Pedro Alonzo: Urban Art

Julia Poorvu '15

On Wednesday September 14th, our guest speaker, Pedro Alonso, came to talk to Beaver. Pedro Alonso is a curator of many art exhibits which include street art, and even a lot of Shepard Fairey’s  work.  Some of his exhibits include the ICA in Boston and Viva la Revolution at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.  Some of his exhibits include the ICA in Boston and Viva la Revolucion at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.  He showed us different images of street art and explained to us how people react to it differently.  

He taught the school  what “tagging” was, and also some other techniques graffiti artist use, such as wheat paste.  He also taught us a bit about how different places handle street art.  How some are cleaned up, and how cites try to keep artists from using their city as a canvas.  Pedro shared some of Shepard Fairey’s work, and how some people had put graffiti over his murals. Ben Logan ‘12, who worked with Shepard before, said this on working with the street artist: “You would think that a famous artist would be pretty protective over who handles his prints and who  is allowed to work with him; however, Shepard was the complete opposite. He was excited to have me help and put me to work right away. On one of the murals I helped him with he would stop working whenever anyone came by to take pictures with them, talk about his work, and sign autographs. He is very much a people person.”  

  We also learned that in some places that street art is highly valued, and it is not only viewed as art but also a way to spread a message.  Ben also gave his opinion on how cities react to some street art, and how some reactions are positive to one piece and negative to another:   

“I think the idea of what kinds of graffiti -public imagery- is taken as illegal, or bad, and what is allowed to be done is a very interesting concept. As Pedro mentioned in his talk the majority of billboards on the sides of roads and buildings that are put up by companies are done illegally; however, they are never prosecuted for vandalism. Similarly stickers for events and politics are put all over the city. But when a person, or people, put up graffiti stickers or place murals on buildings they are arrested for vandalism. This brings up the question of why is there a double standard. It seems politicians and corporations are above the law because they bring in a lot money for the government. In a country where the constitution emphasizes the rule of law is superior to the rule of any human leader, this seems a very hypocritical thing to do.” Said Ben.

Pedro brought up the question of what is art really, and what should qualify as art.  Pedro also showed us some of Shepard’s biggest murals.  Overall, Pedro gave us a lot of interesting information about street art, which broadened are minds and helped us understand more about these images we see when we are walking around in the streets.