lo, Colo

Betting on Our Muses, juror  statement:

 

When Kim first approached me to jury this exhibition, I was frankly unsure whether I was the right person for the job. Being an invitational, in a sense she had already made a curatorial selection, and the truth is graffiti isn’t my area of expertise. Like everyone, I watched with interest its rise from misunderstood punk thing to beloved plaything of an art world starved for authentic expression. As a native New Yorker I accepted it as part of the urban landscape. I marveled at the nuances of its coded language, its makers’ willingness to risk arrest and injury to create something destined to be erased by city workers, and executed mainly anonymously. And as an art critic I was impressed by the artists’ total lack of engagement with the economics of the art world. But I felt that this made me a fan, not a scholar, and I had reservations about imposing the rules of my world onto theirs. So what made me do it? Turns out, Kim didn’t want an expert. It was her firm belief that the current generation of graffiti artists were accomplished craftspeople who were more than capable of holding their own in the fine art world. She didn’t want a graffiti show; she wanted a serious drawing show. I guess she heard I had been fired from Juxtapoz for being too arty, and figured I was a good choice.

 

So those were the ground rules. I was not told anything about the artists, most of whom I do not know personally. I am the first one to admit that judging art is almost an impossibility, especially when it comes to a group of work as eclectic as this. The truth is, every single piece in this show is strong. All of the artists are talented, even gifted. When it comes down to it, I guess you could say that the pieces I singled out were the mysteries. Not always the most florid or bold, the work that spoke to me most profoundly nevertheless took risks. Put it this way, I loved the work in this show that most deeply understands that art history and spray paint are not mutually exclusive; that a spirit of rebellion often shouts but sometimes whispers. The discipline, control, practice and fearlessness that go into this lifestyle leave me awe-inspired, but I can’t help thinking that sometimes it takes more balls for a tagger to study the classics than it ever took for Basquiat to throw up a tag.

 

We borrowed the title from a book of poetry by legendary iconoclast and low-key drunken intellectual Charles Bukowski. The man was a symbol of rebellion to be sure, but he was careful to always back it up with good work. Good work redeems all sins. The following poem is from his 1996 book Betting on the Muse. It’s called “until it hurts.”

 

You have to wait until it

Hurts, until it clangs in

Your ears like the bells

Of hell, until nothing

Else counts but it, until it is everything,

Until you can’t do any-

Thing else

But.

 

Then sit down and write

Or stand up and

Write

But write

No matter what

The other people are

Doing,

No matter what they will do to

You.

 

Lay the line down,

A party of one, what a party,

Swarmed by the

Light,

The time of the

Times,

Out of the tips of

Your fingers.

 

 

 

Thank you everyone.

 

 

Shana Nys Dambrot