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.
It’s easy for Wayne Thiebaud’s work to get kind of lost in the timeline of
artistic movements. He sometimes gets lumped in with the Pop Art movement,
but he came before them. He hung out with abstractionists, like de Kooning
and Kline, but wasn’t an abstractionist. His work can be compared to
Hopper’s, but it’s not really even close. Also, that pastel look of his, in
a world where we’ve learned to talk more in terms of fashion than movements,
can appear perhaps dated. But it’s not.
What I know about Thiebaud is mostly from my personal experience, seeing his
work at the exact same time I was getting into fine art. His work, to me,
was simply good painting. It wasn’t conceptual, so much as it wasn’t asking
a lot of questions, but it was of the highest order of skill. Unlike more
conceptual artists, or even the Pop movement, Thiebaud’s work was
undeniable. More than a craftsman, he was a professional. I wasn’t a
painter, but all the painters I knew respected him. That was important to
me, growing up. Art was not a safe or appreciated course of study, so
observing people who were serious about art and who treated it with respect,
pride and honor proved to me that it could be an endeavor of high regard. He
also understood the importance of inviting criticism into one’s life, and
being critical of one’s self, in order to push the work.
“We all need critical confrontation of the fullest and most extreme kind
that we can get. You can unnecessarily limit yourself by choosing your
criticism.” – Wayne Thiebaud
We’re in a macro kind of society that likes to label, categorize and write
the book before the story is even finished. Thiebaud reminds us that
everyday objects, family and the normal sights we see on our daily routines
are worthy of the artist’s attention. You don’t have to worry so much about
your theme and your importance to the world, at large. You can just see the
cupcake and paint it. And paint it well.
