In Alexandra Duncan’s essay, “From the Street to the Gallery,” Duncan questions the role graffiti plays in a gallery. She uses Zevs, a street artist turned art world phenomenon, as an example. She argues that when street art is put into a gallery, the new setting dictates the meaning of the art; the art might be the same formally, but the meaning is completely different. In the gallery, the work is commissioned and is seen as a commodity. In the street, graffiti is illicit and for the people of the street. Graffiti is universal, democratic, and accessible. However, once the the graffiti is put into a gallery, it is no longer universal or accessible. Rather, it is now a commodity to be seen and ultimately bought. Furthermore, Duncan states that graffiti’s meaning comes from its location. We have seen this in almost every reading we have done for the semester. Graffiti interacts with and feeds off of the street, but in a gallery, the graffiti becomes static and stagnant. In the street the graffiti changes every day by the nature of the way people interact with it; in the street, people can touch it, add to it, and find their own meaning in the work. In the gallery, there is no interaction with the work, and therefore, less of a connection with the work.
***thoughts from class
I think Basquiat created a nice dialogue with the reading. It illustrated all the concerns that Duncan brings up in her essay. In Basquiat, there is a clear distinction between his street art and the art he started creating for the gallery; Basquiat completely changed his style in order to sell to a broader audience. Although still using a spray can, once the work is no longer on a wall, it is no longer graffiti. We see this manifest when Basquiat starts painting on a canvas on the floor, instead of on a wall.