Street artists Jorge Rodriguez Gerada, Cayetano Ferrer and the CutUpcollective are creating interesting, subversive projects - and there`snot a spray can in sightIs street art really stupid? Every time the mainstream media does anarticle on street art it`s treated in `yoof` style. It`s always a bitjokey. There`s usually some bad footage of an MC or skateboarder. Itbecomes one big, painful teenage cliche. Any time anyartist or critic attempts to say something interesting about how itcomments on contemporary society or to examine its political, artisticor social context it`s quickly edited out. The media seems to be in love with the street-art formula. That iscreated by bad youths who should be given curfews and have theirhoodies ripped off. They are thoughtless vandals who scrawl superficialrubbish on walls so other teens have something nice to look at whilethey`re skateboarding. How easy to stay superficial rather then do youresearch. Or look at the work.I am so bored of the `who`s Banksy?` question. Is his work sovacuous that the media refuse to discuss its content? Is street art aphenomenon without content and only methods? Yes there is a lot of bad and bland street work - like any otherkind of art. Private art galleries are filled with as much rubbish as astencil hall of fame. But there are artists who are creating streetinterventions that are subversive, that are interesting, that deserve ahell of a lot more credit. People like the CutUp collective in London, Jorge Rodriguez Gerada in Spain, Cayetano Ferrer in Chicago, Truth in Poland, Zezaoin Sao Paulo. None of this work uses a typical spraycan or stencilapproach but all of it still sits under the umbrella of street art. Allof these artists create work that is more subversive and stimulatingthan they are supposed to be.Banksy may have created a sea of wannabe stencillers but there ismuch more going on out there than public school boys writing onbathroom walls.
blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2008/07/street_art_stupid.html