AEROSOL: Boston’s Graffiti DNA, its Origin & Evolution
ShowUp Gallery, Boston, MA • showupinc.org • Through February 16, 2025
There’s nothing more sacred than when a group of artists find their kindred and commit to their craft boldly and unapologetically. In a time when the history of people of color is under the gun of censorship, it’s the artists who dig their heels even deeper to sustain their presence. Walking into the gallery, one is met with the immediate presence of energy, history, and artistry. Whether it’s Shea Justice’s parchment display of the shadows of collage art whose images travel back to Jim Crow legacies fiercely contested by Fannie Lou Hamer and James Baldwin. Or Timmy “Zone” Allen’s imagery of the historical racialized violence of policing alongside the monochromatic figures of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois, and a lone figure of Harriet Tubman next to an Indigenous child noting the cultural intersections of colonialism. Or the nod to a futurist and colorful burst of nonbinary Black faces in a digital simulation by Barrington “Vex” Edwards. As a viewer, the thematic range of this aerosol art reads more like a cultural document that should reside back in the open spaces of Boston as a permanent historical archive, not the transient spaces of art galleries.
A short documentary by filmmaker Paris Angelo airs on a continuous feed in a makeshift theater whose walls cocoon the viewer in a dark landscape mimicing the vibrant art that was once birthed under a night sky. In a poignant moment in the film, Chepe “Sane” Leña confirms the artistry not as random, stressing that one had to be a part of the culture, and not simply possess the ability of can control. The culture that these artists created is similar to that of historical-diasporic Maroon culture, a practice that Dr. Tiffany D. Pogue states where people of color “liberated themselves in a space in which they could be absolutely sovereign and express themselves culturally.”
A dated newspaper article headlines Peters Park Street Artists Decry the Loss of Their Wall. Next to that headline is a photograph of ten writers standing together, unwavering, poised as a clan whose individual stances/body language translates as a knowing that the world is their wall. It is their presence on the walls of this gallery that amplifies a lineage of storytellers whose voices are unwavering, their art enduring.
Curated by Jennifer Mancuso, the exhibition also features artists Ricardo “Deme 5” Gomez, Rob Stull, and David “DS7” Taylor.
— Asata Radcliffe