Graffiti alters facade of the Tate ModernFollowingreports of vandals striking at Stonehenge, graffiti has been splashedall over Tate Modern’s riverside façade in London. But there is nocontroversy here: this is art.In the gallery`s first commission to tinker with the former powerstation’s façade, graffiti artists from cities around the worldincluding Bologna, Spain and New York were invited to create15-metre-tall art displays for the gallery`s Street Art exhibition.Artists Blu, Faile, JR, Nunca, Os Gêmeos and Sixeart were chosen todemonstrate “the more visual and engaging urban art as opposed totext-based graffiti and tagging”. To complement the exhibition, thereis a walking tour in Southwark showcasing the work of five otherMadrid-based street artists.Tourists emerging from St. Paul’s Cathedral across the river weresurprised to spot the large murals which featured diverse designsinvolving different topics. The exhibition’s curator Cedar Lewisohnobserves that Parisian artist JR’s black-and-white portrait of a youthwielding a video camera as he would a gun, “challenges ourpreconceptions about the way that we digest images” while Sixeart’scomic book-inspired colourful drawings focus on the “interior landscapethat he’s exposing”. Painted on a sugar-based coating on the walls, theartworks will be easily removed when the exhibition ends on 25 August. The project illustrates a progression in the union of architecture andgraffiti. Graffiti is historically the arch-enemy of architecture, butTate Modern’s endorsement elevates the work to the status of art. Yetthis project is almost inevitable in the street art’s evolution withinmainstream society. In May, hundreds of people queued for hours toattend the graffiti ‘Cans Festival’ initiated by Bristol-based artistBanksy whose stencil was auctioned at a tag of £228,000 in a Bonhamsauction.Independent curator and writer Amos Klausner suggested that street arthas succeeded in giving people a voice and identities wherearchitecture has failed to do so. Lewisohn remarks: “What these artistsare trying to do is to make the world a more beautiful place, a morehuman place.” He continues, “And architecture sometimes doesn’t dothat.”By leading exhibitions out of the building - in fact, directlyon to the building - Tate Modern is responding to a call for the builtenvironment to be personally meaningful, and signals how the buildingis no longer sacred territory for the architect’s own indulgence, butan art canvas for the masses to enjoy.
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