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23/7/2003

Bombers

Jeffrey Charles Gallery, London

Works by:
Earsnot
Giz
JA
Nato
Skuf
VFR

Bombers is a collaboration between Jeffrey Charles Gallery, Martinez Gallery (Brooklyn, NY) with Antonio Zaya and Whitechapel Project Space. The show will be divided between Jeffrey Charles Gallery and Whitechapel Project Space, just around the corner at 20 Fordham Street. Bombers is a group show of New York graffiti art spanning the last three decades. The show includes work by six of the leading exponents of the NYC graf scene since the Reagan years: Earsnot, Giz, JA, Nato, Skuf and VFR.

To visit certain institutions within the 'new' New York, that disremembered, forgotten, or simply amnesiac city, is to be assaulted by a seemingly unprecedented strategy of reactionary conceptual revisionism with respect to graffiti. It's a vision that tries to trick us, to make us unwilling participants in a shameful communion, all strapped to the same heavy grindstone. But we shouldn't miss out, instead, on the chance to show the work of artists who have, historically and legitimately, blazed a path of courage and honesty; pioneers with a body of work so different than can be found in so-called Piecing, legality, muralism and the 'Fine Arts.' Thus we will be able to cross all the 't's,' as it were, a kind of insurance and plan of attack against that lone naïf that still lets himself, from ignorance or weakness, be fooled by the machinations of the market, by the deep discounts of the slow summer months.

The primary examples of this bloodline of real, authentic Bombers in New York City are VFR, in the mid 1980s, JA, starting in mid 80s, NATO since 1990, Skuf and Giz from 1993, and Earsnot from 1998. This group, which have, individually and in a collective sense, dominated the graffiti scene in the form's Mecca for 20 years, brings their work across the Atlantic to spread the message that they have been toiling at for their whole creative lives:

That not one of them kowtows before the idols of (1) legality, which of course changes with time; (2) Muralism, practiced so majestically by the Mexicans in the wake of their 20th century revolution (Orozco, Rivera, Siquieros) and from which Jackson Pollock, among many others, learned so much; nor (3) the 'Fine Arts,' which are the exact opposite of the kind of work seen, for example, in the extraordinary Thomas de Quincey, that opium-eating murderer of art and life; and of course (4) the piecing, or assembly-line repetition that feeds the hungry maw of the market; not to mention even remoter influences, each with their appellation d'origin.

Before this great conceptual swindle, which won't even admit to its own name, only the Bombers propose to do battle, Counter Current. Only the Bombers dare to look across the river of lies that so many pay tribute to, that so many permit by averting their eyes -- those mute masses that know nothing of true graffiti and even less of its spirit, philosophy and world vision. 'Bombers' preaches the real gospel of the street: anarchism, iconoclasm and revolution.

Jeffrey Charles Gallery is an artist-run space. Bombers is the 15th show.

Private view Thursday 24 July 6-9pm

Image: a work by Earsnot

Hours: Saturdays 12-6 or by appointment

Jeffrey Charles Gallery
34 Settles Street
London
E1 1JP

Whitechapel Project Space
20 Fordham Street
London
E1 1HS

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