Miami Art Week 2024: Street Art Conquers the World

MIAMI – It’s a warm December evening in this subtropical resort town, and some of the biggest names in the world of graffiti and street art are gathered within the friendly confines of Wynwood Walls, the pioneering open-air street art museum beloved as an indiscriminate blending of the Louvre and the Island of Misfit Toys. Here, just a bridge away from the elite art fairs and champagne receptions that have sprung up around Art Basel Miami Beach over the last 22 years, the revolution continues.

Ron English, whose pop-surrealist works have long graced both city streets and museum collections, talks about the two art worlds at Wynwood Walls. / Photo by Lisa Freeman

Ron English, whose pop-surrealist works have long graced both city streets and museum collections, is seated on a cushioned banquette discussing the difference between the creators of the ever-evolving collection of murals that make this museum and this neighborhood special and those responsible for the fine art that’s on display at the art week fairs just a couple of miles to the east.

“We came up making art for the people, they came up making art for art critics,” English said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he added quickly, as an afterthought, an apology, or both.

Every year, the lines between the art world’s dueling incarnations become blurrier.  Artists who started out as graffiti writers now show in elite galleries and at the art week fairs, as elite gallerists and moneyed collectors turn to street artists to refresh their tired inventories. Miami Art Week now has two centers: one at the Miami Beach Convention Center, home of Art Basel, the other in Wynwood, at Wynwood Walls, the Museum of Graffiti, and in the freelance iterations that are spread out across this once blighted industrial neighborhood.

“It’s a big giant dialogue. I’m in it to a certain extent,” English told UP in an interview during Wynwood Walls’ art week kick-off celebration. “I wouldn’t want to pit one against the other, you just add a zero to the price tag and you’re there. That’s one of the big differences.”

“If Jackson Pollock was a street artist, he’d be throwing paint on the wall and it’d be very different. As soon as he puts it on a wall outside free for the public, then he’s a street artist,” said English, who is known for his subversive appropriations of advertising imagery and creation of characters like Grin and MC Supersized.

As if to emphasize English’s authority to speak on the topic, visitors to Wynwood Walls enter in the shadow of a 25-foot-tall sculpture of English’s character Temper Tot, who looks at once innocent and menacing, like a giant, green, two-year-old Hulk. Even as he spends most of art week in Wynwood, English’s work is being shown and sold at Art Miami, one of art week’s premier venues.

The convergence of the two art worlds has not gone unnoticed by the art world’s power players. Jeffrey Deitch, the influential curator, art dealer, long-time street art evangelist and former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, sees street art’s maturation as a watershed moment in art history.

“It is probably the most popular and influential movement internationally since pop art,” he told UP as he stood on the floor of Art Basel a few feet from a work by street artist Kenny Scharf.

“What do people really like? I spoke at Wynwood Walls on Friday and it was packed, a thousand people were there. And then you go over to Perez (Pérez Art Museum Miami), which is also very good of course, but there are maybe 40 people in the museum.”

A piece by Keith Haring is one of many pieces by street artist that have infiltrated Art Basel. / Photo by Lisa Freeman

The trajectory from street to gallery isn’t new – Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Scharf and countless others blazed this trail beginning in the 1980s. But later generations of street artists are rewriting the rules of engagement with the art market. Take KAWS, whose journey from illegal interventions on public advertisements to seven-figure auction results and collaborations with luxury brands exemplifies street art’s newfound commercial power. Shepherd Fairey’s Obama “HOPE” poster transformed political iconography, while Scharf’s playful cosmic characters have found homes in both urban landscapes and blue-chip collections.

Tristan Eaton, whose towering photorealistic murals have become landmarks in cities worldwide, maintains sympathetic relationships with both worlds, though fairs and auctions leave him a bit cold. “I’m not a big fan of art fairs. I’m not a big fan of auctions,” he said. “I like museum institutions because they seem to have a longer-term view of things. I like public art because it can’t be sold. The whole idea that the value of art is based on how much you pay for it is a little bit gross.”

Tristan Eaton’s 2020 piece UPRISE on display at the Museum of Graffiti

Eaton talked to UP during a break in the action at the Museum of Graffiti, where he is a featured artist in that institution’s brilliant lineup of art week events, sharing billing with a pair of legendary street art pioneers, Cey Adams, the street-artist who became the art director at Def Jam Records and ultimately a successful fine artist, and OG Slick, the west coast graffiti scene pioneer whose Mickey Hands signing the letters L and A have become an unofficial Los Angelese logo.

The tension between street art’s populist roots and its increasing commodification reverberates throughout Miami Art Week. While collectors shuttle between satellite fairs in Miami Beach searching for their next blue-chip investment, Wynwood pulses with a different energy that draws on the movement’s rebellious and subversive roots. At the Museum of Graffiti, artists like Slick represent the movement’s independent spirit. “We don’t wait for somebody to open the door, because you’ll be waiting forever,” he explained. “We have to just do our thing and make our own way. That’s always how it’s been.”

OG Slick, the west coast graffiti scene pioneer, speaks at the Museum of Graffiti. / Photo by Lisa Freeman

One thing that makes street art so revolutionary is its unprecedented ability to spread globally in real time. Logan Hicks, renowned for his intricate stencil works and a member of the latest class of Wynwood Walls residents this year, points out this unique characteristic. “It’s really the only movement that’s happening in real time, worldwide. A mural that happens here today can be replicated in Tokyo tomorrow morning. We’ve never had that sort of speed of information,” he told UP.

The movement’s democratizing force has fundamentally altered how new artists enter the field. “It used to be that nobody aspired to be a street artist,” Hicks continued. “It was like after you tried to fit in and no one else accepted you, then sort of the last rung was you became a street artist. Now you have artists that are paying $80,000 a year to go to college to become street artists.”

Logan Hicks, renowned for his intricate stencil works and a member of the latest class of Wynwood Walls at the museums party. / Photo by Lisa Freeman

The institutionalization of street art might seem paradoxical, but it reflects the movement’s undeniable influence on contemporary visual culture. The walls of Wynwood serve as both canvas and catalyst, challenging traditional art world hierarchies while creating new ones. During Miami Art Week, the neighborhood becomes a living gallery where art exists for the pure joy of public engagement.

Still, street art has largely maintained its rebellious spirit even as it has earned the respect of the establishment it once sought to challenge. The movement’s impact extends far beyond aesthetics – it has democratized art appreciation, challenged traditional distribution models, and proven that great art can speak to both the masses and the cognoscenti.

The artists and curators mentioned here represent different facets of this complex phenomenon. English bridges pop art and street art with his culture-jamming aesthetic. Deitch lends institutional gravitas through his scholarly analysis. Eaton maintains a critical stance while creating monumental public works. Slick embodies the DIY ethos that gave birth to the movement. Hicks provides an educated and experienced historical perspective on its evolution.

Tristan Eaton, known for his towering photorealistic murals, talk to UP at the Museum of Graffiti. / Photo by Lisa Freeman

Together with the graffiti and street art multitude worldwide, they’re writing a new chapter in art history – one that future generations will no doubt regard as the defining visual movement of our time. As Miami Art Week demonstrates year after year, the question is no longer whether street art belongs in the conversation about contemporary art – it’s whether any such conversation can be complete without it.

Originally published by UP Magazine.