ArtSeen
Open Air
Stay Gold Gallery
June 23–July 9, 2006

For four days, curators Alyssa Natches and Lou Auguste welcomed a slew of street artists to paste, paint and stencil to their heart’s desire on plywood walls constructed in the rented Stay Gold gallery space on Brooklyn’s Grand Street. Tiki Jay from LA was in town for his first New York showing, while New York diehards Michael De Feo, Dan Witz, the artistic pair Skewville, and FAILE—among others—packed the space to capacity.
Street art is not without its tensions, and when one of Witz’s pieces near the entrance of the Open Air show was disrespected by some young upstart who painted over it, Witz created the show’s pièce de la resistance—a large photographic image of himself mooning the room. Hanging ominously at the top edge of a plywood wall with his legs dangling, it underscores his notoriety in an art scene that thrives on illegality and masculine bravado.
In such aggressive and hyper-graphic company, Dark Cloud is a welcome surprise. His works are among the few pieces that go against the grain and downshift the adrenaline to take contemplative forays by means of his iconic, brain-like clouds that drip and float on fields of color. If Dark Cloud’s paintings are the poetic interludes of the show, it is the Skewville who visually tie together the hallucinatory frenzy of visuals that stack the show with ocular bling. From wooden fire hydrants constructed on the gallery walls to rollered block letters that veil underlying works, their quick-witted splashes include an orange painted circuit box with an upturned metal arrow, camouflaging itself in the “VIP Collectors” area—a makeshift corridor hidden behind a padlocked chain link gate. Consisting of small panels and portable pieces, the Collectors corridor comes across as both a snide joke about the collectability of street art and the artists’ “who cares” attitude towards gallery respectability.
Famous names abound in the exhibit. Michael De Feo is looking as good as ever in his one part guerrilla, two parts Pop Art stylings. Tiki Jay (aka Tiki-J) is probably one of the best stencil artists around but his tiki-inspired iconography looks a little out of place in this show. Only his signature Easter Island images fashioned into concrete sculptures are perfectly suited to hula with his East Coast brethren.
While the established names dominate, there were a few unknowns making their own small contributions. One Egyptian kid with attitude, aptly named Pharoah, added his own small metallic Arabic tag colliding Kufic script with street calligraphy.
Coinciding with the show is the launch of the new film, “Open Air,” a twenty-minute documentary by Natches and Auguste. It’s a straightforward romp through the LA and New York street art scene, with the artists themselves narrating their story. As a primer on the world of street art, it may disappoint some passionate die-hards for whom the documentary is not long enough or does not delve deeper into the malleable world of throw ups and tags. More intellectually driven than hip hop graffiti and less aggressive than gangland tags, street art is proving to be popular with restless artists uninterested in the traditional gallery circuit.
Comfortable in the neighborhoods dominated by art-volk and hipsters, street art still has an eager audience. Filled with recognizable images from past incarnations—whether on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan or in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg—Open Air is a welcome window into the pulse of today’s clever street art. After it comes down, I hope Auguste and Natches will consider more shows to chart the state of the scene. In an art form that thrives on flux, each new exhibition would promise the surprises and vibrant energy of Open Air.
Contributor
Hrag VartanianHrag Vartanian is a writer, critic, and designer. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Up Space, Down Space: Moving Dancers of New York
By MG LeeMAR 2019 | Dance
While theres been a flourish of big name choreographers and residencies cropping up in Upstate New YorkStephen Petronio and Jonah Bokaer, among others emerging, local groups are also looking upstate for space and solitude to rehearse.
Brooklyn 2020
By Steven TaylorDEC 20-JAN 21 | Poetry
Steven Taylor is a writer and musician living in Brooklyn. His latest works are Don’t Hide the Madness: William S. Burroughs in Conversation with Allen Ginsberg, from Three Rooms Press, and Songs of Innocence and of Experience, from Ace Records.
Artists Space
By Nancy PrincenthalJUL-AUG 2020 | ArTonic
Shocking but true: Artists Space, essential model for a generation of feisty, funky, youth-driven nonprofits, is nearly half a century old. More surprising still, initially it depended entirely on government support, at a time when both the governor of New York (Nelson Rockefeller) and the US president (Richard Nixon, newly re-elected) were Republicans. Promising to make up for a dearth of opportunity for young artists, Artists Spaces founders rounded some up and offered them the chance to call the shots, all on the states dime.
26. (The Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum)
By Raphael RubinsteinNOV 2020 | The Miraculous
On a trip to New York in the late 1960s, a 20-year-old Chilean woman who is equally drawn to art and to poetry visits the Museum of Modern Art.