The really cool thing about hunting down the public commissions on the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego's site locations map is that, as you turn a blind corner or approach a building, you are, for the first time, consciously looking for art. All graffiti suddenly jumps out at you from wooden fences or dirty stucco. Familiar buildings now seem to contain secret scavenger hunt clues. You watch dark fuzziness from a distance turn into a vital piece of work from a famous street artist, or merely clarify into the shadows of tree boughs. Exiting MCASD's tour de force, "VIVA LA REVOLUCION," in their downtown Jacobs Building, map in hand, you find first the Vhils piece on a wall and smile with your newfound street art knowledge. But by the time you reach 16th, you are thinking about placement the way a street artist does.
To a San Diegan, our sleepy, small town "big city" is about familiarity: knowing where places are without paying real attention to hard directions. Knowing landmarks and cardinal directions, knowing general areas, not being able to direct a stranger somewhere--it's all part and parcel to the casual lifestyle we enjoy in this beautiful city by the sea. But thanks to "VIVA LA REVOLUCION," suddenly there are new landmarks throughout the metro area. A presence of famous art now available for free public consumption. And you hunt them, experiencing the city with an alert mind rather than the casual manner we do everything else here.
"VIVA LA REVOLUCION" is an enormous artistic gift to San Diego, and yet, San Diego makes it possible. We keep a rather pristine city, so street art is still relatively noticeable. We glance it on walls, and double-take. Usually we move on, not feeling we are supposed to be seeing anything relevant to ourselves. Street artists play on that filtration process. Context is immediate in "VIVA." Guest Curator Pedro Alonzo, drawing upon Shepard Fairey's favoritism of the important work of Basquiat and Keith Haring, informs us that these two artists adopted the "style and systems of the streets." The exhibition brings together 20 international artists from 10 countries, who appropriate cities' physical elements, icons and signage to create profound socially-conscious work in a lowbrow visual dynamism.
Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Invader, FAILE, Blu, Dr. Lakra, Barry McGee, Os Gemeos, Swoon, Vhils, and a particularly moving piece by JR ("Women Are Heroes," showing his epic intervention on Morro Da Providencia in Rio de Janiero) all contribute excellent, breathtaking work.
Moris' 2010 work "Landscape 7" portrays wistful, nostalgic American suburban dwellings in dreamlike murals on recycled materials in a gritty, desolate installation. The elongated basketball hoop of "Stax," a 2009 piece by Mark Bradford, is filled with papier-mache balls, suggesting the pliant nature of cultural tradition. The Date Farmers' 2010 piece "Ghost Dogs" shows sentinel hounds as town criers reacting to violence (a genuine canine behavior). The intriguing naming history of UCSD's Thurgood Marshall college is the content of William Cordova's "untitled (lumumba-zapata)."
"Moshi Moshi," a 2007 piece by Ryan McGinness showing a visual library assembled in baroque busyness reveals --in its enormous, overwhelming collage-- the meaninglessness of our escapist consumer fantasies when they converge on each other. It also highlights a flat, stone city's utilization of bright Pantone color matching to draw us out of the gray urban surroundings into exotic wishful thinking. A further point: McGinness' "The True Knowledge of Things" depicts a busy border of mutli-colored layered arabesques, from which a pile of icons is developing in the center, implying that out of the din of images in the world we still glean a small heap of personal meaning.
Dzine's tricked out "chrome" lowrider-esque pedicabs demonstrate the fleeting newness in car customization (old electronics adorn gilded carriages), the futility of expiration-date novelty investments. But the pieces also celebrate customization as a means of personal expression, and the romanticism of the carriage ride. David Ellis' "Busted Flume," with compositions by Roberto Lange, is a trashcan from which emanates scattered percussive strikes that converge into a rhythm, for awhile. Then it deconstructs into a din again. It is a great parallel to the actual shifting powers in a city. The sudden punctuations of synchronicity: a logic in an event sequence reveals itself. After that synergy, however, there is a dissolution and we must cope again with psychic uncertainty.
Stephen Doitschinoff's (CALMA's) room of work is a powerful criticism of Catholic hypocrisy in Brazil. Esoteric, mystical symbolism abounds in his pieces, including an installation (of a kneeler surrounded by rows of open-faced Bibles before a mural in which guts are shared between a skeleton and a dark figure (signifying perhaps, in a style similar to Gaugin, the world beyond). Are the shared guts a passing on of life energy between death and resurrection? It is an allegory of the gory, truly macabre imagery in the promise of Christian salvation.
Akay's video documentation of complexly designed, whimsical graffiti machines sets out to make fun of the extreme lengths street artists go to place their work, but what does it really imply to switch out glass-enclosed bus shelter advertising posters for ones that say "Buy A Life" ("Graf Mobile"), or spray-painting rainbows with a six-in-one-sprayer ("Robo-Rainbow") all over decrepit walls? There is a social interventionist mode here that may be the sincere element to the otherwise amusing observation Akay is making about the street art community's dedication. And it is that dedication that Shepard Fairey spoke of in his KPBS radio interview with Maureen Cavanaugh. In true street art, he said, there is an element of risk and passion. In the gallery context, I argue, the risk has not departed the process. The physical risk of doing vandal work on the streets may not be present, but having to articulate a meaningfulness, in an eloquent manner, acknowledging artistic lineage, making an artist's statement, and entering into the contemporary art world that at turns rejects and exploits you -- is risk. A big one that faces most artists. The risk of personal integrity and the decision to ultimately think about the the future of the work is where, I think, the social intervention evolves into an even greater movement than a rebel yell. The artists of "VIVA" provide the clear message that helps others understand the work, maybe parting with the niche political audience for awhile and accepting mainstream exposure. But that, I think, is where revolutions gain momentum: in the decisions made by ordinary people.
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Special thanks are in order to Lucia Sanroman for her work in bringing this exhibition to San Diego. Yes, I read the entire wall text. Thanks also to all the San Diego foundations and individual donors who contributed to basically the best artsy Sunday I've had in awhile. :) Especially since all the Little Italy galleries are closed on Sundays!
Fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
This is a excellent review! Keep up the good work!!
ReplyDeletethe show lacked variety and also the presence of women. One woman in a show full of guys is a sad example of where we are today with equality.
ReplyDeleteDr.Lakras work was also offensive in nature towards women and Black people. Male fantasies about women and stereotypes of Black "cannibals" was the worst in the show. Am surprised the museum would be so insensitive with the tax payers money.