PHOTOS: What Happens When a Rebel Turns Graffiti Art Upside Down
Artist Evan Roth's award-winning work puts the action in interaction
- By Leah Binkovitz
- Smithsonian magazine, October 2012
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(© Evan Roth 2009)
While in graduate school, Roth compiled “graffiti taxonomies”—charts that compare the scripts graffiti artists use in their “tags,” or signatures. (For instance, he documented 96 versions of the letter “S.”) Two of those works are now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He has also been featured at the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, his current base.
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Comments (1)
Anyone remember how John Philip Sousa took ragtime off the streets, out of the gutter and bars, and put it on the pedestal of art? What a valuable facet of human creative expression we would have missed out on, otherwise. The whole development of music throughout history could have been completely altered. I postulate that Mr. Roth is the Sousa of street art, picking graffiti up, teaching it some manners, and putting it in the gallery, textbook and museum where it belongs. Not to be imprisoned, but to proudly display a newly earned legitimacy.
Posted by Gwen Simonalle on September 20,2012 | 03:26 PM