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Feegz/Carlos Jesús Martínez Domínguez, Displaced Vandalism, 2011 (Mixed media on DOT signage)
Story and photos by Marisol Rodríguez
In Washington Heights and the Bronx, when and where beauty, creative expression and art intersect can often be well outside the typical medium of an art gallery or museum. Instead, the creative impulse, and the artist’s resistance to abandonment and exclusion in urban communities, often manifest in the streets, in hidden, underground spaces, on walls, in alleys.
At a recent artist’s talk at the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NOMAA), a group of uptown artists from northern Manhattan and the Bronx engaged in a dialogue on one of these forms of creative expression: street, or graffiti, art.
NOMAA hosted the event in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio, as part of El Museo’s biennial exhibition, The (S) Files 2011. El Museo’s first biennial, (S) Files or Selected Files, began in 1999. Since 2007, the (S) Files has focused on a specific theme, and this year’s was street art.
Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, one of the curators of the biennial and moderator of the artist talk, said the decision to choose this theme came from both an abundance of artists using materials found on the street and the museum’s interest in graffiti as an under-recognized artistic form.
Artist Carlos Rodríguez, alias Mare139, who has been “tagging,” as the application of spray-painting is called, on local trains since he was 8 years old, claimed graffiti art as “a language for us, by us.” He described graffiti as a way for youth to feel validated and live an expressive and creative life outside of an artistic institution.
“Graffiti democratized art and made it accessible for everyone,” Rodríguez said.
For Rodríguez, graffiti was also an escape from his childhood surroundings of the South Bronx, which, to his eyes, could resemble a harsh landscape, a rugged terrain he compared to Beirut.
Carlos Jesús Martinez Dominguez, aliases Feegz, Firo173 and Figaro, also argued for the importance of graffiti as a vehicle for youth to announce to the world, “I exist.” Consequently his love for graffiti art was rekindled a few years ago while teaching an after-school graffiti art class to students at the Children's Arts and Science Workshop.
During the past two years, Dominguez has been working with friend and artist Dister Rondon, alias Dister, who has been painting “I Love my Hood” murals in the Washington Heights area for the past six years.
Among the works featured in the (S) Files by Dominguez are street signs adorned with his tag names, drawings and messages. He noted that his work is extremely infused with religion, sociology and politics, topics that fascinate him.
“I can address subjects that can be uncomfortable to bring up in conversation in my art,” he said.
Among the ideas he explores in his artwork is the dichotomy of his inner thoughts. Using the phrase “dique,” which he translated as “supposedly,” Dominguez seeks to represent the conflicting ideas that he grapples with on a daily basis.
An example of such a contradiction, he said, is the energy he feels that comes from doing art illegally, such as tagging, versus a need to have more permissible spaces to display his art, especially in Washington Heights.
Feegz/Carlos Jesús Martínez Domínguez, Displaced Vandalism, 2011 (Mixed media on DOT signage)
Rodríguez, who is currently teaching classes on art and culture literacy at New York University, creates metal sculptures with a graffiti aesthetic. “Metal expresses what I was doing with painting, but in a physical form,” he said.
As a native of the Dominican Republic, artist Rider Ureña, who was also a part of the artist talk, said graffiti has more of a “nostalgic” feeling for him, since his exposure to the art form was primarily during visits to New York. In his work, he plays both with the incongruity, and the parallels, in street advertisements for nightclubs and political candidates.
While the artists acknowledged the ability of graffiti or street art to exist beyond the limits of the art market, they also noted its recent popularity as a far more popular, mass-market genre, and its growing presence in art galleries and auction houses internationally.
Rodríguez presented the artist talk event as an example of the upside to the increased exposure of street art. As graffiti is seen less as a threat or vandalism, he posited, its presence in galleries can create a space to have a dialogue about its art form.
“We know we are doing something right and of value to society and ourselves,” said Rodríguez. “Whether embraced by museum or not, street art doesn’t need to be validated by collectors or buyers.”
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The artists’ works will be on exhibit at NOMAA’s gallery space at 178 Bennett Avenue until Nov.18th. The (S) Files Biennial 2011 will be on exhibition at El Museo del Barrio located at 1230 Fifth Avenue until Jan. 8th, 2012.
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