A selection from our personal bookshelf: Street Market: Twist, Espo, Reas | 2000
Published by Little More
144 Pages
18,2 x 25,6 cm
Street Market
October 5–December 2, 2000
18 Wooster Street
Barry McGee, Todd James, and Stephen Powers joined forces to re-create their version of an urban street inside Deitch Projects’ 18 Wooster Street gallery. A liquor store, a bodega, a check-cashing outfit, and a car-service dispatch office were lined up beneath a cascade of illuminated signs. Battered trucks bombed with graffiti tags lay upended on the gallery floor. James and Powers spent several months scouring the streets for discarded storefront signs, reassembling the debris into a startling fusion of urban reality and urban fantasy.
James and Powers are inspired by the relationship between graffiti tags and advertising logos. Their street work deliberately confuses their artistic interventions with commercial signage. They have built their tags into enduring brand names. They borrow from advertising and watch as advertising borrows back. McGee first brought his world to Deitch Projects in April 1999, when he covered the gallery floor to ceiling with his evocative wall murals, painted wino bottles, and graffiti.
In Street Market, the focus was more sculptural, inspired by the urban phenomenon of panel trucks completely covered by layers of graffiti tags. McGee, James, and Powers have led a fresh approach to public art, drawing from the various traditions of graffiti, American vernacular signage, folk art, and ’60s Pop. (from editor)
