Starting Local, Reaching Global, by Ken Miller

13 April 2009

Saturday@Phillips
Auction: Saturday 25 April 2009 Noon
Phillips de Pury & Co. 450 West 15 Street New York NY
Viewing 21 - 25 April

Lot 303
Keith Haring, Apocalypse 4, 1988

During this decade, Urban art has become a code word for “street” artists in the same way that Urban radio stations play Hip-Hop and R&B songs. The term “urban” connotes a sense of grittiness and ethnic-ness that stems from the movement’s ostensible roots in graffiti and other forms of outlaw expression practiced by downtrodden city youths. But really, this is an extreme oversimplification of a youthful style of artistic expression that is engaged in a global cultural exchange. Most contemporary “urban” artists are not teens from the ghetto (nor are they from a particular racial group) and their heroes are just as likely to be Andy Warhol, Raymond Pettibon and Keith Haring as Taki 182 or Phase 2. Many are academy trained and are just as likely to draw inspiration from the aesthetics of rock music as Urban music styles.

Lot 313
Barry McGee, Untitled, 1993

What still makes their art distinctively urban is that they are reflecting and appropriating the iconography of contemporary city living, making art that references graffiti, graphic design, advertising, folk art ephemera, music and fashion imagery, and even art history. Engaged in a dialogue with mass culture instead of with academic culture and gallery art, what unites these artists is an overarching desire for “realness” (even if that sentiment is ironically or sarcastically expressed), community (in opposition to the global mass market) and politics (in an abstracted sense of “us versus them” rebelliousness).They have also embraced non-Fine Art media, such as collage, wheat pasting, pencil drawing, found objects and scrap materials, and computer illustration, often working with non archival materials as a more immediate and thus presumably more authentic means of expression.

Lot 355
Shepard Fairey, Marilyn Warhol, 2000

Lot 393
Jim Houser, The Snare, 2008

These artists’ idealized notion of youth culture rebellion has been manifested in a commitment to curating and exhibiting in independent galleries such as Space 1026 in Philadelphia and The Luggage Store in San Francisco, living in collective spaces such as the legendary Fort Thunder in Providence, and working collaboratively under rock band-style names such as Irak, Forcefield, Barnstormers, Paper Rad and assume vivid astro focus. An un-self-conscious regionalism has become an important element of these artists’ work. Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Thomas Campbell and Chris Johanson defined the Bay Area art scene in the late ‘90s; Geoff McFetridge, Mike Mills and Shepard Fairey created a brightly-colored Los Angeles aesthetic; Brian Chippendale, Mat Brinkman, Hisham Bharoocha and Bjorn Copeland manifested Providence’s punk rock tribalism; Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Jim Houser and Clare Rojas exhibited Philadelphia’s whimsical folk aesthetic; and in New York, KAWS, Neckface, Reas (Todd James) and Faile commodified an aggressive style of street art.

Lot 394
Andrew Jeffrey Wright, X-Wave 1, 2006

Except for a few inroads such as the short-lived Alleged Gallery in New York and the periodic support of larger galleries such as Deitch Projects, these artists have mostly thrived on the fringes of the established art industry and they have established a direct relationship to an audience of their peers. If anything, this has lead to the strangest juxtaposition of this movement—some of the world’s most famous Urban artists have no significant New York gallery representation. Though they are profiled extensively in the media and have forged a global community that stretches from Asia to Australia to the Americas and Europe, they are largely ignored at the center of the established art industry. Some have even jumped past the large galleries and directly into museum collections.

Lot 365
Faile, Agony and Ecstasy / MJ, 2007

Honestly, I think many of them are happier this way. The lack of “fine art” recognition fits in nicely with their self-identification as youth culture free spirits and anti-corporate radicals. And if this allows them to make art without the restrictions of gallery approval and academic certification, all the better. They are speaking directly to us.

Lot 399
Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Three works: (i) Untitled 1 (Forcefield Installation at 2002 Whitney Biennial), 2002; (ii) Untitled 2 (Forcefield Installation at 2002 Whitney Biennial), 2002; (iii) Untitled 3 (Forcefield Installation at 2002 Whitney Biennial), 2002

Ken Miller was editor in chief of Tokion magazine from 2002-2007 and went on to publish Revisionaries: A Decade of Art in Tokion with Abrams Image. He writes routinely for V, V Man and Interview magazines as well as being a member of the editorial board of CITY magazine and publisher of Anathema magazine, an arts journal compiled in The Last Magazine from Rizzoli/Universe. Ken is currently completing SHOOT, a compilation of contemporary photography publishing with Rizzoli International in fall 2009.

Lot 403
Brian Chippendale, Power Hungry Noise Musician Gobbles Up Military Defense Budget, 2007

Lot 402
Bjorn Copeland, Summer Jam, 2007