Seduced by the White Cube
Created for Vivid Imagination's Graffiti & Street Art challenge.
Sometimes I have no idea where an image is going until it gets there. In this case, the opposite was true.
Last year I went to a panel discussion on graffiti and street art. The panelists included a street artist, a gallery owner, a museum curator, and an arts writer. At the time it struck me as ironic that this renegade -- even anti-social -- art form is now subject matter for museums and art galleries.
On the one hand, I think it's great that these outsider artists are getting some well-deserved recognition -- even to the point of receiving commissions to create their work. On the other, I can't help but be struck by the fact that some of the same people now lauded by the art establishment have shown so little respect for others' property in the past. But I guess this is just another example of a familiar pattern: yesterday's outlaws become today's heroes.
In yet another irony, graffiti -- which property owners regularly paint over -- is now preserved on the pristine white walls of the contemporary art gallery -- often referred to (not always with admiration) as "the white cube": "Unshadowed, white, clean, artificial, the space is devoted to the technology of esthetics. Works of art are mounted, hung, scattered for study. Their ungrubby surfaces are untouched by time and its vicissitudes." (Brian O'Doherty, Inside the White Cube: Notes on the Gallery Space)
Credits ...
Graffiti: www.cgtextures.com
Bench: www.flickr.com/photos/associatedfabrication/2985095920/
Seduced by the White Cube
Created for Vivid Imagination's Graffiti & Street Art challenge.
Sometimes I have no idea where an image is going until it gets there. In this case, the opposite was true.
Last year I went to a panel discussion on graffiti and street art. The panelists included a street artist, a gallery owner, a museum curator, and an arts writer. At the time it struck me as ironic that this renegade -- even anti-social -- art form is now subject matter for museums and art galleries.
On the one hand, I think it's great that these outsider artists are getting some well-deserved recognition -- even to the point of receiving commissions to create their work. On the other, I can't help but be struck by the fact that some of the same people now lauded by the art establishment have shown so little respect for others' property in the past. But I guess this is just another example of a familiar pattern: yesterday's outlaws become today's heroes.
In yet another irony, graffiti -- which property owners regularly paint over -- is now preserved on the pristine white walls of the contemporary art gallery -- often referred to (not always with admiration) as "the white cube": "Unshadowed, white, clean, artificial, the space is devoted to the technology of esthetics. Works of art are mounted, hung, scattered for study. Their ungrubby surfaces are untouched by time and its vicissitudes." (Brian O'Doherty, Inside the White Cube: Notes on the Gallery Space)
Credits ...
Graffiti: www.cgtextures.com
Bench: www.flickr.com/photos/associatedfabrication/2985095920/