Tag Archives: Whole in the Wall: 1970-Now

Friday Ravels in Review

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For a weekly recap, I’ll start with the best: the video I made about Whole in the Wall, a street art exhibit, although I did have to correct something I said in the video by noting some great street art blogs. In second place, inspired by a discussion about Francis Bacon, I was excited to see and write about his retrospective at the Met. Then yesterday I tried to explain why the film The Queen put me off with it mix of fact and fiction.

And then a long time ago, when it was May, we touched on some Vermeer forgeries via Errol Morris’s series of articles Bamboozling Ourselves. All 7 are now published, if you want to check out the full tale. I also got on my high horse about a poetry scandal in Britain. But that was long ago in May.

Now it’s June, and so I expect the weather will cease and desist with this dreary, cold rain. I keep giving it stern glances out the window.

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Blogging Street Art

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Street art is a lot like blogs. It’s about an individual voice being thrown out into the public arena, adorning a public space with commentary. Some blogs might get a lot of attention, like the artists who covered the facade of the Tate Modern last year or Whole in the Wall, but most don’t. Trolling through different links or streeets, you never know what you come across, creating a landscape of surprise.

Blogs also might document street art better than Whole in the Wall exhibition I vlogged about yesterday. In the video, I said that the street art seems to be heading into a fine art, spraypaint-on-canvas-on-wall direction. I take that back.

Street art is still being done on the streets, and there are a number of blogs that document it. You can see how it plays against and becomes a part of its enviornment, often with a sense of humor (like Little People!), and how it can surprise you with an element of beauty where you would least expect it. So to balance out the white box and gilt rooms of my video yesterday, see these websites that document street art still in the street;

Less Street, More Art: Whole in the Wall

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Street art started out as graffiti in New York in the 1970s, but has developed and spread to be much more than that. This weekend the Ravels in Motion crew, and by that I mean myself with my new video camera, went to see Whole in the Wall: 1970 – Now, a large exhibition put together by the Helen Beck Gallery featuring some of the most prominent street artist from the 1970s onward. It’s on through June 27 at 529-535 W. 35th Street, and it’s really interesting both as a piece of New York history and in the way it presents street art as its seeming antithesis, fine art.