| Standing on the corner of Jackson and 46th Avenues in Long Island City looking to the west, you see the façade of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center as it blends into the Manhattan skyline. It is a romantic view, hard not to admire and even harder to turn away from. But, if you happen to glance over your shoulder, another striking, art-related sight will surprise you across the way. In that other direction, a building with a base coat of yellow paint covered nearly head to foot in graffiti, towers over the street. |  |
5 Pointz – Jillian Steinhauer
Standing on the corner of Jackson and 46th Avenues in Long Island City looking to the west, you see the façade of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center as it blends into the Manhattan skyline. It is a romantic view, hard not to admire and even harder to turn away from. But, if you happen to glance over your shoulder, another striking, art-related sight will surprise you across the way. In that other direction, a building with a base coat of yellow paint covered nearly head to foot in graffiti, towers over the street. The elevated tracks of the 7 train stretch out around it, and passing trains seem to disappear into and then emerge from the building.
The corner of Jackson and 46th marks a kind of crossroads for anyone interested in art, with P.S.1 beckoning viewers one way and the graffiti covered building known as 5 Pointz beckoning them in the other. Of course, if you were forced to choose, the museum would have much to recommend it; however, if you took the time to follow the graffiti, you would be fully rewarded for venturing off the more-traveled path. Thrilling and eye opening, a visit to 5 Pointz feels akin to watching a movie from the front row of a theater. Head craning upwards, neck stretched back and jaw dropped, you won’t find yourself in the most comfortable of positions. But when the movie, or in this case the art, is good enough, you will forgive the physical discomfort in lieu of the delight and awe of the experience.
Given its proximity to P.S.1, 5 Pointz seems almost purposefully positioned to call to mind the dichotomy between art condoned by museums and the more unofficial art of the streets. But on the wall facing Davis Street, one artist has dubbed 5 Pointz “The Institute of Higher Burnin’,” and the name seems appropriate. The place has only a few rules, but rules nonetheless. Meres, the site’s coordinator and CEO (as he labels himself on his business card) has posted reminders all over the site warning would-be writers that they must obtain permits before working and may write only in their designated areas. In practical terms, 5 Pointz seems less a foe and more a friend (or at least acquaintance) of P.S.1. It is an outdoor, grassroots graffiti museum.
Like the works in any good exhibition at any good art museum, the graffiti at 5 Pointz pushes viewers to rethink how they see and perceive. Words prevail over pictures, a fact consistent with Meres’ use of the term “writers” to identify those who create graffiti, but not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think “Art.” What’s more, these words are much harder to comprehend than any of the pictures on the building. Names fill the spaces between windows and line the fire escapes with letters so big, so bloated and so melded together that words turn into abstract images as easily as abstract images trick the viewer into thinking they are words. I would swear that messages are encoded on the face of 5 Pointz—dialogues among artists and perhaps also between artists and a knowledgeable audience—but the most I could grasp was the existence of these dialogues and not their meaning. My first lesson at the Institute of Higher Burnin’ was that graffiti is clearly its own artistic medium defined by its own aesthetic principles. My second lesson was that I have much to learn.
In addition to the commanding presence of words, nearly everything on the face of 5 Pointz feels like an exaggeration or an expression of bigness. Rather than paint people and lifelike scenes, artists have created men with overstated noses and cartoon monsters with bad teeth. More toned down black-and-white pictures flair up with occasional bursts of loud color, and simple A’s and L’s swell to become balloons or expand into heavy, shadowed blocks. Writers exploit the dynamic clash that comes from placing two or three bright colors side by side in a tag. This is the root aesthetic and nature of street art—it must catch people’s attention. No one mails out press releases or offers Metro card deals for visitors. Graffiti thrives principally on its ability to stop passersby in their tracks, and then by extension, on word of mouth.
Now, picture an industrial-sized building covered almost entirely in words and pictures that adhere to this intense style and you begin to understand why 5 Pointz can be completely overwhelming upon a first viewing. In the midst of it all, I found refuge in a quiet image that stood out in contrast with so much surrounding visual noise. On Crane Street, close to the corner of Jackson Avenue, a captivating, lifelike portrait of Rembrandt stares from the base of the building. I can only assume that its artist approached 5 Pointz with a keen awareness of the place’s proximity to P.S.1, choosing as he did to challenge viewers to contemplate his re-contextualization of the Dutch master Rembrandt.
At the same time, if you pause to return Rembrandt’s gaze, you will inevitably notice the gun being pointed at your head. The hooded young man of an adjacent work extends a handgun so that it marks the spot where the viewer stands to lock eyes with the Dutch master, and the animated, aggressively painted gunman appears all the more explosive and lethal next to the calm and realistic Rembrandt. As one artist invites the viewer to consider the connection between 5 Pointz and the institution-based art world, another threatens to kill her for doing so. This is street art that knows the tactics and exploits them to its full advantage.
In that way, the work at 5 Pointz represents its medium well, yet contextually, something seems missing. The spontaneity and rebellion inherent in the act of spray-painting a name on a subway car, or stenciling an image on an alley wall—what has happened to these aspects of the art form? Essentially the reasons why graffiti remains controversial to this day, these are the elements lost in translation here. Meres makes the point, though—and much of what he says rings true—that this may be a small price to pay in exchange for the ability to paint worry-free in the only legal graffiti spot in New York City. More than that, 5 Pointz gives writers the chance to air their work, to get it out in the open and to have it be seen. Freedom and legitimacy gained, with hopefully only a little mystery and romance lost along the way.
