Street Art Takes Flight
Conversation with Jeremy T. Chestler, Executive Director, Art Center/South Florida
By:Daedrian McNaughton
“Some people want to make the world a better place. I just wanna make the world a better looking place. If you don’t like it, you can paint over it!”- Banksy
Graffiti, street art, or writing on the walls is the oldest form of communication and human expression. It has been in existence since ancient times, existing in the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece where the name of images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on any property. Although it has been in existence since the dawn of time, it is still not acceptable in certain societies, communities, and countries. The Defacing and destruction of public property without the owner’s consent, is illegal, and if caught is punishable by law.
Street Art is used as a form of expression or communication where the writer or artists use canvas that are in their immediate surroundings, often times walls to express social and political messages. According to renowned graffiti artist Banksy, graffiti is the only honest art form remaining in this world. To be a graff artist, very little money is required to start, and no one has to pay to see your work.
The once frowned upon movement is becoming a more acceptable form of art by members of the public and is challenging the status quo. As a part of the many festivities during Art Basel, Street Art will abandon the streets and make the Art Center/South Florida their home in hopes to give exposure to the movement. During Art Basel, Art Center/South Florida will serve as the venue and co-organizer for a gala opening, panel discussions, book signings, private viewings and additional collaboration for artists.
The Art Center has partnered with Primary Flight, an underground street art movement and Blue Print For Space, a collection of contemporary Street Artists and Graffiti Writers in an effort to gain an audience of established fine arts as well as main stream audience. According to Primary Flight founder, BooksIIII, the Street Art movement will maintain the same edge and voice that wails in the street through its transition from the street to the Art Center/South Florida. Residents and visitors to Miami will witness artists like Books, Black, and Typoe at work as they create beautiful murals in the windows of the gallery. They will have a chance to view street art in motion, a rare look into the underground movement.
We had an opportunity to discuss with Jeremy T. Chestler, Executive Director, Art Center/South Florida, the exposure the exhibit will bring to the community and the movement, and why the Art Center/South Florida has decided to house the once frowned upon, Street Art movement.
The Blue Print for Space, premieres on Wednesday, December 2 with a Collector and Press Preview from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., and opens to the public from 8:30 to 10:00 p.m. (800 Lincoln Road at Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach). This event is a showcase of the annual Primary Flight Street Art event that takes place during Basel week, where patrons get a map and are able to watch some of the world’s most important street artists doing their thing.
“A well placed piece of street art can make you smile, laugh or think about what it is to be human in our modern world.” Alex MacNaughton
PGM: What do you think of this new movement called Street Art?
JC: It’s definitely not so new. It’s enjoying a renaissance. It’s becoming more and more of a feature in the contemporary art world. Traditionally it was more of an underground movement. I think the focus has grown as people are looking for new and better things and so on. Even if you look back at Kenny Sharf and Keith Haring were very much involved with the graffiti world.
PGM: At one point it was frowned upon within the community. Is it becoming more acceptable now?
JC: Exactly, I think fewer people are getting arrested. It certainly has been gaining credibility and ligitimacy in the art world which I think is always beneficial to any kind of movement.
PGM: Tell us a little about Primary Flight…
JC: They are an interesting group and they have been organizing series of site specific murals and installations in Miami’s Wynwood area for the past few years, and it’s really been a labor of love. It’s coordinated by this fellow by the name of Books and his partner Mr. Black, of course they have to have cool names, and they worked with an artist down here by the name of Typoe who is actually helping to curate the exhibition we have here at the Art Center. They have been doing this for a few years now and it has grown in greater and greater amounts in prominence over the past few years. We have a mutual friend who introduced us. We started talking about the fact that in addition to the project they are doing in Miami, they were really interested in doing a fine art museum quality exhibition involving street art, and it was a tremendous appeal to me. The artist we are working with, the exhibitions here like Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Andy Howell, Logan Hicks and others, just incredible talents, and to help them gain more a main stream audience and more of an audience of established fine arts collectors really has tremendous appeal in our efforts to support artists.
PGM: Why have you decided to open your doors to these artists?
JC: Our mission has always been about educating the public, and supporting artists. We have various artist programs that provide subsidize studio spaces base for young artists and mid career artists. We also have an education program, and part of that, aside from the hands on art construction really creating that interaction and engagement between artists and the general public. The opportunity to have the wonderful exhibitions in our gallery serves two purposes. It hopefully advances the careers of the artists; it also helps to educate the public about contemporary art. There is this mystic appearance to contemporary art; it really puts some amount of intimidation in people. It’s like I didn’t know what they were reading when they were 5 years old, so I cant really figure out what I am looking at without really understanding that there is more to it than that. You don’t necessarily have to approach it from that background to be able to appreciate it, and those 2 programs that we provide you can learn more and you can appreciate it on that higher level as well.
PGM: So you are not only pushing for the younger crowd you are targeting everyone?
JC: Absolutely, we are here to educate everyone.
PGM: How do you think the older generation will react to Street Art/Graffiti art?
JC: I think they will react well. I think people like to see different things, new things and expose themselves to situations and ideas that may not normally occur to them, in their daily lives. For instance, we hosted a show last year that was working with pop surrealist artists and they were essentially a show about Kaiju which is a Japanese word for scary monsters, and basically it was Godzilla, ….those kinds of characters were created in reaction to the atomic age. We had these installations of vinyl art monsters that were created by artists, and we were wondering how an older audience might initially react to it. We were getting a tremendous response because for many of them, it was a reflection back to very interesting science fiction when they were growing up.. There was a connection for them through that.
PGM: The exhibit is around the time of Art Basel. Why have you decided to preview the exhibit at that time?
JC: Like most new organization here, it is a great time of year because it is the holidays, and the fact that this is the high season. There is a large amount of audience and for Art Basel all the professionals and collectors they come to town for it. It is a great opportunity to put your best foot forward, so that they really see the strength of the organization.
PGM: What kind of work should we expect from this exhibition during Basel?
JC: 2 dimensional pieces like paintings, then there will also be things like site specific mural installations being done by the artists. For instance a few of the artist are going to come in and work directly in our windows painting large murals, I think mostly with spray paint, but it provides a couple of interesting things. it’s a great opportunity for people to see them at work in the windows but then it invites people immediately to come, see and learn about them. There are going to be a different variety of work.
PGM: As the name implies, Street Art, one would assume that this kind of work would be an outside exhibition. Why have you moved it indoors? Will it not loose its edge?
JC: The exhibition that we are doing “Blue Print for Space” really is an effort to take street art and take it to that next level so that it is a museum quality exhibition so where better than putting it into a major gallery (non-profit gallery) that has tremendous access to the audiences both for the fair but beyond the fair as well.
PGM: Do you get a lot of activities from tourists?
JC: Always this time of year which is phenomenal, even with the global crisis that is occurring throughout the past year, there is still strong European and South American turnout which is wonderful. I think the opportunity to expose the international audiences to the artists that are working inside South Florida is a fantastic and exciting opportunity.
PGM: When you are not hosting a major event, what are the activities or programs offered for locals?
JC: We have ongoing activities that people can learn how to draw, paint, sculpt, as well as dark room processing and all sorts of things along those lines. We have outreach programs like a free literacy program that we give year round which is an arts poor area in Miami Dade county
PGM: You are in a perfect location, right on Lincoln Road, in the heart of everything. What impact does it have on the community for you to have the Art Center in that location?
JC: I think tremendous. When we were founded back in 1984, this was actually a blighted area. Through the advent of the Art Center it really started drawing those audiences ,and other non profits area. About 2 years after our opening, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Art actually determined that this would be the ideal location for the New World Symphony and their theatre. It also lead the Miami City Ballet to open up a rehearsal studio on Lincoln Road. So it really became a cultural anchor and invited other anchors into the area which lead to the renaissance of Lincoln Road. Beyond that I think it is mostly the exposure we give to local artists for the international, national and local audiences.
PGM: Is there anything else you would like to add that we may have missed?
JC: I think it important for people to understand that we are non profit. We have a mission of serving the community and artist, so that this isn’t something where we are trying to enrich ourselves but to enrich our community instead.
***Primary Flight is a collaborative curatorial organization dedicated to the production of site-specific, street level, mural installations. Since its inception in 2007, Primary Flight has brought together over 100 of the world’s most influential Street Artists to install their bodies of work live in the streets of Wynwood. These projects provide a catalyst for burgeoning arts communities. Two books about Primary Flight events are scheduled to be released in the summer and winter of 2009, through Ginko Press Publishing. For more information, please visit http://primaryflight.com
***The 2009 edition of Primary Flight is sponsored in part by Miami’s Margulies Collection. Curator Katherine Hinds said, “Primary Flight brings a dynamic and exciting dimension to the Miami art scene and we are very pleased to serve as one of the sites for this year’s Street Art installations. Many Contemporary artists have drawn on the urban landscape for subject and inspiration, Basquiat, Walker Evans, Barry Mcgee to name a few. The artists in Primary Flight add a new voice to the urban genre in a big bang of painting, poetry and pavement.”