Before it was referred to as “street art,” graffiti was not largely considered part of the artistic canon by the establishments who dictated such things. A new exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Arts in Alabama follows the form’s rapid transformation from street-level expression maligned by art-world machers to internationally recognized (and highly marketable) visual language. Nearly 30 works from New York to London to the American South can be found in the museum’s year-long survey, “Gateway: From Graffiti to Gallery,” which charts the inception and evolution of five leading street artists’ careers, and how their works became intrinsically intertwined with the pop iconography of today’s art, fashion, and media landscapes.
The exhibition opens on early-1980s Manhattan, where the works of pioneering artists Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf first leapt out of the subway stations and back alleyways of the East Village and Lower East Side onto the white walls of the city’s most renowned galleries. “Gateway” then moves on to examine the work of two current torchbearers: KAWS and Banksy, who both use graffiti’s extraordinary capacity to mint iconography to critique commercialism in American culture.
Here, Stan Hackney, the MMoA’s chief curator of art & audience engagement, sat down with CULTURED to trace graffiti’s influence on contemporary culture through some of the form’s most iconic works.
Keith Haring, Untitled, 1983
Keith Haring began his career in the labyrinth of the New York subway system, etching his figures in chalk quickly—to avoid arrest from the police—on blank advertising space. “If I was going to draw, there had to be a reason,” the young artist shared in Art in Transit, a 1984 publication covering his early subway drawings. “That reason, I decided, was for people.” This mantra did not change for Haring as he entered the professionalized art world with dealer Tony Shafrazi, who he signed with in 1982. Eschewing traditional white canvas, Haring utilized vinyl tarps from construction sites for his paintings. He first noticed the material in 1982 while passing a Con Edison crew that had used the industrial tarpaulin to protect their tools. The tarps contained the inherent “anti-art” and gritty aesthetic Haring was known for, while large enough for the artist to create a monumental composition. Untitled, 1983, came at a pivotal moment for Haring. Executed following his first solo exhibition with Shafrazi, the painting stands as a mediator between Haring’s early, rebellious works to what would become major commercial success.
Kenny Scharf, Light Years Away, 1983
Kenny Scharf emerged in the East Village art scene in the late-1970s amongst close friends and collaborators, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Coining the term “Pop-Surrealism” in a self-written 1981 manifesto, Scharf’s work is imbued with a sort of psychedelic, playful energy. In Light Years Away, 1983, we begin to see Scharf’s visual language take shape—the early influence of his friends, Haring and Basquiat, and mentor, Andy Warhol (the two artists used to trade works in the ’80s) is clearly apparent. Created just a year before his seminal When Worlds Collide, 1984, which would be featured in the 1985 Whitney Biennial, the painting reveals the ideas and themes that would become part of his signature. While appearing comical in nature, Scharf’s early work touched on the anxieties of nuclear catastrophe, middle-class angst, and other contemporary concerns. Describing his 1984 painting, Scharf shared, “There’s peace; there’s chaos… Everything exists all together.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat, ERO, 1984
Jean-Michel Basquiat, another friend and collaborator of Haring and Scharf, was nearing the height of his popularity in 1984. His artwork, described by others as neo-expressionist, was formed by an array of art historical and cultural sources: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, graffiti art, Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, religious sources, the list goes on. ERO, 1984, is a personal tribute to Dominique Philbert, a close companion of Basquiat and another street artist in his orbit. On the left of the composition, Philbert is rendered in a similar manner to Basquiat’s previous depictions of Picasso and Warhol. Basquiat frequently included Black figures in his paintings—musicians, athletes, other artists. These heroes and saints were vehicles for reflection upon his own cultural identity. Basquiat establishes himself—and Philbert—in a legacy of perhaps the most widely-recognized artists today.
ERO is a rarely exhibited work: Prior to “Gateway,” the painting was included in the Museum of Fine Art Boston’s “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” in 2020 and 2021. Before that, the last museum exhibition featured the work was in 1993 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Banksy, Playmate of the Month, 2000
Banksy’s work began in the U.K. and has now been seen all over the world. Speaking out against war and its horrible aftermath, Playmate of the Month, 2000, showcases the artist’s early obsession with the coexistence of violence and the commercial in popular culture. The stark contrast between the instantly recognizable Playboy bunny ears and the machine of war lays bare the absurdity of a world wherein war and consumerism live intertwined. The sexualization of the tank echos later scandals from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay that erupted during the Iraq war. (In 2006, Banksy secretly installed a life-size blowup doll dressed in a hood and orange jumpsuit—a reference to Guantanamo Bay detainees—in Disneyland’s Thunder Mountain Railroad ride.) This early work is a rare instance that reveals the artist’s hand, combining painterly brushstrokes with his telltale stencil process.
KAWS, CHUM, 2006
Another artist who began his career in the streets of New York, KAWS takes aim at our society’s obsession with consumerism. As with Banksy, and earlier role models like Scharf and Basquiat, KAWS appropriates many of our beloved and immediately recognized images such as Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, and the Michelin Man and turns them into his own creations. Chum, 2016, is a vibrant shaped canvas that jumps off the wall and commands your attention. Taking consumerism one step further, he makes this commonplace character of the Michelin man now something to admire and “worship.” He has successfully taken a path of creating original one-of-a-kind artworks as well as toys, editioned collectables, and corporate branded products. He, like Keith Haring, is concerned with making art accessible to all and not just for the wealthy.
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