauxreel's controversial Vespa Squareheads series (photo via Unurth)

For a while now, people often cite Dan Bergeron, aka Fauxreel, as an example of a street art sell-out. Why? Because back in 2008 he partnered up with Vespa to post 324 seven-foot-tall Vespa Squareheads wheatpaste ads on the streets of Toronto and other Canadian cities as part of an ad campaign that combined his characteristic “photograffiti” style with a very commercial addition ― Vespa scooter handles.

The AntiAdvertising Agency blog characterized the project this way:

It’s a modern classic tale: corporate gas-guzzling motor vehicle manufacturer wants to up the street cred with some ads by a jen-yoo-wine member of the underground, who enjoys to eat of the food, and voila—instant edginess. Marketing gold!

Jonathan Goldsbie of the Toronto Public Space Committee said:

It’s pathetic. It’s anti-democratic. They [Vespa] believe that public space is just a blank canvas for a sales pitch.

It wasn’t just bloggers who had a problem. Some wondered if the action provoked a backlash among members of the public who started to scrawl messages on Fauxreel’s less commercial street work.

This week, Sebastian Buck of Unurth published a very fascinating interview with Fauxreel, who is obviously an intelligent artist with a lot to say. Buck asks about the controversial series and receives this provocative response … I reproduced the whole answer since it feels like a complete thought:

I definitely think artists can work commercially and with a conscience, however, I think that if you are going to do this you should be aware of the differing motivations and you should try to make the commercial project provoking to the public in some respect. Because I like blurring the lines and playing with the public’s perceptions in some of the work I create, I immediately realized that the difficulties surrounding an illegal street campaign completed by a commercial interest would be a perfect fit for me. So I approached the Vespa Squarehead project with the goal of raising questions about the role of advertising in public space, examining the grey area between street art, graffiti and advertising and attempting to make connections between products and people’s identities. If I can complete a series of work that will pose and examine these types of questions and it will allow me to make some money at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

Will working on a project like that endear you to the public? Probably not, and for me that’s okay. I think the notion a great deal of the public holds, is that street artists should all fall under the same political leftist umbrella and they should all be anti-capitalism. This is certainly untrue (think about Banksy or Shepard Fairey as businessmen and Princess Hijab as a right wing street artist) and it would be boring if it were. Although the simple act of placing up illegal artwork can be said to have political connotations, if the work in question is a stencil of Talib Kweli or a paste up of fried chicken, the work is then purely aesthetically based and not political at all.

In terms of drawing a line between street art and street advertising and deciding what distinguishes the two, I am not the one to be judging that. I am far more interested in the overlapping areas in between and engaging with audiences who appreciate work that challenges the political status quo associated with street art, or art in general, as well as talking to fellow artists who understand these nuances and who utilize them within their work and their approach to developing their practice and essentially their brand.

I admit to being intrigued by Fauxreel’s framing of the debate. He seems to understand that the nature of street art ― and I’m not talking about graffiti ― has changed from its once revolutionary origins as a voice of the dispossessed. But what I don’t understand, and perhaps many street artists and street art critics are trying to understand (myself included), is what is the street artist’s claim to public space if it isn’t for raising public consciousness or communicating an individual voice to a larger audience? Why would a street artist think they can profit off of public space so directly and still retain the respect of the community? Are they mimicking the corporate world’s continuous land grab for public space?

People like Jordan Seiler at Public Ad Campaign have long been critical of illegal ads and their encrotchment on our lives, so how does this hybrid form of advertising fit in?

The only major advantage for artists, other than the monetary aspect, is that artists caught putting up these hybrid works may potentially be charged as illegal advertisers rather than artistic vandals. The penalties for the former are far less than the latter.

A vandal thinks Fauxreel is a sell-out vandal (via Illegalsigns.ca)

There is a fear in this hybridization and where it could lead. Two years ago, Posterchild, an anti-ad activist in Toronto, had this to say about Fauxreel’s hybrids:

If street art becomes associated with guerrilla advertising, we will lose a lot of support. One of the few things that street art has going for it is that people see it as something of a “Voice for the Voiceless.” This generates some sympathy. That sympathy will disappear when the perpetrator is thought to be aggressive companies pushing even further into our lives. Also, I worry that the end result will be closing/licensing of even more of our public spaces. Shutting out street artists.

The whole interview on Unurth is well worth a read.

New Orleans' Big Freedia and his booty bouncers send the audience into a feeding frenzy.

There is no way to prepare for the massive amounts of art that makes its way to Miami for the fairs. While the large fairs are the focal point of the week, there are also dozens of smaller venues and gatherings.

A collaboration by Deitch Projects and Goldman Properties, Wynwood Walls came onto my radar after a tip that a tranny rapper from New Orleans was performing that night — I couldn’t resist checking it out.

Swoon and Aiko (center) shake their groove thangs to the queerest NOLA music ever, Sissy Bounce (click to enlarge)

After a quick cab ride from South Beach, I stepped out to discover massive wall murals created by artists associated with Deitch Projects (Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Los Gêmeos … ). They were brash and graphic but more about that in a moment.

The main focus for my attention was Big Freedia, who is part of New Orleans’ Sissy Bounce music scene. What is Sissy Bounce? Imagine queercore rap mixed with hip hop and you can picture what I mean.

While the music was energetic and contagious, all eyes — including mine — were affixed to the curvaceous women who danced with the singer, their bountiful booties were a miracle to behold.

I looked around at the crowd to discover what I would expect to see at any street art event: culture punks, hipsters, new media types, and the people who love them. To my left was Jeffrey Deitch (pic), to my right was Swoon, Gaia, Aiko and a slew of other artists. I spotted Martha Cooper, who had fallen asleep in a chair by the entrance gate, but was nowhere to be seen after that point.

My first response to Big Freedia’s performance was negative. I thought it felt exploitative, but slowly my hesitation melted away and I started to read it as a queer restaging of the absurdity of the posturing characteristic of heterosexual male hip hop artists. Big Freedia didn’t come across as aggressive or egotistic but a little coy (she didn’t make a lot of eye contact with the crowd) and infused with a cosmopolitan sound. Highly recommended.

Deitch Murals

Worshiping at the temple of Fairey (click to enlarge)

The murals themselves were an impressive feat. Dietch has chosen a large compound in the center of the Wynwood district, which is adjacent to a popular neighborhood restaurant, Joe’s Italian.

Fairey’s wall was the most impressive visually. He’s obviously learned an effective monumental language but it did feel a little canned. The torn transitions between images is an old artistic technique that deadens the overall effect when it is overused — which it was.

Stelios Faitakis' contribution to Wynwood Walls was a showstopper (click to enlarge)

The biggest surprise was the mural by Stelios Faitakis. The Athens-based artist mines the language of Byzantine painting and uses it to render contemporary-ish scenes that look more metaphoric than narrative. The central action of this work is a siege at some city gates but the surrounding actions were less clear.

A detail of the wall by Os Gêmeos on NW 2 Ave (click to enlarge)

The mural by the Brazilian twins, Os Gêmeos, was on one of the most public walls on the compound (it appeared on the street). Filled with their characteristic figures and surrealist imagery, I thought the work showed more signs of Asian pop culture influence than I ever remember seeing in their work. Something about the work didn’t come together and I felt interested in elements of the composition but not the mural as a whole — it felt too sweet and sugary.

CORRECTED: A work by Ben Jones at one of Wynwood Walls' warehouse spaces.

Other murals were by Futura (which resembles a bad 1950s abstract painting), Aiko (more of the same), Kenny Scharf (rather clever but it looked unfinished), Nunca (quite nice) and others.

A work by Swoon in one of Wynwood Walls' main warehouse gallery

In the large warehouse spaces there was other art work by the same artists. A large piece by Swoon and another by Ben Jones (there were no labels by the works) stood out.

I have to admit that Wynwood Walls was a lucky find.

The scene is set for Art Burn.

I arrived at Art Burn in the Wynwood section of Miami with a burning desire to see things go up in flames. As a I approached the venue, I spotted a tee-pee of art pitched at the corner of Las Tias’ parking lot.

Celso fans the flames.

A BBQ grill was neatly centered on a metal plate, which was slapped on the asphalt. The scene was framed by two black tiki torches that made it all look like some medieval ritual or a lost episode of “Survivor.”

Some spectators confessed to me that they expected a ginormous beach bonfire but I had few expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised. The mood was jovial and event organizer Celso approached the grill with the seriousness of someone who didn’t want to burn the block down.

Deeker & Skewville is offered up to the art gods.

I spotted art bloggers C-Monster, Sharon Butler, Joanne Mattera, and CocoLopez at the scene and artists William Powhida, Jen Dalton, Ellis G, Hargo (of Cash for Warhols/Banksy fame) and others also basking in the glow of burning art.

The fumes immediately felt toxic and a plume of black smoke shot into the sky and made us all step back. What we discovered that day was that art burns slowly, very very slowly.

After watching works by Skewville, Deeker, and others go up in flames, Ellis G took to the stage to demonstrate his unique brand of flammable graffiti (the graff, the burn), it provided the wow we were all waiting for.

It was a great feeling after a few days of art fairs to see art burn, it felt cleansing and cathartic, even if just for a moment.

That night I assume the art gods were happy for the gifts they were offered but I only hope they like street art.

A Stikman burns in the night.

View my photos from the event here.

"Tabula Rasa" by Luna Park, used with permission

I had been working on a story for six months but some things don’t always work out the way you plan them. What was the story? Last Sunday, Jordan Seiler of Public Ad Campaign organized the second New York Street Advertising Takeover (NYSAT) in New York. The New York Times was there but sadly I wasn’t.

I first interviewed Jordan Seilers of Public Ad Campaign after his first NYSAT action last spring. At the time, we discussed his issue “with advertising colonizing the public atmosphere and the commercialization of the public environment.” The growing presence of ads as part of our communal consciousness disturbed him. He told me that he felt that “advertising has an incredible ability to quell” public space and transform it into a commercial space. “Advertising in a public space makes it very problematic,” he said. Speaking to him I remembered that even ancient Athens had three distinct types of public space, the acropolis for religion, the agora for commerce and the Pnyx Hill for government, but those types of distinctions are less clear in our time as advertising has crept into almost every public space imaginable.

After our phone conversation, I found myself being most drawn to some of the facts he threw at me about how the city treated individual and corporate vandalism very differently. The Citywide Vandals Task Force, which falls under the NYPD, is staffed by 75 people, while corporate vandalism is handled by four guys in the city’s Department of Buildings — that blew my mind.

I was planning to document and witness the latest NYSAT but Jordan’s attempt to whittle down his list to a smaller more trusted number of accomplishes resulted in me being left out of this past Sunday’s event (October 25). Afterward, he admitted to me that he thought I was involved in advertising, though how he got that impression isn’t exactly clear but it happened. In lieu of my plan to file much longer reports and articles, I asked Jordan to speak to me via email yesterday about his vision for his ambitious project and its goals. He agreed.

First some facts. The first NYSAT on April 25, 2009, involved 27 people whitewashing illegal ads and 45-50 artists sprucing up the liberated spaces. The event resulted in four arrests (two whitewashers and two artists) but eventually the charges against the activists were dropped. The second project included 90 participants who planned to transform 114 billboards, though Jordan isn’t sure how many were completed before police began to crack down (he guesses at least 50). This recent event attracted more police attention than the first action and by midday Sunday five NYSAT participants were jailed overnight, two others were arrested and released and one received a $50 ticket.

The following is an edited transcript of my email correspondence with Jordan on Monday, October 26, 2009.

Hrag Vartanian: Is the NYSAT campaign an art or activist project or both?

One of Rene Gagnon's contributions to NYSAT #2, photo by Luna Park, used with permission

Jordan Seilers: Activism informed by art and the artistic process. Sometimes it takes a few hundred artists to move the law forward

HV: If it’s art, what would you consider the aesthetics of the project?

JS: Aesthetics? I don’t think this is visual as much as about mental clarity.

HV: Were you surprised that the advertisers were able to react as fast as they did this time to the street project? Most of the ads didn’t last through the day, did they?

JS: No. Many location saw ads go up a mere hour afterward.

HV: That’s incredible. How are these illegal ad companies able to avoid arrests for their illegal activities, while activists who are covering the same space with non-corporate ads aren’t?

JS: I am not sure. But I did call the cops while they were posting ads on Sunday and they did not listen to my complaint about them not having permits. I think it speaks to the fact that the city is ready to defend the private over the public.

HV: There were five people arrested yesterday during the campaign, correct? What were the people arrested for?

Photo from Broome & Bowery courtesy Jake Dobkin, used with permission

JS: Unsure at this point but five spent the night [in jail]. Two were arrested and released above the five and one person got a $50 ticket.

HV: That makes me furious. My first reaction is “Why aren’t people organizing public protests that highlight this inequality?” So, why aren’t they?

JS: That’s what we are doing. And I have no fucking clue why no one comes out for this. No one seems to understand how this is not about illegal ads but about a social health issue. We have great lawyers involved this time. There will be a fundraiser for the arrested and a large courthouse appearance when they finally have their case

HV: Why do you frame this as a social health issue? Explain that please.

JS: Because access to interacting with your public space is an amazing way to ground yourself in your environment. If you paint a mural on the st, you leave a bit of yourself behind. This means you are psychologically invested and responsible for that space. By marking your environment your become a part of it which makes you an invested citizen. If you cannot do this you travel through your space “un-responsible.” By marking your public space you become it, its protector and its vision. This is the social health issue. If you cannot connect you cannot protect. You see what I do. I mark my environment and it is an indication of my level of respect for that space.

HV: Than how do you respond to those that say they hate all forms of “vandalism” and this is simply another incarnation of it?

JS: Vandalism is done out of disprespect. This project is done with the exact opposite. Vandalism is destruction, this is production, liberation. The goal of those involved is not self promotion. Graffiti vandalism has the individual at heart, this project has the public at heart. No one involved in this project gets the proper respect according to how much they put in. If they wanted fame they would plaster a wall in Brooklyn. This project is a gift. And I mean that in every sense of the word.

HV: What’s your vision for Public Ad Campaign? Sounds like it is far more expansive than illegal corporate ads, which most people assume is the basis for the project.

A photo from 13th Street & Avenue B by Hyperallergic publisher Veken Gueyikian

JS: Yes. We’re are often pigeon holed. Public Ad Campaign (aka PAC) is about spreading public responsibility for the state of our public environment. We live here, we should determine how this space is used. I want my kids, when I have them, to paint a mural with their third grade class close to the public school they go to. I want them at a young age to feel responsible for the city they live in/produce. I want them to pay more attention to the blind man crossing the street than the six story Calvin Klein ad and their desire for a new pair of pants. I want them to consider the public space to be where their life happens. My best moments, most important interactions have all happened in public. I just sleep at home, I live in the public

HV: Would you favor laws like those in Sao Paolo, which have practically banned most corporate ads in public? Do you see that as the future?

JS: Yes. Sao Paolo has turned itself into one of the major art capitals of the world by allowing its citizens access to public space. It has been beneficial to them in every way. Ads bring nothing, people bring life.

HV: If there are two things people can do to help PAC realize this vision, what are they?

JS: Defend public interactions and maipulations of our built environment. And do so vocally. Push to have PAC deputized to act on behalf of the city. No just kidding, that won’t happen. Paint on the streets everyday, shake hands with someone on the subway and help an old lady navigate these crazy streets.

For more info and images about NYSAT #2, visit:

• “Reclaim Your City the NYSAT Way” on Street Spot;
• “A Battle, on Billboards, of Ads vs. Art,” New York Times;
• “Art Instead of Ads Again in NY!!!” on ConicasBarbaras.com; and
• Public Ad Campaign.

Wednesday on Bedford Avenue (photo by Veken Gueyikian)

My husband was walking down Bedford Avenue on Wednesday, and he spotted someone pasting up posters on a wall which is almost always dominated by a giant Shepard Fairey poster, so frequently in fact that it might as well be his permanent ad space. It was lunchtime and no one stopped or cared. Knowing my love of street art, and what can sometimes be inane details, he quickly snapped a pic with his camera phone and emailed it to me with the message, “Someone covering up fairey [sic].”

What at first glance appeared to be a run of the mill “sniping” (i.e. illegal posting of corporate advertising), turned out to be a new street art campaign, iBlanket, though the artist prefers the term public art. The brain child of Bushwick artist Ann Oren, iBlanket riffs off the ubiquitous Apple “i” genre and turns our attention to the problems of homelessness just as the temperatures have started to plummet.

I caught up with the artist behind the project and she described the campaign this way:

iBlanket is a public art project that I created. The concept of the iBlanket was inspired by both our dependency on technology and the fact that laptop computers provide physical warmth when they are in use. This combination is taken by the iBlanket concept into an absurd realm with an advertisement for this impractical product. I would like to engage with the public and open a discussion about this problematic image, lead by anyone with insight on the concept. The posters invite the public to go to the site www.iBlanket.net and start a discussion or simply comment.

While the project began in Tel Aviv a little while ago, iBlanket hit the streets of New York this past Wednesday. Oren is working with various people to help her realize the project, “In every place the street posting situation is different so I find someone to assist me with local experience to mount them, in some locations I will post myself. At large this is a project I am running myself hoping to engage the public between the website and the posters.”

iBlanket (click to enlarge)

She targeted the Apple brand since, she say, “Everyone has ithis, ithat. It is familiar overindulgence.” She has hijacked the tech giant’s clean minimalist aesthetic and hacked it with a sketchy DIY style.

What I found particularly interesting is that she shies away from calling the project in any way related to street art, though in at least one instance it is being pasted (perhaps unknowingly) on top of a known street art spot. Oren says she sees it as a “public art project,” since she insists, “Street art is not where it is coming from. I think that because the project criticizes our dependency on technology, creating a street ad campaign out of it is an absurdly pragmatic way to call attention to it.” She is also using Facebook and Twitter to promote the project, which she says, works much more efficiently at spreading the message.

I can only assume that her unfamiliarity with street art in general makes her avoid the “street art” label, since her critique of power and inequalities seems perfectly aligned with the political nature of the genre. Also, I wonder if Facebook and Twitter are in fact more “efficient” since encountering a poster in person makes a much more powerful and lasting impression than a tweet or posted message.

I asked her what she would you like the project’s outcome to be. “It depends on the public, if they care enough to engage in the discussion on iBlanket.net. The public’s responses are what drive the project to expand or die. It will also determine its relevance,” she says.

As of Friday at noon, there were only 12 comments posted on the site and among them was one commenter, identified as HeadHoods, who took offense to the project’s liberty with a street art spot:

I think it’s pretty disrespectful that you covered over much more aesthetically pleasing and conceptual street art. Your istreetart is ipretty imeaningless and itouches iupon a iparody ithat is very itired this iday in age.

The response from the site’s webmaster was reasonable but suggested he or she didn’t realize that they have stepped into a scene that has its own etiquette. It is a scene that is dominated by “respect” for more senior and talented artists:

The nature of street art is that it is dynamic and changing, one work gets covered with another (or an ad), its life span depends on the people on the street. It is a “non curated” terrain. Some love it, some ignore it and some get infuriated by it. Thank you for your input.

I’m guessing that the street success of the project may come down to its ability to adapt or else the work may be quickly covered over by other artists perceiving it as a “diss.”

Normally a video artist, Oren tries not to restrict herself to that medium. What I found particularly interesting is how she describes the impetus for her idea, “This idea came about [during the] cold days in my studio when I was keeping myself warm by putting my laptop on my lap and my projector closer to me, it can get absurdly cozy.”

For more information, visit iBlanket.net.

It’s endemic among street art publications, picture books with no little or no text and often no photo credits or explanatory text. The democratization of publishing, accompanied by the popularity of street art, has created a mass delusion that just because anyone could that everyone should publish a street art book. It’s far from the case.

MOMO's "3am-6am"

MOMO is one of my favorite New York street artists though I tend to dislike his work outside (or is it inside) of that context. Nowadays, his large abstract paper pieces are plastered on construction sites and sidewalk overhangs throughout downtown Manhattan and northern Brooklyn. They are brash, bright, often lovely and randomly configured by the computer program he calls The MOMO Maker. The placement of his work is incredible, his prints can be hit or miss, but either way they provide a much needed shot of color to an often gray landscape.

In 3am-6am, which is a small book of 160 pages, padded covers and no text, we are given a photographic tour of MOMO’s output in New York, New Orleans and elsewhere. I can only imagine it is a mood book, or something along those lines, since it has no rhyme or reason and doesn’t really offer any insight into MOMO’s art. Why do artists or publishers create these? I assume ‘cuz they can and they sell. Why should you buy it? I have no idea and I feel like a schmuck for having forked out that much money for my copy. Though I will admit that my disappointment is partly based on the missed opportunity here. I think MOMO’s work deserves more than this overpriced flip book.

3am-6am is a limited edition publication of 500 copies (30 Euros) and it is available for sale at Rojo Magazine‘s online bookstore.