https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkZX7pGZK7M
Steven Vail Fine Arts will host an opening reception Dec.4 from 5 to 8 p.m. for CRASH!, an the exhibit running through February which features drawings, paintings and screen prints by graffiti artist John “Crash” Matos. Born in 1961, Crash grew up in the projects of South Bronx and got into street art by the age of 13. Hanging out with older teens in local train yards, he and his friends would spray paint the sides of subway cars and watch their tags circulate throughout the greater metropolitan area. Matos was dubbed “Crash” one day in a computer programming class in high school when he overloaded the system with information, causing it to malfunction.
In 1980, Crash and other leading street artists organized the now legendary “Graffiti Art Success for America” at Fashion Moda. The show simultaneously helped launch Crash’s career and kick-start the graffiti and street art movement. Graffiti had adopted a new emphasis in the early 80s, especially in the wake of the “Broken Windows Theory” and the NYPD’s campaign to clamp down on vandalism for fear that the very sight of it invited more serious crime.
When Crash and others moved graffiti art from its original context in the streets and into a gallery setting, they may have diminished the subversive gesture behind graffiti, yet at the same time, they undeniably popularized a genre that remains a major force in art today. Crash has shown in museums and galleries across the globe and appears in the permanent collections of many national and international museums.
The selection of work on view at Steven Vail Fine Arts shows Crash in typical fashion, cramming the letters of his moniker into a claustrophobic space cluttered with symbols and imagery. Looking at his graffiti art puts me in the mind of a passenger who, peering through the window of a subway car, catches glimpses of signs and advertisements as the train hurtles from station to station.
