Thursday, August 11, 2011

Has Street Art Peaked?


In a word, yes.

Has Street Art Peaked?

This week was a big week for MELROSEandFAIRFAX. Based on web rankings, M&F achieved a major accomplishment in becoming the top street art blog in the USA. That is a very cool thing, but even as the blog's stock share is rising, what is the state of street art in general? Has it peaked? Or will street art continue to grow?

Simply put, yes, street art has peaked.

We believe that some big factors last spring served as a catalyst to thrust street art into the forefront of mainstream culture, and then it climaxed, and now is the fall from the peak.

Things like Banksy's coming to Los Angeles and putting up multiple pieces, along with 'Exit Through The Gift Shop' being nominated for an Oscar really got people amped up. More and more people were finding out about street art, and many were becoming obsessed with it. At this time, literally thousands of people were driving all over the city trying to chase down Banksy's pieces of art--and they had to hurry, because you'd never know when they'd disappear! All of a sudden major newspapers were asking if it is vandalism or art, and whether or not unsanctioned pieces should be protected. It was a really exciting time, and we believe these events thrust street art into the mainstream limelight, where it stayed for the remainder of the spring and into the summer.

It was a little anti-climactic when 'Exit' didn't win an Oscar. But that was not the peak. Even after Banksy left town, the streets of Los Angeles remained lit up with street art. It seemed like a new street artist was popping up every day, and from the electrical boxes all the way up to rooftops, the art was so thick that piece upon piece got stacked together. The city was a big canvas. On another level, the 'art world' was really beginning to take a renewed interest in street art. There were multiple street art shows at numerous galleries every night of every weekend. Even new artists who had literally been on the streets for a couple of months were getting art shows--and sometimes even selling. LA became home to the biggest street art gallery in the world, and even MELROSEandFAIRFAX was approached to curate its first art show. You could say that the city had caught 'street art fever'.

It was a wild time in the city of Los Angeles, but, as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Soon after this street art 'peak', the street art world came crashing down. It was hard to notice, but the fall was swift and immediate. The cause can't be attributed to one thing, it was a combination of factors. It all started with the streets becoming more and more empty. Less and less new art was going up, and it even got to the point that at one time, for the first time ever, this blog ran out of pictures to post. And as for the galleries, there were still a lot of shows, but they were half as empty as they were a few short months before, and the art quit selling. Many shows would end with only a couple of pieces with red dots next to them. And a lot of street artists experienced difficulty with the gallery world, including ourselves, who have never been paid for the work we put on curating an amazing art show that was featured next to MOCA in the NY Times. Experiences like these left a bitter taste in the street art community's mouth. And then, to cap it all off the city heightened its buffing efforts of street art, and the prosecution of artists.

Right now, we believe the current climate is something like the hair of the dog on the morning after. This is the hangover.

But, to say that street art has peaked is not to say that the bottom has fallen out. Street art is still a good investment, and we believe its trajectory will be similar to that of skateboarding. Skateboarding, at one point, was mainstream. Everyone had a skateboard and everyone skated. This was its peak, and as it fell, it became less popular. A decade after the peak, skateboarding was an outcast sport. Still, it had a strong underground culture supporting it, and it has repositioned itself, and now, the sport is growing more and more popular than ever. It is our prediction that within 20 years, the X Games will be bigger than the Super Bowl.

Street art is much the same in that it started out last winter at a level 2. Then, when it got more and more popular during the spring, it shot up to an 8. At its most feverish point, it made it to its peak at a 9. But then the fall came, and it fell all the way back down to a 5. This is where we believe the scene is at now. We anticipate that it might even fall a bit more, maybe down to a 4. But it is still higher than where it started at a 2.

With a similar underground framework supporting the scene, no matter what the tides might bring with subtle ups and downs, this is the major art movement of the future. And, in a short period of time, we believe that street art will become generally accepted as being the primary art movement of this generation, and the biggest art movement the modern world has ever known. Street art might have peaked, but if it were a stock, it would be a wise idea to be buying. It might have peaked, but street art is going to keep growing~

22 comments:

  1. No it has not peaked. I appreciete all the pictures you guys post, but you have a lot to learn about street art. This is only the beginning for street art and it has A LOT further to go!

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  2. The only thing that has peaked is the fever pitch of new artists hitting the streets. For months, certain parts of the city were covered. As artists started gaining recognition for their hard work, they spent more time preparing gallery pieces than pounding out on the streets. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is freaking wonderful! The 'fad' of Street Art will die out and people who posted one or two posters, or tagged their first door and considered themselves artists will get bored with it and move on to another bandwagon to hop on.

    I drove down Melrose last night and it was a creepy shade of grey, but I still managed to spot two guys in two different places getting up. Street Art is still very alive and is one of the most beautiful mediums in the world.
    Stay up.

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  3. The MOCA show probably had a lot to do with it too. Little Tokyo is slammed to death with art now. Love it!

    MX.

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  4. i guess geezie knows all

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  5. okay now everyone has to find a real job to support themselves. most of you live with your mom anyway

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  6. Damn Banksy killing the LA street art scence! Flooding everyone flickr or blogs with with his (their?) endless sea of 6 or 7 stencil pieces!

    -w16

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  7. It's over. All hipsters can return to where they came from.

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  8. X Games bigger than the Super Bowl?!

    That's a bold statement

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  9. Its funny to see everyone get mad that an artist is focusing on a gallery show.. some people just enjoy making art and want people to see it... whether its on the street or a gallery or a blog or a magazine or whatever.. who the hell are you to tell them where they should put their art.. THEY ARE THE ARTISTS.. i agree the people who actually care about art will stay in the mix after the fad goes away. but nobody should ever get mad at any artist for "not getting up" in the streets because theyre focusing on gallery stuff. thats selfish. never let a blog, gallery owner, fan, fellow artist tell you what to do with your art. sorry for the rant. carry on haters...

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  10. Blogs like Melrose and Fairfax lead people to believe that anybody can be a street artist. Most of these "street artists" should keep their art at home and not in the streets. It took artists like Fairey, Banksy and Invader years before they were even approached by a gallery. Now every person who puts up a stick thinks they should have hgallery shows. This is what is leading to the downfall of street art. When "artists" like Free Humanity, Lush, and Bankrupt Slut think they are gallery creidable is the biggest joke of all!

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  11. You weren't paid? That's not good. Who didn't pay you? You were very excited about that show and you should have been paid.

    From what I have observed of street art lately - in LA and at the MOCA show - part of the problem is perhaps in the rather excessive attention paid to somewhat thin and overrated artists. I am particularly focused on Banksy in this regard. At MOCA's 'Art in the Streets,' the weakest parts of the show where the silly drum set room and the Banksy corner. I stood immobile and dumbfounded in that Banksy corner for quite some time two Sundays ago and felt a profound embarrassment for all the hyperventilated idiocy surrounding this feeble but gentle joker. Such focus on an exceedingly corporate and business-oriented artist of limited skills is bound to have a negative effect on an art form trying to be taken seriously.

    Kill the Banksy myth and move on to art.

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  12. M&F you are a damn fool period.

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  13. Well the bottom will fall out When MBW has a show and ALL his pieces sell. That will be the final slap to all the artists who work so hard and sell very little...

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  14. First of all Banksy is ahead of his time and has immense talent. Second, Free Humanity is the shit.

    That is all.

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  15. "Less and less new art was going up, and it even got to the point that at one time, for the first time ever, this blog ran out of pictures to post."

    No offense but SERIOUSLY? Sounds like an excuse for you not posting about street art as LA is but only one of the hubs for Street Art. (e.g. New York, London, Paris, Berlin, etc.)

    Look at Street art sites that have been around for years like Wooster Collective, 12oz Prophet, Arrested Motion, Brooklyn Street Art, Streetsy, Unurth, Hooked Blog, Vandalog and etc... to see that they didn't run out of pics and content to post multiple times every day...

    Please stick to posting about the local street art happenings and not make generalizations about an entire genre of art (around the world) from purely your localized viewpoint. Which is not entirely accurate considering Shepard Fairey, Anthony Lister, D*Face, Retna, Saber, Kenny Scharf have all hit up the streets since the MOCA exhibition...

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  16. The shitty thing about subversive cultures reaching mainstream is that a spotlight hinders those who creep in the shadows.

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  17. street art is creativity without rules, a hidden face behind the art, that line has been so thinned out as of late. galleries=rules, if your doing street art to get into a gallery, your no better than the corporate world that has clearly manipulated you already. way to be apart of the system.

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  18. The os gemeos " drum set room" was dope.

    -w16

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  20. alec monopoly left LA. galleries galore. overhype. revoks arrest. hot streets. galleries. overhype of crummy artists. more crummy artists. oh did i mention galleries. too many shitty half assed gallery shows

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