The art of the street artists works the other way around:
it uses the urban space to reach as large an audience as possible. It's no
coincidence that Cedar
Lewisohn, in his book Street Art — The Graffiti Revolution,
writes that the graffiti artists' interest in type styles, their ability
to express complicated ideas in a simple way, and their instinct for
spectacular locations is similar to the talents of designers and
advertising artists. The New York graffiti artist Futura
2000 was one of the first street artists of the '80s who made the leap
from the street to the art gallery. He exhibited around the world, and his
paintings sold splendidly. Yet he still retained his credibility among his
former comrades-in-arms because he continued to work for a mass public—by
designing album covers for the Mo'Wax label or accompanying The Clash on
tour and spray-painting pictures on the stage. During his active graffiti
years, Futura 2000 collaborated with, among others, Dominique Philbert
(alias “Ero”), a famous graffiti artist whose "Wild Style" canvases can be
found in the Deutsche Bank Collection as well as in the Ludwig
Collection.
Ero,
Funky, Fast and New!!!, 1984,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
The two shooting stars of
the New York art scene of the eighties, Keith
Haring and Jean-Michel
Basquiat, also began their careers on the street and in the legendary
street art exhibition of 1980, the Times
Square Show. It was Haring's first encounter with graffiti
artists, and it was an experience that left a deep impression on him.
Afterwards, the artist began drawing his anarchic cartoon chalk figures on
blackened ads in subway stations. They quickly became icons of New York
City life. Hardly a year passed before the art market became aware of the
phenomenon and Haring was asked by gallery dealers to create canvases and
prints. In the mid-eighties, he also made video clips for MTV and ran his
own shop in New York—the Pop Shop, where he sold his art in the form of
T-Shirts and multiples.
Keith
Haring, Untitled, 1983, © The Estate of Keith Haring,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
Jean-Michel Basquiat had
already left the street art scene in 1982 and was shown as a "serious
artist" in museum exhibitions around the world. The ex-graffiti artist,
who in the late seventies had filled the streets of Manhattan with
philosophical slogans signed with the pseudonym SAMO, owed his career leap
not least to his excellent connections to Andy
Warhol and the curator Henry
Geldzahler. Basquiat's painting bore the influence of his graffiti
days — in the rough, simplified pictures, the slogan-like pop images, and
the rapid, erratic brushstroke.
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Keith Haring, Untitled, 1983, © The Estate
of Keith Haring,
Deutsche Bank
Collection
The fact that it is now possible
to write a genealogy of street art, an art history of graffiti, is due to
the fact that the phenomenon has been extensively documented more or less
since its beginnings. Not just daily newspapers and photographers like Jamel
Shabazz, who walked the streets of Harlem and the Bronx in the
seventies and immortalized the young New York Hip Hop movement in the
eighties, have contributed to the spread of street art. The artists
themselves have always recorded the fruits of their nighttime endeavors.
Banksy has published several illustrated volumes. His London gallery
dealer Steve Lazarides, who also represents other popular artists like D*Face
and the Faile group, has a simple explanation for this: "If you can't
afford a canvas, then you should at least be able to take a book or a
poster print home."
Jamel
Shabazz, Man and Dog, 1980,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
Courtesy of the
artist
One young artist who skillfully plays
with these modes of documentation is Alexandre
Orion. The Brazilian sprays his pictures on building walls and waits
until passers-by begin to interact with the art. That's when he takes his
photograph. The results are works that blend the artwork and its
reception, painting and photography. Even if Orion's pictures can seem
like an ironic stab at a photography in love with itself and the
narcissism of some street artists, he also, of course, wants to become
famous with his art. The old graffiti artist saying still goes: "The name
of the game is fame," and this fame always depends on your own name
(brand). Even if a phantom lies concealed behind it.
Alexander
Orion, from the series "Metabiotics", 2006,
Deutsche
Bank Collection
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