Viva la Revolución: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape

 

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

July 2010 – January 2011

The urban setting and its corresponding lifestyle are major sources of inspiration in contemporary culture. This is evident within the work of young artists who have rejected academia, as well as formal and conceptual trends in contemporary art. Instead, embracing urban styles and subcultures as their primary source of inspiration. This is a historic revolution in visual culture, in which the codes and icons of the everyday—found on the streets, and in graffiti, signage, waste, tattoos, and graphic design—have been appropriated and used as an integral part of contemporary artistic practice. The artists are as much a part of youth culture as they are participants in the art world, and they follow earlier artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, who in the 1980s used the style and systems of dissemination of the street to make and showcase their art.

Viva la Revolución featured the work of 20 artists from around the world who through their practice explore and reference global urban style and culture. Far removed from the tradition of landscape paintings portraying idyllic settings, the urban landscape is a source of inspiration, a platform for innovation, and a vehicle for expression. The city itself, its buildings, vehicles, people, and advertisements, are not only the surface where the art is applied. The city is also the inspiration. In many cases, the appropriation of the city’s physical elements is employed to create the work, such as the use of trashcans to create singing sculpture and the translation of corporate icons and signage into their paintings. Many of the artists used the urban landscape as a platform to directly address the general public and are therefore engaged in a negotiation between art, public space and civic authorities. Viva la Revolución: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape was comprised of works inside the museum, public commissions and interventions in sites around the city.

Artists

Akay
Banksy
Blu
Mark Bradford
William Cordova
Date Farmers
Stephan Doitschinoff [CALMA]
Dr. Lakra
Dzine
David Ellis
FAILE
Shepard Fairey
Invader
JR
Barry McGee
Ryan McGinness
Moris
Os Gemeos
Swoon
Vhils

 

Guest Curator: Pedro Alonzo

Project Website

Photo credits: Geoff Hargadon, Pablo Mason