Outside the lines

When we think of visual art, we naturally think first of the paintings and sculptures found in museums and in people’s homes. Increasingly, though, art is being made and found outside these “frames” in the form of street art—freelanced outdoor murals and graffiti art, in particular.

This proliferation of street art, especially in major cities, raises a number of questions: What makes something a work of art? What gives art legitimacy? Why do we legitimize some forms of art and criminalize others?

These are some of the questions raised in Beyond the Frame, the fascinating if not entirely coherent new exhibition at the Museum of Northern California Art in Chico. Its occasional failure to cohere, however, results largely from the intrinsically rebellious nature of street art and, especially, graffiti art. Unhindered by academic notions of artistic propriety, street art is comfortable with incoherence.

Those choosing to see this exhibition would be wise to start with the excellent statement posted in the foyer. It’s by Eric Hartmann, a member of the MONCA board, and it does a fine job of putting the show in context. (There’s also a separate list of “basic graffiti terminology” whose vivid language speaks to the tribalism of the graffiti artists’ community.)

Artists have been drawing on walls and leaving their marks since the Paleolithic era, Hartmann points out. At some point, issues of ownership and permission began to define art and challenge graffiti’s legitimacy.

“If the authority commissions the work, it is legitimate,” Hartmann writes. “If they do not, it is vandalism.” Frescoes and Mexican murals are legal cousins to the illegal and uncommissioned works of today’s street artists.

Beyond the Frame approaches its subject in a variety of ways. Obviously, it’s impossible to move a street mural into the museum, but the museum got close. There are several large pieces on plywood that are done in a muralistic style (Dylan Tellesen and Matt Barber’s “I Don’t Want This Hurt,” for example) and assembled in the gallery.

The most dramatic of these is a massive piece called “Breathing” by West Sacramento artist Lin Fei Fei. Much to the surprise of gallery directors, she showed up with a large black-and-white painting on canvas of a man’s face. She pasted it to a gallery wall, where it took up about one-third of the space. She then poured black paint over the remaining wall, letting it drip down, to dramatic effect.

“Hey, it’s street art. They don’t always ask for permission,” MONCA board President Pat Macias told me. “I guess we’ll just paint over it.”

There are also photos of murals and graffiti art (I especially liked Susan Larsen’s pictures from Berlin) and paintings of members of the graffiti culture (Ruth Chase’s portrait of gang-banger-turned-preacher Leonard Duran, for example).

I was disappointed, however, to find no mention of Chico’s many murals and graffiti art. Nor was there mention of the city’s ability—or inability—to distinguish between them. The remarkable gallery of graffiti-style aerosol-art murals that the city commissioned under the Highway 99 Lindo Channel bridge, for example, had lasted for several years without being touched but lately have suffered from vandalism. Is anything being done to protect them? The city has a graffiti-eradication unit, but does it have a graffiti-preservation unit? Just wondering …

Note: Last week marked MONCA’s first anniversary, which it celebrated on Friday evening by holding a street party in front of the museum. Macias estimated that nearly 400 people showed up, many of them visiting for the first time. There were a lot of kids, and they had a blast painting the large paper canvas set out for them (and their parents, of course). As Picasso famously said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”