Isabel Samaras "Wize", Oil on wood
The 5 Year Anniversary show at Jonathan Levine Gallery runs through the end of March. I was checking out the work online and just happened to catch the fact that Jonathan, his artists, and a run down of the street art genre was featured in a New York Times article. It’s a nice first attempt to bring the work of some worthwhile artists into the minds of the mainstream art establishment. Written by someone who I presume is completely outside the circle of artists he’s writing about, in terms of taste and life experience, the article does its best to define the work and give the group a nod of approval. Somehow, it still manages to rub me the wrong way, but that’s not difficult to do these days – especially when it comes to art and its criticism. I guess I just wish that the genre weren’t still in a stage of having to fight for recognition. Maybe “fight” isn’t the right word. It isn’t as though any of the artists referenced by the article are all that concerned with appealing to the snooty art establishment anyway. I guess to me, the piece just feels like a handout when it could have just been written about in terms that presented it as a capable art scene that’s been standing on its own two feet for a while now. It seemed the author was still validating it in some way. The name dropping at the end of the article didn’t help. And trying to re-define the entire genre as “pop pluralism” just sounds ridiculous. Whatevs.
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