Curatorialist

When I came to L.A., in the early 90’s, Chaka’s tags were everywhere. You
couldn’t drive down a road without seeing his familiar scrawl on a highway
overhang or street sign. He’s having a one man show over at Mid-City Arts
- http://midcity-arts.com/, giving historical significance to his prolific
tagging. I don’t have much of an opinion on the issues of tagging, graffiti
and the defacement of public property – I don’t see why something can’t be
both illegal and art at the same time. In fact, I think too much importance
was put on the illegal activities involved. Like rap, the surrounding
culture has become too much of a distraction from the art itself.

The important things about what Chaka did are not terribly significant in
the world, but they are interesting, from an artistic standpoint. For one
thing, New York tagging and graffiti was unintelligible. Blocky, intricate,
interlocking letters kept words and names in a code-like obscurity, creating
new objects of design and a level of craftsmanship to aspire to. I visited
New York in 1986 for the first time and, to a young creative-minded kid, it
was completely overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Chaka, on the other side,
made tagging more of an everyman activity by simplifying the mark. You could
read it. And by toning down the design aspect of it, it actually caused
people to pay attention to other things, like location and ubiquity. It
became kind of about fame and self-promotion. A very L.A. interpretation of
graffiti.

In retrospect, what I like about the show is that, in truth, graffiti is
appropriately ephemeral. Here today, gone tomorrow. And, in that way, what
is most interesting about it is the way it marked a time period in my life.
It was part of the marked landscape of my own history. And a show like this
preserves the memory, like an opened time capsule. The show is about L.A.,
not Chaka. The visuals are like old familiar songs evoking memories and
emotions that will mean something different to everyone who sees them. If
that isn’t art, than nothing is.