An authentic Kansas City art experience doesn't require waiting for the first Friday of the month. There's no boxed wine, no crowded corridors, no closing time: One need only overcome the fear of urban alleyways.
The Kansas City Art Institute is indirectly responsible for making this Midwestern city a street artist's oasis. Gear, a Kansas City native, calls himself Kansas City's first graffiti artist; he can remember throwing up his first tag as early as 1982. But he dropped out of the Art Institute in 1993, after his first semester — when, he says, members of the school's administration informed him that they didn't recognize street art as a legitimate focus of study. The following semester, another painter, known as Scribe, tells The Pitch he was asked not to return for the same reason.
Gear and Scribe soon had a new goal: to make graffiti as visible as possible in Kansas City. They approached business owners about painting murals — they didn't call it graffiti — on their buildings. They had no car, so they strapped 24-foot ladders to their backs and hauled gallons of paint in Army duffel bags from their place at 43rd and Walnut to Westport. A few business owners, such as Mark Dodd of Big Dude's Music City at 2817 Broadway, offered up their walls to host Scribe and Gear's artwork. Big Dude's has since been painted over, but many other walls still display Scribe and Gear's murals. In 2003, the pair won prestigious Charlotte Street Foundation awards.
These days, the alleys and tucked-away walls of the city crawl with street art that is political, poetic, rebellious and funny, a sketchbook left by artists passing through town, visiting to paint with their idols or just moving on after four years of art school.
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Love the article "Art Crimes" by Nadia Pflaum!
While I am not an art student and, other than woodcarving, can't really consider myself an artist (though I am the son of an artist); I do have a strong personal connection to art. That connection led me to write about �Graffiti as Art.�
In the spring of 1988, in my final semester as an undergrad, I still needed to complete an Art Appreciation course and it wasn't scheduled for that semester.
To find a solution, I met with the dean of the Art Dept in his office (Monet, Renoir and other Impressionist on every wall). The options he offered - three 5-7 page papers that would lead to a final grade or one more extensive, 15-20 page paper that would do the same. I, not wanting to deal with multiple papers and believing I could come up with a topic that could do the trick, chose the single paper option. I went home with the task of finding that topic to report back to the dean within two days. He stated that he would make a decision then as to whether to accept the topic or recommend a different one.
While hanging at a bar and "seeing a man about a horse," I was reminded of how artistic and poetic graffiti can be and thought at length about the possibilities. In two days I came back and stated that I had chosen Graffiti as my topic. He was very uneasy about the selection but, over the course of 10 minutes I convinced him to let me use it. He stated that it would be difficult to prove Graffiti was art but that he would allow it and looked forward to seeing the results in a matter of weeks.
Over the course of the semester I researched the history (Pompei, the ghettos of European cities, the Christmas Train in New York, early tag artists, etc., etc.), and gathered together photographs I had taken in San Francisco and elsewhere.
When all was said and done, I not only convinced him but, I receive an "A+ !" on the paper. Victory was mine!
The article "Art Crimes" has obviously brought back memories but it has also validated my (and so many others') appreciation for this art form. Thank you!
Love the article "Art Crimes" by Nadia Pflaum! While I am not an art student and, other than woodcarving, can't really consider myself an artist (though I am the son of an artist); I do have a strong personal connection to art. That connection led me to write about “Graffiti as Art.” In the spring of 1988, in my final semester as an undergrad, I still needed to complete an Art Appreciation course and it wasn't scheduled for that semester. To find a solution, I met with the dean of the Art Dept in his office (Monet, Renoir and other Impressionist on every wall). The options he offered - three 5-7 page papers that would lead to a final grade or one more extensive, 15-20 page paper that would do the same. I, not wanting to deal with multiple papers and believing I could come up with a topic that could do the trick, chose the single paper option. I went home with the task of finding that topic to report back to the dean within two days. He stated that he would make a decision then as to whether to accept the topic or recommend a different one. While hanging at a bar and "seeing a man about a horse," I was reminded of how artistic and poetic graffiti can be and thought at length about the possibilities. In two days I came back and stated that I had chosen Graffiti as my topic. He was very uneasy about the selection but, over the course of 10 minutes I convinced him to let me use it. He stated that it would be difficult to prove Graffiti was art but that he would allow it and looked forward to seeing the results in a matter of weeks. Over the course of the semester I researched the history (Pompei, the ghettos of European cities, the Christmas Train in New York, early tag artists, etc., etc.), and gathered together photographs I had taken in San Francisco and elsewhere. When all was said and done, I not only convinced him but, I receive an "A+ !" on the paper. Victory was mine! The article "Art Crimes" has obviously brought back memories but it has also validated my (and so many others') appreciation for this art form. Thank you!
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