Jeffrey Deitch and Adrian Cheng on Celebrating Street Art Innovators in a New Hong Kong Show
Jeffrey Deitch and Adrian Cheng at “City as Studio,” K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong. Courtesy of K11 Art Foundation.
In 1982, the curator, gallery owner, and art advisor Jeffrey Deitch found himself as the central player in a far-reaching act of international art world exchange. He had been hired to advise for I Club, a chic new private club in downtown Hong Kong that was looking to build a collection of contemporary art to impress its clientele of socialites and power players.
Deitch, who had proven his curatorial mettle by navigating the lofty conceptualism and punkish ramshackle of 1970s New York, decided to adorn the club with artists that represented the full spectrum of New York’s artistic landscape. He helped bring in Andy Warhol—who was about to embark on his famous voyage across mainland China—to paint portraits of Princess Diana and Prince Charles for the club. And he also brought in graffiti artists Dondi White, ZEPHYR, and Futura—legendary New York subway writers who had just begun to garner attention from the city’s gonzo spaces like Patti Astor’s Fun Gallery—to make murals for the club.
Futura, Untitled, c. 1995. Courtesy of the artist.
By bringing in this coterie of graffiti writers to paint on I Club’s walls, Deitch was making a succinct statement: These were artists whose work deserved to be taken seriously on the international stage. “That was, for me, a historic event,” Deitch said of the trip. “And a very important experience for them.”
More than four decades later, Deitch has returned to Hong Kong with a similar mission statement as the curator of “City as Studio,” a new exhibition of graffiti and street art at the K11 Art Foundation that he has described as being the “first rigorous street art exhibition in Greater China.” The exhibition, set to open on March 20th, is an update of Deitch’s seminal 2011 MOCA exhibition “Art in the Streets” in Los Angeles—by some estimates, the most attended show in the museum’s history. The upcoming exhibition will feature works by New York icons like Lee Quiñones, Keith Haring, and Fab 5 Freddy; newer artists like KAWS and Swoon; and a smattering of international artists, from Brazil’s OSGEMEOS to France’s JR.
In bringing this array of artists together under one roof, Deitch and K11 Art Foundation founder Adrian Cheng look to trace the art form’s development from the clandestine crews of ’70s New York to the international superstars of the modern day.
For Cheng, the idea of hosting an exhibition focused on street art at K11 first came to him after seeing “Art in the Streets” more than a decade ago. “I was bowled over,” Cheng said of viewing “Art in the Streets.” “I became determined to work with him on a project. We both thought it would be meaningful for him to curate another street art project in Hong Kong 40 years after that first visit.”
KAWS, UNTITLED (NICOLE MILLER), 1996. Courtesy of the artist.
Swoon, Memento Mori, 2016. Courtesy of Swoon Studio.
In embarking on “City as Studio,” Cheng and Deitch considered the vast array of street and graffiti artists working around the world and acknowledged that “there’s no definitive way of exploring the genre,” Cheng explained. “Our aim for an exhibition of this size was to present a succinct survey that tells a range of stories across time and place. Hong Kong is a hub for innovation and creativity, and street art can be seen as a manifestation of that spirit.”
Another key aspect of the show, in addition to tracing the historical permutations of the art form, is the intention of setting some clear parameters on just what constitutes the “art” in street art.
“Part of the reason for the show is to establish some curatorial rigor,” Deitch explained. “There are a number of artists whose approach is more about branding than artistic innovation. I try to focus on the innovators, people who were original and made things happen. There were many also-rans. Part of the objective is an art historical perspective.”
For Deitch, that historical perspective on street art is very often his first-person point of view. He’s been intimately acquainted with the art form since well before his historic 1982 Hong Kong trip, having become familiar with the pastel poetics of the graffiti underground in the same way that most New Yorkers had: by riding the subway.
Deitch arrived in New York City in 1974, when Wild Style graffiti was just coalescing into a recognizable style. After monitoring its development on the city’s trains and walls, he quickly ingratiated himself with artists such as Quinones and Fab Five Freddy. He was not just fascinated with the form, but with the public nature of its consumption and discourse.
Henry Chalfant, Mad PJ, 1980. Courtesy of the artist and Eric Firestone Gallery.
“For me, what was going on in the subways was as interesting as what was going on above ground, in the galleries,” Deitch said. “People all over New York City would see [graffiti] on the trains. It would go to the Bronx, Brooklyn, all over Manhattan. Artists from the Bronx could communicate with audiences in Brooklyn. It was the best communication system.”
The public nature of this work was also a draw for Cheng. “I’ve always been fascinated by street art,” he said. “The way it’s become part of mainstream culture all over the world and yet still encapsulates a certain period in a city’s history. Street art is a rare example of a contemporary art form that the wider public are drawn to, that is instantly accessible by people just walking down the streets, through their neighborhoods. The genre’s artists have broken down some of the barriers to engaging with art the ‘traditional’ way and it exemplifies what K11 has been striving for—‘art for everyone.’”
Finding a vernacular for that art form to achieve art world recognition proved to be challenging for many years. After graffiti was briefly in vogue during the early ’80s, Deitch said curatorial interest in New York soon drifted to newer styles and fashions. Many graffiti writers moved to Europe, where interest was still strong, while the artists who stayed in the United States found ways to continue their craft. “These are artists who have the same aspirations as the artists who join galleries,” Deitch said. “They want to enter art history, they want their work in museums.”
Lady Pink, TC5 in the Ghost Yard, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Even when broader interest waned, however, Deitch’s passion for the form—and his relationship with its practitioners—ensured that he would continue advocating for the discipline no matter its status within the art establishment at large. Over the decades, he has been involved in a host of street art advocacy efforts, ranging from his MOCA show to public-facing programs such as the Wynwood Walls and Coney Art Walls. It is partly due to such efforts that interest in street art is now so widespread—and why Deitch feels compelled to ensure that the form is understood properly.
“The great artists make work because they are compelled to do it,” Deitch said. “It’s a combination of their intellectual, social commitments, their connection to community. There are other artists where it’s a business. I don’t disparage that! But I’m trying to help the art public to differentiate. I’m trying to focus on the innovators, not the people who jumped on the bandwagon.”
