Bringing art on the street to the museum or gallery is certainly not an easy task.
You can’t escape it. Somehow somewhere, you will see it, accidently. It will appear in front of your eyes, either in the place that you expected to find them, or in the most unexpected place. Yes, I am talking about street art. Of course, there is an obvious difference between “commissioned” street art –-comic strips in Brussels for example– and “illegal” street art. But for now, let’s say it’s all based on the same root: art on the street –or public space, to be precise.
I started to pay attention to these specific art based on its context when once in a small German city, I saw a beautiful huge drawing, with white background and simple black lines shows a couple hand in hand and next to it a bubble says: Make love not sex !!!.
It was striking because the whitish drawing was drawn on dirty brown wall in a side of a three storeys house. This wall was facing the terrace of a restaurant where I ate. So every customers and passers-by would see it directly. I thought it was part of illustration for the restaurant.
But no. They owner of the resto told me that drawing appeared when they were renovating the resto after he bought it from the previous owner. They suspected one of the construction worker was responsible for that. The resto owner kept that drawing partly because he thought it was not his responsibility to take that out, but in the other hand, he enjoyed that drawing as much as his customers, so why bother. “Just enjoy it like an art on the street,” he said.
Since then, street art is constantly catching my attention. Either in the most populated city to the smallest village in the world. Whether it is merely the result of a joke by rascals without any pretence to make something arty out of it, or works that have conceptual ideas equal to the ‘chosen one’ by museums.
Some works are incredibly complex, not only because it’s beautifully done, but mostly because the striking effect it caused to its surroundings. Certainly, there is aesthetic value in some of street arts that I’ve seen almost in every corner of every places that I’ve been. That left me wonder how the art world system –critics, gallery owners, curators, museums, collectors– considered these works.
Apparently, street art is on the spot since more than a decade. We happened to visit an expo called Street Generation (s) – 40 years of urban art in La Condition Publique, Roubaix, from 31 March to 18 June 2017. Although, I had a certain scepticism because bringing street art into the gallery or museum or expo sites means putting the subject out of its context. It felt like taking the lion out from the jungle and put it into a nice-clean-sterile zoo. But I understand the need to put street art into a serious consideration in terms of its merit. As Burke said, curiosity has its own reason for existing.
And I could say that Street Generation (s) – 40 years of urban art is one of the highlight expo of 2017. When we arrived, it was packed with curious people. As comparison, the same day we visited Louvre Museum in Lens earlier and it had barely ¼ of the visitors of La Condition Publique. I think people got bored with antiquarian art.
I believe there are several related reasons why this expo is so successful, pragmatically and artistically: The place itself, the curatorial, the artworks and the artists itself and the scenography.
The place is particular. Historically, Roubaix in northern France was once a prosperous city thanks to its textile industry. In the 70s, the city was severely affected by the decline of textile industry caused by automation and highly competitive international production. Economic and social implication hit hard. Today, Roubaix is considered as France’s poorest city. when you enter Roubaix, the visitor can see the effect of deindustrialisation almost in every part of the city. While there is an obvious effort to renew its territory, urban decay is unavoidable. The right city that needed to be boosted by creativity of artist.
Among urban decay due to its economic social historical heritage, Roubaix has La Condition Publique. It is an iconic textile industrial building that link to the economic, social and political history of the city. After served its function in textile industry, it was taking over by maritime and air transport company until 1998, then transferred to the commune of Roubaix which in turn decided to transform it into cultural tool while respecting the original building. It is an example of the cultural rehabilitation of industrial building by transforming it into creative laboratory for the artists. Exactly the right city and the right place where urban “illegal” invaders love to spent time and leave their trace of existence, freely. Practically, street art/ist is at home in Roubaix.
The strong point of this expo is thanks to the curatorial work. Squeezing 40 years of street art history and its evolution into 1500 m2 room is not an easy task. I like the way the curator framed the geographical and the periodical challenge. (S)he is not trying to hug the whole world. The expo is basically about what, when, where, who and how street art was born in America and its influence in Europe (specially in France). It limited itself in this two territories (though there is one exception from China) where street art regarded as part of contemporary art and is a direct descendant of previous movement such as expressionism, pop art, etc. At the same time, it is also enough for people who are interested to have basic information on mapping the movement.
The expo traced back the history of street art through four important periods: the genesis of the movement around 60s to 70s, its world expansion in the 80s, the advent of street art with social and political message around 90s and contextual street art in the turn of 21st century. Apart from chronological approach, it’s also explaining the evolution of technic and style, from simply using aerosol spray to more complicated technic such as stencils to jackhammer and drilling. It’s full of useful information that you expect from an expo.
Then of course, the artists and the works that were chosen by curator. I guess It’s more subjective knowing that there is vast possible choice of street artists around for each period. Many of the artists are already known -–you will not make an expo about history of street art without Banksy, for example–. The artist like Banksy, Obey, Futura, Dondi, JR, Jef Aerosol, Swoon, Os Gemeos, Vhils, Keith Haring, Street Invaders and many more are part of the expo. I wonder if curator have difficulties to decide who’s who and which artwork to show.
But the trickiest part is how to present these works out of its urban context. I once read a book about art of rebellion and the author wrote that putting the street art in the museum/gallery means the work nearly always loses something in transition. “Part of the creativity is how it integrates within the environment. When it placed into gallery area, there is something missing, the interaction and conflict of the work in location.[1] I totally agree with him.
The energy and the spirit of rebellious act that was part of street art identity are certainly fading. Some artworks are really about where it’s done: railway carriage, ruins of construction sites, etc. There is an effort from the organizers to make real size picture of work which is difficult to take out of its context. For example, a work by Zhang Dali aka AK47, the only graffiti artist in Beijing the early 90s. He used to paint bald-head profile on buildings set to be demolished by the authorities.
Some works are losing its significance as well in this expo, such as Liquidated Logo by Zevs which shown melting logo of Mc Donald. Or artwork that meant for the train carriage (specially works by Seen in its early year of street art) or works that meant to be placed on metro maps (Quik).
Nevertheless, the expo is bringing the new light to our understanding of street art. It’s very well done, informative and didactic. Certainly, each artist with their respective style worth a deeper look. Now, I am looking for street art everywhere I go. It makes me wonder about street art in Asia, and particularly in my own country, Indonesia. ***
All pictures taken by Asmayani Kusrini
[1] The Art Of Rebellion by C100
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