The genre of “street art” has come a long way.
Graffiti and the idea of public defacement — or beautification,you decide — is as old as city streets but its popularization in art culture has only been bubbling for a couple of decades.
Publishing company Gestalten’s new book, Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art — compiled by Brits Stuart Mackenzie and Patrick Nguyen — celebrates and explores this relatively new art movement.
Today, street art has reached a pinnacle — it is recognized as a legitimate art form and street artists can actually make money off their works.
But street art certainly hasn’t gotten this far without a fair bit of controversy.
Many artists and observers disagree with selling street art to make money. Dissenters argue that its purpose is public enjoyment and spectacle, not turning a profit.
Some street artists have completely moved off the street and into the studio, which is cause for more debate and intrigue.
Inside Beyond the Street‘s 400 pages are interviews with 100 street artists, gallery owners, auction houses and other genre figures. This is not your mother’s coffee table book.
The book provides an interesting look at well-known street artists like Shepard Fairey, who did the Obama HOPE collage, and Ron English, who created the art in Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me. However, the book is perhaps most useful for the discovery of lesser-known artists.
Beyond the Street largely consists of interviews interspersed with fantastic color photographs. The interviews are often successful in bringing out the essence of the subjects.
They range from the foul-mouthed yet humble and lovable New York City-based artist BAST, who ends his interview by saying, “You gotta get someone better to answer. …The guy at the bar would be better at this than me. I’m sorry!” to the articulate chairperson of the legendary Sotheby’s auction house in London.
The interviews tend to get repetitive. This may be de rigueur for a book holding conversations with 100 people concerning the same subject, but it becomes rather annoying to read the same questions over and over again, particularly the inquiry about working on the street versus in the studio.
There is one notable absence in the book despite its broad range of interviewees. Banksy, who is cited many times in the book as a trailblazer for street artists making a living off their work — and the creative mastermind behind the recently released street art-focused film, Exit Through the Gift Shop — was not interviewed. It is a somewhat curious omission, as he is one of the most famous street artists in the world.
Every artist has a story, and Beyond the Street does a commendable job of finding that story.
Doze Green from New York City turned to graffiti as an alternative to gangs. World-renowned Futura was once in the military. Many were trained in art school, while others found the art world oppressive and skipped the whole scene altogether. The unique stories of the artists is one of the best aspects of the book.
Beyond the Street also delves into the criticism of street art with a fervor.
“There’s…a lot of bad street art out there that people are paying attention to because it’s very hip and lucrative right now,” said Jason LeVine of New York’s Jason LeVine Gallery in the book.
Street art seems to be the belle of the ball at the moment, and artists of the movement are making bank on it.
In regards to street art now selling for money, artist Pedro Alonzo is quoted in the book as saying, like many others, “Every artist needs money to live.”
Beyond the Street succeeds in raising a lot of questions about street art. Is it just a trend that will fade with time? And with so many people jumping on the bandwagon and putting up their own pieces, will street art’s original rebellious purpose be diminished?
Beyond the Street is the first book of its kind to provide a truly comprehensive look at the street art world today.
It provides an enlightening look at street art’s past and present, and invites questions as to its future.
Is it pretentious? Yes, but what else can be expected from a book about the latest trend in art?
RATING: 4 stars out of 5
wildman@umdbk.com
