Museum of Graffiti

July 12, 2021

Museum of Graffiti

The first hurricane of the 2021 season formed this month, Hurricane Elsa which was the earliest hurricane to form in the Caribbean and the earliest fifth named storm ever. It threatened Key West, passing just off-shore but not really causing any damage other than the standard street flooding we get every time we get a largish storm. We dodged yet another bullet, which is great, though even near misses create all the storm prep and anxiety that happens with each potential hit.

The storm eventually made landfall to little effect just north of Tampa. Soon after, Kathy headed out to our house in Colorado to check on it as we haven’t been able to visit there as much as we normally would due to the pandemic. I plan to head out later in the month and make my first visit to Colorado in two years, but in the meantime, I stayed in Key West working and watching the house and pets.

I did make a quick day trip to Miami because I wanted to check out the second of two simultaneous immersive Van Gogh art exhibits that are currently in the city. I loved the first one, “Beyond Van Gogh” that Kathy and I visited a few weeks ago and wanted to see how the other one was. But before checking that out, I also wanted to see a relatively new museum that opened in 2019 in Wynwood, The Museum of Graffiti.

The first and to date only museum in the world dedicated to the art form that Graffiti has become, the museum is designed to preserve and celebrate the artistic history of what has come to be known as an art form during my lifetime. For many years, and still today in many places, graffiti is considered not art, but a crime, an act of vandalism.

But in Miami and in Wynwood especially, graffiti has become a way of life with the artists celebrated and encouraged, with their art sought after by collectors and with fancy openings and all the trappings that come with more traditional artistic offerings. I have always had a soft spot for it, ever since traveling to New York in the late 70s and seeing the subway trains covered with creative and colorful tags. It was a part of the cool hip hop culture then and now it has gone mainstream.

Wynwood is the perfect setting for such a museum as the place is the epicenter for the arts and there are literally thousands of examples of street art and graffiti that cover most of the surfaces of buildings, streets and signs throughout the trendy neighborhood. Wynwood Walls has itself followed suit and become a museum of sorts, now charging admission to visit the painted walls.

The Museum of Graffiti has itself commissioned artists to create murals around the museum itself and the museum celebrates graffiti artists with revolving shows and a small permanent collection as well. I loved it, or more to the point, I love that it exists. I know it is very new and probably has somewhat limited resources, but it focuses almost exclusively on work in New York City and Miami and the “history” of graffiti only goes back to the 70s if you follow the take the museum suggests.

Still it is cool that such a place exists and they have done a great job with what they have available and hopefully as the appreciation for street art grows, so will the emphasis of the museum.

https://museumofgraffiti.com/