Cura­tors Joyce Man­alo and Daniel Feral have erected a con­tem­po­rary pan­theon in front of New York’s MoMA in order to high­light the chaotic and lit­tle under­stood his­tory of get­ting up in this city. Thirty three graf­fiti and street artists have taken over the giant win­dows of the for­mer Don­nell Library with instal­la­tions, paint and spray on can­vas, sten­cils and sculp­ture. Along with this, the team will pub­lish a cat­a­log of diverse inter­views, con­tri­bu­tions and text dig­ging deeper into the sub­ject mat­ter. Cool points for hav­ing a street team of peo­ple to dish out info to the jaded New Yorker and lively tourists walk­ing by. Extra cool points for ded­i­cat­ing the exhibit to the great late Ram­melizee. (R.I.P. 2010)

Sit­u­ated at street level and on view 24 hours a day, this win­dow exhibit packs some nice gems from the city’s past. Work by John Ahearn, Rigob­erto Tor­res, John Fekner and Richard Ham­ble­ton is def­i­nitely wel­comed in the con­text of newer work by descen­dants like Ellis Gal­lagher, El Celso and Stik­man, to name a few. At this point the con­nec­tions and influ­ence between gen­er­a­tions becomes appar­ent, leav­ing you with the sim­ple fact that New York as a city has attracted, sus­tained and cre­ated an impor­tant and unique com­mu­nity that is now part of a larger global move­ment. A move­ment that, in essence, has denied museum or insti­tu­tional scrutiny by act­ing as a reac­tionary force; mak­ing art acces­si­ble and free while bring­ing it to the gen­eral pub­lic and not the other way around. So would these same prac­ti­tion­ers care about being ele­vated to a god-​like pan­theon or being placed into the con­text of what basi­cally is a museum-​like ret­ro­spec­tive of art in the streets? Maybe they would, if the exhibit didn’t share so many of the tenets and method­ol­ogy of work­ing in the streets and if large museum shows of this kind weren’t such an immi­nent and unstop­pable reality.

The Pan­theon team has kept it grass­roots and D.I.Y. by work­ing with a non­profit to get the space and with media out­lets to get the word out about their Kick­starter fundraiser cam­paign, which is how I first heard about the show. They also had a ton of vol­un­teer help and very pos­i­tive hype from the pub­lic, so much so that the open­ing had to change loca­tions and become a pri­vate event. Their efforts bring me back to the idea of a New York com­mu­nity; Jor­dan Seiler, one of the exhibit­ing artists, puts it best: “It’s very impor­tant for the health of a city for peo­ple to be talk­ing… feel­ing like you are part of a com­mu­nity makes it a lot eas­ier to talk to your brethren and say ‘let’s go have a say about this’ ” In essence, tak­ing charge of your envi­ron­ment and cre­at­ing a com­mu­nity, in this case a com­mu­nity based on tres­pass­ing, is an anti­dote to the iso­la­tion and detach­ment the urban envi­ron­ment can cause and “street art is one of the ways in which the pub­lic has tried to resist that.”

And maybe that’s the point. The rea­son why we are see­ing more museum exhibits tak­ing on graf­fiti, street art and urban inter­ven­tions as a sub­ject mat­ter comes from the fact that it has affected our com­mu­ni­ties past a point of no return; insti­tu­tional scrutiny can no longer be abated… oh yeah, and because it’s start­ing to sell.

Cura­tor Joyce Man­alo hopes that this exhi­bi­tion can serve “as a marker of social rel­e­vance” for the art­form and that the atten­tion it gath­ers can high­light it’s his­tory and help oth­ers under­stand it’s inten­tions. Check out the Pan­theon web­site for videos of the artist and cura­tor panel plus more info about their upcom­ing pub­li­ca­tion and cer­tain prints they will be releas­ing soon.

PANTHEON: A his­tory of art from the streets of NYC
20 West 53^rd Street, b/​w 5^th & 6^th Avenue
New York, NY
Win­dows exhi­bi­tion runs April 2 – 17, 2011
On view 24 hours a day

http://​www​.pan​theon​nyc​.com/

Tags: a history of art from the streets, Daniel Feral, Donnell Library, El Celso, Ellis Gallagher, exhibit, graffiti, John Ahearn, John Fekner, Joyce Manalo, MOMA, museums, NYC, Pantheon, Rammelizee, Richard Hambleton, Rigoberto Torres, Stikman, Street Art, urban interventions, windows

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 at 9:26 am and is filed under Art, Event, News, Public Space, Street Art.
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