artwork
Source: www.startsoma.com
Topic: Graffiti
Sort Desciption: Nor is serious graffiti art consistently of high quality. ... graffiti art circuit. Like the corner of Market and Sixth, it draws ...
Content Inside: 9 2 Rogues’gallery In defense of the city’s incredible, in-your-face, on-the-fly, half-hidden, sometimes beautiful, always illegal graffiti artwork . BY JONATHON KEATS PHOTOGRAPHS BY WINNI WINTERMEYER In defense of the city’s incredible, in-your-face, on-the-fly, half-hidden, sometimes beautiful, always illegal graffiti artwork . Viewing one of the most iconic paintings in San Francisco, by one of the Bay Area’s most acclaimed artists, requires a nocturnal stroll down a stretch of Market Street crisp with crack vials, where street-side prostitution is the primary cultural attraction. You won’t see this artwork during the daytime. Spray painted on the roll-down door fronting New Step Fashion, on Mar- ket near Sixth Street, the picture is cranked up out of sight during business hours, to reveal heaps of discount T-shirts and sneakers. Barry McGee’s work has been shown locally, at Gallery Paule Anglim and SFMOMA, and nationally in museums from Manhattan to Minneapolis. But his simple, unforgettable black-and-white por- trait of a downcast Everyman-in-undershirt has, since he created it one night in 1991, drawn countless thousands to this squalid corner. Some viewers are street artists in their own right, admirers of McGee’s graffiti, which he signed “Twist.” But many are art world cognoscenti, aware that the best McGee has to offer will never be found under halogen lights in a climate-controlled gallery. Conceived from street life, born on the run, his distressed figures belong to the urban landscape, interacting with the other markings on the walls, evoking accidental stories. The roughshod infrastruc- ture is part of their habitat, and an essential element of his art. This hasn’t made McGee’s figures especially welcome in their niche. Ever since New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani declared graffiti a “quality of life crime” in 1995, graffiti artwork has been grouped with spray can defacement and vilified as a social blight. In S ...
