'Art In The Streets' Exhibit Canceled At Brooklyn Museum

Street art enthusiasts were enthralled when they learned Jeffrey Deitch would be bringing a comprehensive look at graffiti culture to the Brooklyn Museum billed as "the first major U.S. museum exhibition of the history of graffiti and street art." "It's shaping up to be a very exciting 2011-12 season at the Brooklyn Museum," wrote the L Magazine.

But alas, it was revealed today that the "Art in the Streets" show, currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, will not, in fact, come to Brooklyn after all. Museum Director Arnold Lehman sent out this sad missive today, which LA Weekly first posted:

I am writing with the unfortunate news the Brooklyn Museum must withdraw as the second venue for "Art in the Streets." I asked our curator, Sharon Matt Atkins, for your email address so that you might hear this news directly from me.

As I hope you know, we have all been tremendously enthusiastic about this exhibition from the very beginning, and we applaud LA MOCA for organizing such a groundbreaking project bringing the important history of graffiti and street art to a broad public. In Brooklyn, we saw it as an appropriate next exhibition for us after our Jean-Michel Basquiat and graffiti exhibitions in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

We regret that we are now in the position of withdrawing from this project. We have already and will continue to face severe reductions in financial support that require the Museum to make very tough decisions in light of the challenges facing us in the coming fiscal year. With no major funding in place, we cannot move ahead.

I know I speak for Sharon as well in expressing our regret that we will not be able to move ahead with presenting "Art in the Streets." We have the utmost respect for your work, and I hope we will find other opportunities to collaborate in the future.

While it sounds like the Museum's hands were tied with financial constraints, LA Weekly points out that perhaps the museum was affected by crabby editorials like this one from the Daily News, which writes that an exhibit "glorifying graffiti vandalism… should be tagged NoWay." Get it? Like a graffiti tag?

In light of such negative press, ArtInfo explored the moral dilemma of whether illegal art should be labeled 'art'. An interesting discussion. Maybe.

Comments

[artbot]

01:41 AM on 06/23/2011

we are sorry to inform you the street "art" exhibit is canceled. our curator suddenly became excruciatingly bored and uninspired by its confluence of redundant motifs... until street art becomes an actual fine art and not simply teen angst illustration we will hold off on further exhibitions of such.

[AmeriGus]

09:59 AM on 06/23/2011

Though you are entitled your own opinion, passing judgment over what and what is not legitimate art, you have already lost the argument as the style is the subject of museum exhibits, gallery shows, best-selling coffee table volumes, countless commercial and fashion applications and is only on the rise internationally.

As an art teacher, I can tell you it is the most inspiring and least boring style to kids learning how to make art in the Bronx, topping cartooning, manga, fashion and computer art by far. It's fine to chime in with your one vote that is does not deserve to be in the Brooklyn show, but I have taught over one thousand current and former middle school students who want to remind you that art is always changing and evolving to shatter preconceptions and leave cynics and skeptics behind.

[artbot]

01:26 PM on 06/23/2011

i'm a professional artist, literally became professional at 12 years old. never had a single job other than professional artist, now 43 years old. so i am familiar with the passions of a young person aspiring to be an artist. but as a teacher, you should remind your students of the difference between craft, art, and illustration. and street art is more craft (ie. calligraphy) and illustration (ie. cartoons). it's a "type" of art. but it's not art as an individual expression. more of a tribal one. which again relates to craft.

[AmeriGus]

11:34 PM on 06/22/2011

The debate about graffiti art or street art has two important aspects - one is the aesthetic - the way letters are abstracted, spraycans are used as a medium or the way style has evolved since the 70s when subways were used as the ultimate moving message display.

The other is the act of applying the design to the surface, which began illegally, then saw some legal application as the art form took its place in the pantheon of legitimate contemporary art styles (the only visual art style I know of that was developed by adolescents). The two types of practitioners are often a world apart, for example the ultra-detailed "masterpiece" muralist who secures permission vs. the novice "tagger" who vandalizes private property to make up for their lack of talent or experience. Some may hover somewhere in between, but the typical graffiti artist usually "ages out" of the practice of illegal tagging at some point.

Those who study the origins of graffiti art and it's continuing pervasiveness as it spreads all over the world believe that "illegal" graffiti will be around as long as there are authoritarian voices like the Daily News sitting in judgment of something they don't understand. The defiance in the illegal acts is indeed a part of reclaiming the power of public messaging from the institutions whose messages are similarly forced onto the public.

[atheis4]

07:07 PM on 06/22/2011

You have to remember that the LA show increased the incidents of grafitti around its location. Brooklyn Museum is probably afraid the same will happen (and lets be honest it would) if they held the show. Also, New York has an interesting love hate history with the graf/street art movement. They tried so hard to demonize the early writers and punish graffiti harshly. There might be some pressure from the city not to have the show.

Which is a shame, but honestly, street art and graffiti lose all meaning when they are shown in a gallery. I'm not saying these artists shouldn't show! I myself have a gallery show next month with my spray stencil work. But the difference is I don't call mine street art. Though heavily influenced by both content and style, my work is not out in the streets, its on a masonite canvas in my room. Big difference.

[Mahalia Stines]

06:37 PM on 06/22/2011

Cluck Cluck Cluck... Chickens I say; the Brooklyn Museum is going soft, I have a hard time believing that this is the same museum that stood it's ground with the elephant dung exhibit... of course to make their 180 digestible, they must blame it on lack of funding..... Oh yes!!! they showed Basquiat in 2006, seriously? Basquiat's work is now estimated in the 7 figures...

[Adjective]

03:26 PM on 06/22/2011

The show is amazing and so full of stuff that two trips is advised. Lots of Haring, Bansky and Fairey (a little lite on the Basquiat), and lots of history from the late '60's til the present from New York's subways to LA's barrios to London and Brazil. Great installations (including a Neckface alley complete w/ homeless person).

There is no question that this stuff is art. There is no question that is was a great show. Too bad NYers won't get to see it.

http://www.moca.org/audio/blog/?p=1522

[Mat Gleason]

12:52 AM on 06/22/2011

This is the most important museum show of the past decade. Frankly, New York is the capital of conventional art, they just don't have the patronage apparatus for radical breaks from a century of their interior decorating conceptualism. Los Angeles has an art audience seeking out the vital and the new; New York's art audience seems to all be art world players along with their chauffers waiting for the signal to go get the car ready.

I can imagine that corporate sponsors do not want to engender controversy and are shying away as are traditional patrons with art holdings of a more conventional nature. But don't credit street art haters or anti-graffiti opposition for having any influence. The LA show has taken place in the single most intense anti-graffiti environment in the United States, a stones throw (hey try it) from police headquarters.

One big cost of this show has to be the actual artists installing (yes via spray cans) their work. The logistics of this - paying for the artists to travel to NYC, hotel, et cetera, does in fact boost the cost of the show way beyond conventional crating and shipping costs most museums have budgeted.

Oh well, look for Europe to celebrate what L.A. produces and what New York just doesn't understand.

[jonathonz]

11:31 PM on 06/21/2011

That is unfortunate. Hopefully another nearby museum will decide to take the show on. I would love to see it but don't think I'll be able to make it to LA before it leaves there.

[Imagine 39]

10:22 PM on 06/21/2011

I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with the large "property owner" museum contributors who have to remove grafitti from their "assets".

[Mahalia Stines]

06:40 PM on 06/22/2011

Never... How could you even think such a thing? (said with a large grin...)

[Imagine 39]

10:18 PM on 06/21/2011

I don't know how these people came to be museum curators. To question the validity of street art or to fold because of bad reviews of a subjective, myopic, snob critic seems antithetical to the very nature of art itself. Street art is some of the most alive vibrant and original in the world today. True art.

[ElodieStClair]

12:09 AM on 06/22/2011

So in your view, failing to embrace middle brow pop culture makes someone a bad curator?

Of course street art is valid. Nobody is questioning that. But just because it's valid, it doesn't change the fact that 90% of the work in that show absolutely sucks.

It's a litany of overly obvious irony, dunderheaded polemics, bad t-shirt design, slick corporate design, meat-headed misogyny, and generally apolitical, acritical suburban mass pop. And most of it is executed in a vernacular that has already been absorbed by advertising for a couple decades.

It's about as radical as the Warped Tour.

[Moonspirit48]

12:12 AM on 06/22/2011

I agree wholeheartedly. Thanks for your comment. Fanned & faved.

[mivogo]

07:45 PM on 06/21/2011

On second thought, I think I'll write my reply on the side of the Brooklyn Museum.

[Moonspirit48]

12:13 AM on 06/22/2011

Great comment. Fanned & Faved, too.

[Mat Gleason]

04:18 AM on 06/22/2011

Good timing - they can't afford the paint to cover up your piece.