The gentrification of graffiti as art.

Does haute graffiti spell liberty or death for street art? There are many layers to that question, which is not to be taken figuratively in the slightest. This week LA-based graffiti darling RETNA became the latest sanctioned artist to take on the famous graffiti wall at Bowery and Houston, replacing a previously sanctioned installation by Brooklyn duo Faile.

Here is a video of RETNA taken during his process:

An interesting 57-seconds of performance art: have you ever seen a more perfect circle? It’s also an unexpected and unintentional piece of historical theater, too. What was once a clandestine, subversive, anti-establishment, “up yours” middle finger to the powers that be – with the added thrill of being where you’re not supposed to be, dodging the law during the most criminal of hours of the night and early morn’ – has become mainstream, lunch hour entertainment on one of the most gentrified corners in the nation.

RETNA, a.k.a. Marquis Lewis, himself seems bemused at his own mainstream success. In an interview with ELLE, he recalls his ascent to becoming one of the most sought after street artists this side of Banksy.

“[I]t wasn’t really called street art at that time, it was just graffiti. When I first saw it I knew that was what I wanted to do I just never really thought that it would turn into a career.”

And quite a career it is. From being arrested as a kid in the name of honing his art, to the Bowery and beyond (i.e., his full scale hieroglyphic installation on a $60 million private jet), he has very much arrived.

Meanwhile, the Bowery’s “arrival” is a bonified “nuh duh” at this point. Obviously. And on today’s Bowery, it would not be a stretch to assume that few passersby know of the history and significance of the Bowery Graffiti Wall – or the many, many layers underneath.

Complex offers a thorough must-read history of the wall. In summary, three decades ago Keith Haring did the wall’s first mural, said to be his first large-scale public work. It was then bombed and pieced (more on that in a minute) by illegal graffiti until curator Jeffrey Deitch and developer (and wall owner) Tony Goldman began sanctioning off murals on the wall to high profile contemporary artists in 2008.

Haring’s wall

The Os Gemeos version of the wall of 2009

May Day by Shepard Fairey

In fitting fashion, the new installations have been targeted over the years by NYC graffiti writers many times, from tagging…

…to out and out destruction revealing the layers underneath.

Bombing and Tagging vs. Mural-izing

The level of street art these days bears little resemblance to the tags of Cool “Disco” Dan, though even he is recognized as an artist in his own right. His work is owned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art and featured in books; he credits his tagging with keeping him alive and out of jail throughout the 80s and 90s during DC’s crack-smoking mayor’s, “murder capital of the world” years.

Decades later, the city government is nurturing future Disco Dans through its MuralsDC program, like the Deitch/Goldman collaboration but on a more civic scale. The intention is to keep kids out of trouble via bombing (spraying or marking a wall with one’s tag, or name, i.e., Che, Sleazy, Stamp, or Moe) and piecing (large scale abstract forms).

This tagging, piecing, mural-izing distinction is interesting to keep in mind when you consider the war raging across the pond between the world’s most famous street artist, Banksy, and the artist with the most street cred, King Robbo.

The two have been battling it out for the past three years after Bansky “improved upon” a piece King Robbo had created in a nearly-impossible-to-reach location twenty four years prior.

Face-slapping, resentments and destruction ensued. Team King Robbo was born.

In another touch of irony, this video captures one neighbor’s dismay at the willful destruction of property, a casualty of the graffiti war. He calls it a “horrific stain,” “a random act of vandalism,” done at the hands of wild, out of control kids.

The addition of red paint certainly changes things, but isn’t this street art?

Images: Wright Wedding; Bowery Boogie; Business Insider; Complex; Cool Disco Dan; The Guardian; BBC News

The post The Gentrification of Graffiti appeared first on EcoSalon.

Maria Moyer goes from being a brand strategist to artist while still following a sustainable map.

What happens when you pick a road and stick to it? You get good at one thing and are ready for another. So goes the life highway of Wink Communication founder Maria Moyer. We’ve been big fans of Moyer for some time having discovered her work through an inspiring New York Times article on the Bureau of Friends back in 2009.

Successfully weaving sustainability and social issues into her work as a brand strategist at Wink, Moyer is now ready to examine the life aquatic with an art exhibit titled Blue, dedicated to the complexities of ocean based on her bi-coastal life in California and New York. The collection will be open to the public September 8th, at ROGAN in New York City and her pieces can be seen indefinitely  at BDDW.

“The collection is really a moment of reflection for me,” says Moyer, who has always lived by the ocean, having grown up in Southern California.

She says on her site that her childhood permitted frequent access to ocean landscapes and creatures, citing even at age 11, “while other kids played with dolls and Lego sets,” Moyer had an opportunity—under the watchful eye of a professor—to dissect a beached 18-foot squid. Years later, while her friends bought Eurail passes for trips abroad, she ventured farther into the Pacific, backpacking through remote areas of the Hawaiian Islands.

Susan Casey, O Magazine Editor-in-Chief and bestselling author of The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean and The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks, says Moyer’s work is a “gorgeous blend of sensitivity and sensibility; she never fails to spot the beauty of the natural world—even if it’s hidden 20,000 leagues beneath the sea. But it’s one thing to identify the sublime essence of, say, zooplankton or roses, and another thing to translate it into exquisite forms. For Maria, the former invariably leads to the latter.  There is no better word I can think of to describe her unique mix of whimsy, sophistication, and science than: delightful.”

While you can currently see some of Moyer’s art at BDDW in New York City, on September 7th, Bowery based fashion label ROGAN will host an invite only “cultural cross-roads of surf, fashion, arts and music in NYC creating a movement inspired by city and ocean.” ROGAN has invited friends to collaborate and create one-of-a-kind pieces and limited edition capsule collections for ROGAN VS. LOOMSTATE-SRF CTY, to be sold exclusively at the ROGAN store. The Blue collection will open to the public on September 8th, with 10% of all sales benefiting Waves for Water.

Julie Gilhart (with Anna Wintour) wearing Moyer’s Circle and Swirl necklace.

We were lucky to catch up with Moyer this week to ask a few questions about her collection and the inspiration behind it.

Here’s what she had to say.

One part of your life deals with helping others to set communication strategy and to develop clear messages (Wink Communication), the other asks you to create and tell the world who YOU are and what’s important to you through your art. Is this a challenge for you, or do they compliment each other?

I’m so glad you asked this question. It’s a good one. The answer: Both. Trying to do both is both a challenge AND these roles compliment each other. I want to be good at both. Making porcelain objects or creating things from wood is a great joy. It’s also intellectually and physically challenging. At the same time, it is somewhat solitary and a little self-absorbing as I persist in getting an idea across, or in my attempt to get a specific result from the material. On the other hand, my consulting practice is highly collaborative and in service to a person or an organization, many of whom are in pursuit of a greater good themselves. My work with Yves Behar, for example. Both compliment each other as they are the social and solitary parts of me. The challenge is time management. Isn’t it always?

“Untitled,” Unglazed stoneware frames (this piece contains 12 frames), sand, feathers, a eucalyptus leaf, a skate egg case, seaweed, and surf wax remnants.

Your Southern California childhood had a direct effect on your appreciation for ocean. Of all aspects of life lived by the ocean, why go for promoting “the tiny plants and animals at the foundation of the Earth’s food chain?”

Have you seen photos of plankton under a microscope? They are gorgeous. I will have a life-time of inspiration from them alone. Many of them come with a silica-based armor (not unlike porcelain) that protects them from predators – a most complex and miraculous architecture. If their beauty doesn’t get your attention, the facts might: Phytoplankton, including algae, sink more carbon than our Earth’s forests and they are also, as you said, a huge part of the world’s food chain. Beauty and power.
To know them is to LOVE them.

Temporary Bliss Bird Vessel (and necklace). Stoneware, unglazed porcelain and (azo, chromium and lead-free) leather cord. Available at BDDW in NYC.

What’s your favorite piece and why?

More than the resulting object itself, the process of making them is what makes something a favorite. It’s tough to choose between them. I’m very excited about a recent group that I call ‘vacuoles.’ They are in the “Blue” collection that I just (today) finished installing at Rogan in NYC. I also love and might not be able to part with an untitled wall installation at Rogan; it’s a bi-coastal archive of beach ephemera; a personal, natural-history journal. A lot of wonderful people in my life were involved in making this work. I had to get friends from all over to contribute sand from ‘my’ beaches. And I love a piece at BDDW that is a bird vessel.

Temporary Bliss Bird Vessel. Stoneware, unglazed porcelain and (azo, chromium and lead-free) leather cord. Available at BDDW in NYC.

Here’s a preview of more art from Blue at ROGAN as well as what you can find at BDDW.

Diatom. Unglazed porcelain. Approximately 6″ diameter.

Porcelain Breast Plate, (azo, chromium and lead free) leather cord.

Box of Hours. Stoneware and porcelain.

Blue Tab Necklace for ROGAN. Porcelain dipped in blue wash, (azo, chromium and lead free) leather cord. Various size and shapes.

Top image by Leslie Williamson

The post Maria Moyer Dives Deep Into the Blue and Surfaces With an Exhibit appeared first on EcoSalon.