The graffiti in the alley between Honore and Wolcott is no secret. The Maxwell Colette gallery blogs about it at least once a month. They even have a flickr stream that tracks the constant changes in the street art there.
Today I decided to make the blue line journey to check out this Wicker Park alley's graffiti feast. I turn left off on Division onto Honore and walk through quiet neighborhoods, past an elementary school on recess, fences covered in fake cobwebs, sidewalks crunching with yellow leaves. At Augusta I turn right, pass a couple houses, and face the alleyway. From the sidewalk it looks like just another alleyway: parked cars, garbage cans, fire escapes. I begin to walk down it and I start to see the street art. I snap pictures with my phone. I feel like I'm in the best museum in the world.
As I walk home I think about why I label the graffiti I just saw as capital "A" Art. I remember visiting the National Museum of Art's modern building last fall and my sudden disillusionment with the museum system. The Mondrian that I saw was yellowed and cracked. Giacomettis were piled on a pedestal together like an exhibit in a natural history museum.
Street art, like the work I saw today, is the most contemporary. It does not rely upon "systems of reception wherein distinction is conferred." It is temporary, site specific, new, and often comments on politics and culture. It even takes part in its own cultural and political war because it is illegal. Chicago's street art is at odds with Mayor Daley's "Graffiti Blasters," who search the streets for graffiti to paint over.
Like public sculpture, street art relies so much on its location. And like museum art, street art participates in a conversation bigger than itself. Tags interlock with the bigger pieces that melt together, they communicate, have a "dialogue" with each other by necessity.
Street art does what avant garde art does, it pushes the limits of accepted visual arts through its imagery and location.
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