The essential point of street art is that it takes place on the streets. True, 90 percent of the stuff that’s sprayed over subway trains and bridges in any major city is meh, artistically speaking. But I still want to stumble across it in situ, where it has warmth, roughness and energy, not on a pedestal in a white cube. Whether it’s 1960s Philly where Cornbread’s tags invented modern graffiti, or at the birth of hip hop in the Bronx in 1973, street art punches most strongly on location, in a specific time, argot, culture and place.
This ginormous, landmark exhibition which has taken over the entire Saatchi gallery takes the opposite point of view. It is clearly a labour of love and friendship: curated by graffiti historian Roger Gastman, it brings together more than 150 artists spanning six decades and multiple cities, and spreads their work over a dozen huge spaces in London’s most downtown, upmarket art gallery. It celebrates the broadest global impact and success of street art, which has travelled off the city walls into pop culture, music, fine art, album covers, ads, graphic designs like the Obama ‘Hope’ poster by Shepard Fairey and – these days – a flock of name artists who play tag around the world, hooking up commercially with global music and sports brands like Adidas, sponsors of this exhibition. Fans will love it and lose themselves in it: you could easily spend a day mooching through the endless stuff and immersive treats, like the pop-up record store. But it left me both overwhelmed and a bit cold.
Street art is designed to shout and stand out. That’s great for a rooftop mural, a pristine poster or a designer T-shirt. But bringing 150 big-brushstroke egos together in a single space? After the first three rooms, it starts to get cacophonous: too much neon, too many messages, like being repeatedly flipped off in a chemical dreamscape. With such a wide scope, the virtual absence of the two genuine greats (Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy) seems odd. I wanted less stuff, and a clearer line through, maybe just focusing on London, or fewer and better artists. Top tip: head first to room eight, a lucid timeline of street art that helps make sense of the sprawl, but arrives a wee bit late in the walkaround.
Most enjoyable are the snippets of photography and video documenting street art’s roots in the city. Like footage of poppers and breakers in 1985 Covent Garden, when that area was a prime canvas for artists and hosted the UK’s first hip hop jam. Or a fantastic mural of train carriages, taking up a whole wall (and acting as a selfie-magnet). The show shines an interesting light on the relationship between music and street art in seminal moments, like the Sex Pistols’ first US tour and the more laidback 1990s Bristol trip hop scene.
Ultimately, though, it celebrates the success of street art as a slick global phenomenon: from the gallery staff in Adidas tracksuits to the final room full of metaverse interventions and giant QR codes, which made me feel tired and sad. People are into this: the Beastie Boy dads, gamers and multi-generational crowd at the show seemed totally enthralled. But personally I’d rather go for a walk round Fish Island and see what’s been scrawled on the walls.