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"content": "\u003cp>It’s Wednesday afternoon in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a>’s Clarion Alley, and eight girls are hovering over a folding table scattered with paint pens. Discussing a mural design for an adjacent wall, they hatch a plan to paint “San Francisco,” surrounded by symbols that represent the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Nearby stands Lady Pink, a legend in the New York \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/graffiti\">graffiti\u003c/a> and street art scene, who’s here to mentor the young girls on the mural. In the 1970s and 1980s, Lady Pink was the first woman in graffiti to make a national name for herself, and in the process carved out space for other women in the male-dominated field.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today, she’s lending her skills and expertise to the students of \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/graffiticampforgirls/?hl=en\">Graffiti Camp for Girls\u003c/a> as they take on their first mural-sized project.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13990889\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Graffiti artist Lady Pink poses for a portrait on Clarion Alley in San Francisco on June 17, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s important to hand down our craft to the youth,” Lady Pink tells KQED in the alley, during a break “They don’t teach mural painting in schools so much. They teach painting, but they don’t teach mural painting. So, we’ll get a big wall and we’ll let the kids express themselves in a giant size.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Once the mural is completed, it will be unveiled at an event on Friday, June 19, from 4–5 p.m. in Clarion Alley. Lady Pink, who starred in the groundbreaking 1982 hip-hop film \u003cem>Wild Style\u003c/em>, will be present for a meet and greet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now in its 10th year, Graffiti Camp for Girls is led and founded by Nina Wright, known as local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/girlmobb/?hl=en\">Girl Mobb\u003c/a>. Her goal is to equip young girls with street art skills and the basics of spray painting safely, with respirator masks, while giving them the space to create public art.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13990888\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Nina Wright (center) laughs with the students from the Graffiti Camp for Girls on Clarion Alley in San Francisco on June 17, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For 16-year-old participant Aaliyah Garcia, the camp offers her a crucial outlet as she continues to “expand her creativity.” Though she has been drawing and painting for as long as she can remember, she had no experience with spray painting prior to this week’s session.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I’m excited to have my art up in the world for everyone to see,” Garcia says. (The mural is scheduled to stay up in Clarion Alley for at least five years.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After a few days of participants getting the hang of graffiti basics and learning new skills with lettering, Lady Pink arrived Wednesday to offer insight on large-scale painting. Her role, she emphasizes, is to push young people in the right direction rather than influencing their art. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Kids love to paint big, they love to paint in the street,” Lady Pink says. “They don’t like to run from the police nearly as much as we did.”\u003cbr>\u003cbr>While Lady Pink came up in an outlaw era of unsanctioned graffiti, the opportunity for today’s youth to utilize “permission walls” and learn to express themselves is “absolutely priceless,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I love to see the confidence and the growth in the kids when they do something,” she adds.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13990887\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Lady Pink, a graffiti artist, helps young girls develop their mural design at the Graffiti Camp for Girls on Clarion Alley in San Francisco on June 17, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After just a few hours under Lady Pink’s guidance, 13-year-old Carey Deeter felt that confidence developing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Deeter had joined the camp because of her admiration for street art across the city, and while at first she’d been slower and more controlled with the spray paint, she learned to follow Lady Pink’s advice to “just get it done, don’t overthink it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Once you get the hang of it, you can basically do whatever you want,” Deeter says. “It’s very easy to control and stuff. It’s very freeing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003chr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A mural unveiling and meet-and-greet with Lady Pink takes place on Friday, June 19, from 4-5 p.m. in Clarion Alley in San Francisco. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DZGj4OLTPB6/?hl=en\">\u003cem>Details and more information here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It’s important to hand down our craft to the youth,” Lady Pink tells KQED in the alley, during a break “They don’t teach mural painting in schools so much. They teach painting, but they don’t teach mural painting. So, we’ll get a big wall and we’ll let the kids express themselves in a giant size.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now in its 10th year, Graffiti Camp for Girls is led and founded by Nina Wright, known as local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/girlmobb/?hl=en\">Girl Mobb\u003c/a>. Her goal is to equip young girls with street art skills and the basics of spray painting safely, with respirator masks, while giving them the space to create public art.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After a few days of participants getting the hang of graffiti basics and learning new skills with lettering, Lady Pink arrived Wednesday to offer insight on large-scale painting. Her role, she emphasizes, is to push young people in the right direction rather than influencing their art. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Deeter had joined the camp because of her admiration for street art across the city, and while at first she’d been slower and more controlled with the spray paint, she learned to follow Lady Pink’s advice to “just get it done, don’t overthink it.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A mural unveiling and meet-and-greet with Lady Pink takes place on Friday, June 19, from 4-5 p.m. in Clarion Alley in San Francisco. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DZGj4OLTPB6/?hl=en\">\u003cem>Details and more information here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s Wednesday afternoon in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a>’s Clarion Alley, and eight girls are hovering over a folding table scattered with paint pens. Discussing a mural design for an adjacent wall, they hatch a plan to paint “San Francisco,” surrounded by symbols that represent the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Nearby stands Lady Pink, a legend in the New York \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/graffiti\">graffiti\u003c/a> and street art scene, who’s here to mentor the young girls on the mural. In the 1970s and 1980s, Lady Pink was the first woman in graffiti to make a national name for herself, and in the process carved out space for other women in the male-dominated field.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today, she’s lending her skills and expertise to the students of \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/graffiticampforgirls/?hl=en\">Graffiti Camp for Girls\u003c/a> as they take on their first mural-sized project.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13990889\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00582_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Graffiti artist Lady Pink poses for a portrait on Clarion Alley in San Francisco on June 17, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s important to hand down our craft to the youth,” Lady Pink tells KQED in the alley, during a break “They don’t teach mural painting in schools so much. They teach painting, but they don’t teach mural painting. So, we’ll get a big wall and we’ll let the kids express themselves in a giant size.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Once the mural is completed, it will be unveiled at an event on Friday, June 19, from 4–5 p.m. in Clarion Alley. Lady Pink, who starred in the groundbreaking 1982 hip-hop film \u003cem>Wild Style\u003c/em>, will be present for a meet and greet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now in its 10th year, Graffiti Camp for Girls is led and founded by Nina Wright, known as local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/girlmobb/?hl=en\">Girl Mobb\u003c/a>. Her goal is to equip young girls with street art skills and the basics of spray painting safely, with respirator masks, while giving them the space to create public art.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13990888\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00545_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Nina Wright (center) laughs with the students from the Graffiti Camp for Girls on Clarion Alley in San Francisco on June 17, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For 16-year-old participant Aaliyah Garcia, the camp offers her a crucial outlet as she continues to “expand her creativity.” Though she has been drawing and painting for as long as she can remember, she had no experience with spray painting prior to this week’s session.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I’m excited to have my art up in the world for everyone to see,” Garcia says. (The mural is scheduled to stay up in Clarion Alley for at least five years.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After a few days of participants getting the hang of graffiti basics and learning new skills with lettering, Lady Pink arrived Wednesday to offer insight on large-scale painting. Her role, she emphasizes, is to push young people in the right direction rather than influencing their art. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Kids love to paint big, they love to paint in the street,” Lady Pink says. “They don’t like to run from the police nearly as much as we did.”\u003cbr>\u003cbr>While Lady Pink came up in an outlaw era of unsanctioned graffiti, the opportunity for today’s youth to utilize “permission walls” and learn to express themselves is “absolutely priceless,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I love to see the confidence and the growth in the kids when they do something,” she adds.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13990887\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/260617-LADYPINKCLARIONALLEY00487_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Lady Pink, a graffiti artist, helps young girls develop their mural design at the Graffiti Camp for Girls on Clarion Alley in San Francisco on June 17, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After just a few hours under Lady Pink’s guidance, 13-year-old Carey Deeter felt that confidence developing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Deeter had joined the camp because of her admiration for street art across the city, and while at first she’d been slower and more controlled with the spray paint, she learned to follow Lady Pink’s advice to “just get it done, don’t overthink it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Once you get the hang of it, you can basically do whatever you want,” Deeter says. “It’s very easy to control and stuff. It’s very freeing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003chr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A mural unveiling and meet-and-greet with Lady Pink takes place on Friday, June 19, from 4-5 p.m. in Clarion Alley in San Francisco. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DZGj4OLTPB6/?hl=en\">\u003cem>Details and more information here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "oakland-is-proud-mural-repainted-graffiti-artist-del-phresh",
"title": "A Legendary Mural From the 1980s Has Been Repainted in East Oakland",
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"headTitle": "A Legendary Mural From the 1980s Has Been Repainted in East Oakland | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983772\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983772\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh poses in front of his newly revamped ‘Oakland Is Proud 2’ mural, located at the same site of his legendary ‘Oakland Is Proud’ piece, originally painted nearly 40 years ago. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Del Phresh first painted the words “\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop/timeline#oakland-is-proud-mural-broadcast-nationwide\">OAKLAND IS PROUD\u003c/a>” on a wall in East Oakland in the mid-’80s, he was on a mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Oakland’s reputation was ravaged by the war on drugs, and all it entailed: the influx of crack cocaine, extremely high unemployment, over-policing, swollen jails and nightly news reports sensationalizing crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to set the record straight about his community, Phresh grabbed a few aerosol cans and ensured the world put some respect on the Town’s name by painting a giant mural along E. 12th Street, reading “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983757\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983757\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/MES4690.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"316\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/MES4690.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/MES4690-160x105.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The original ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD’ mural on E. 12th Street in Oakland, painted by Del Phresh. \u003ccite>(Oakland Wiki)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Four decades later, I meet with Phresh on the concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th Street, across from where the original piece was painted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the time it was the early ’80s, and mid-’80s, and the city was full of crime and corruption, and poverty and prostitution and drugs,” he tells me. “And it had a negative reputation. So I thought, ‘I want to show the Bay Area — hell, the world — that regardless of that, we are \u003cem>proud\u003c/em> of our city. We love Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “OAKLAND IS PROUD” mural became a symbol of the Town’s resolve, and its cultural relevancy extended to city marketing, album covers, tribute murals and even a nationally syndicated television show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phresh’s original piece was painted over long ago. But last weekend, here at the same exact location, he and a few friends remade it, painting “OAKLAND IS PROUD 2” in metallic silver and royal blue along E. 12th Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983758\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘OAKLAND IS PROUD 2,’ a re-creation of Del Phresh’s famed mural, in the same spot as the original along E. 12th Street in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Given Oakland’s current issues, ranging from housing to violence, and the way people remain passionate about the Town despite its depiction in the media, Phresh’s piece is as relevant today as it was when he first painted it nearly 40 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>From an East Oakland Wall to the World\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After first painting a smaller, scrappy iteration of the mural on a wall of the historic St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, Phresh returned (this time with permission of the center’s Ray Castor) and spent the entire summer of 1987 completing “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it was done, the multicolored, bubble-letter piece stretched the length of a full city block, and soon became a cultural landmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was featured in the opening credits of Mark Curry’s television show \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bde9KfcRL4\">\u003cem>Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and provided a fresh background for the cover image of \u003ca href=\"https://www.discogs.com/release/1332001-Capital-Tax-Capital-Tax?srsltid=AfmBOoriQZqQsU-NcueEAucMReW51sSJ4UhrYgGkDC7wmMScjZa5l5po\">Capital Tax’s 1989 self-titled record\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983703\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983703\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/001_kqedarts_albumcoveroaklandisproud_02092023_720.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/001_kqedarts_albumcoveroaklandisproud_02092023_720.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/001_kqedarts_albumcoveroaklandisproud_02092023_720-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland rap group Capital Tax featured Del Phresh’s ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD’ mural on the cover of their 1989 EP, shown here in the original photo location. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Phresh collaborated with Oaklandish to \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandish.com/products/oaklandish-flag\">create merchandise using the logo\u003c/a>, as well as a piece reading “\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandish.com/blogs/news/oakland-is-proud-del-phresh?srsltid=AfmBOopzDn2n-LfhYZZinMkHdiFijYhu8cEPP5lykbMHklgeRkR-r55K\">OAKLAND IS STILL PROUD\u003c/a>,” painted on the wooden boards covering the retail store during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mural’s legacy doesn’t stop there. It’s appeared on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/CandiceAntique/status/787397848140775424?s=20\">event flyers\u003c/a>, and has been remixed within \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/bigchimpn/status/855980297766060032?s=20\">other prominent murals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They got a photo of it at the Oakland Airport,” Presh says, adding that he’s even seen it used in commercials promoting tourism to Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Repping his Home Turf\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Well-recognized as a style king in his craft, Phresh made noise locally when he won a mural competition hosted by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop/timeline#home-turf-premieres-on-kron-tv\">KRON-TV show \u003cem>Home Turf\u003c/em>\u003c/a> in 1986. A year later, he stepped onto the international stage by appearing in Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff’s seminal 1987 book \u003cem>Spraycan Art\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fitted in a customized jean jacket and hand-painted baseball hat embroidered with his given name, Joel, Phresh remembers his initial discovery of this spot on E. 12th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My first piece on this wall, I got arrested for it.” It was a style piece with bubble letters, he says, and it made waves. “Back in the day,” says Phresh, “you didn’t see graffiti out here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others had scribbled on the walls and tagged their turfs, but it wasn’t stylized images and lettering — graf writing as we know it now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983701\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983701\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234.jpg\" alt=\"An African American man in a colorful hat and painted jean jacket.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2197\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-160x183.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-768x879.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-1342x1536.jpg 1342w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-1790x2048.jpg 1790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh poses for a photo beneath the BART tracks in East Oakland, across the street from where his legendary ‘Oakland Is Proud’ piece was originally painted nearly 40 years ago. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the Town’s scene got popping, Phresh honed his skills by hitting up the surfaces of AC Transit’s 82 bus, tagging his first graf handle “GERM” as he rode through East Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until being arrested for painting the wall on E. 12th that he changed his name. Handcuffed and sitting in a patrol van, it hit him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fresh. I like that, because that’s gonna be synonymous with with hip-hop forever,” he remembers thinking. “But I gotta be original.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added “Ph” in place of “F,” and “\u003cem>Bow!\u003c/em>,” he exclaims, “that’s how I got my name, sitting in the back of the paddy wagon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Getting Active in Graffiti Crews\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While Phresh treated the Town as his playground — he was the first to do a piece in the \u003ca href=\"https://tiratana.org/a-truncated-history-of-graffiti-writing-in-oakland-and-the-23rd-yards/\">23rd Yard\u003c/a> of East Oakland — he really got his start by running around Berkeley and San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fly kid named Dizzy D, known for sporting Pumas and Adidas suits, was the first to take Phresh around the Bay, bombing walls. Soon after, Phresh got his first paid gig, painting at a store under the old Leopold’s Records near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was almost done,” says Phresh, reminiscing on his first paid job, “and this kid came in, and he’s like ‘I’m Kaos, I’m from TF.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mention of the well-known TF, or Task Force crew, caused Phresh to freak out, but he played it cool. When he was invited to join the crew, he calmly obliged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WS6_pvyuIo&t=527s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His work then started to spread all around the Bay, taking off after he met two kids who went by the names Style and West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They arranged a meeting on that same concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th. One of the trio had the idea to form their own crew. They called it the “Bomb Squad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were bombing the shit out of the city,” says Phresh, noting that the crew’s acronym of “BSK” came together when they added the word “Kings” to their title.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“BSK was the first crew (in Oakland),” says Phresh, adding that other crews immediately popped up thereafter. “We had the fame, we had the notoriety, we had the stats.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_10141391']At the time, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDp38sltic8\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a> was just starting his crew \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dreamtdk/\">TDK\u003c/a>, formed with a collection of his close friends and cousins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But as the ’80s and ’90s went on,” recalls Phresh, “TDK out-clipped BSK by a long shot.” TDK, originally known as “Those Damn Kids,” grew to dozens of members. Still strong today, they’ve created some of the best-known murals and pieces in the Bay Area, and behind the scenes have contributed vastly to the culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Respect of His Peers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the late ’90s, Presh and Mike “Dream” Francisco used to hang out and sketch together at Built to Last Tattoo in East Oakland. “Before Mike passed, one day I was in there and I was like, ‘Dream, would you allow me to write TDK?'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Presh says the late graf legend looked at him and said, “Is you stupid, man? Of course you can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983755\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-scaled.jpg\" alt='A close up image of a mural that reads \"PROUD,\" painted in metallic silver and royal blue.' width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Del Phresh’s signature on the ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD 2’ piece.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>TDK’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13926619/spie-one-tdk-bay-area-graffiti-history-hip-hop\">Spie 1, a legendary graf writer in his own right\u003c/a>, recalls going to East Oakland to see Phresh’s “OAKLAND IS PROUD” piece. He met Phresh around the same time while attending an event at Stanford University, when \u003cem>Spraycan Art\u003c/em> co-author Henry Chalfant hosted a screening of the seminal graffiti documentary he co-produced for PBS, \u003ca href=\"https://www.stylewars.com/\">\u003cem>Style Wars\u003c/em>.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s done a lot for putting Oakland on the map,” says Spie, telling me about Phresh on a recent phone call. He describes his old friend as funny, personable, fun-loving and down to earth, calling him “the one who cares.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two were part of a wave of artists fighting to end South African apartheid, and also collaborated on a piece in Berkeley’s Revolution Books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Spie says, you can’t overlook the impact of “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The statement itself, it’s uplifting,” says Spie. “It totally gives an instillment of great pride to people in Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a huge piece of art visible from BART and located in the economically disenfranchised flatlands of East Oakland, the mural tacitly acknowledged the city’s struggles, Spie says, while speaking to the historic resilience of its residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983720\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983720\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a jean jacket sitting by train tracks.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2041\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2-160x163.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2-768x784.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2-1505x1536.jpg 1505w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pioneering Oakland graf writer Del Phresh takes a seat on E.12th Street \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A Lasting Influence\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Since the late ’80s, Oakland has changed tenfold, as has the public perspective on graffiti. An art form once seen as a blight or public nuisance is now readily commissioned by developers and real estate agents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phresh is happy that a few of his friends from back in the day are making money off their craft, explaining that when they were kids, that was their goal. “We all was hoping to do that when we started,” he says. “Parlay this art into making money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I ask if he himself has been properly compensated for his work, Phresh instantly replies, “Oh, hell no.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a BART train whizzes overhead, he clarifies that it’s not because he doesn’t understand his own worth. “With my art,” says Phresh, “I could charge three million for my stuff if I want to, based on my reputation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’d rather give people something they can afford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You gotta be sensible,” he says. “So, I always give my partners player prices for the work I do.” It doesn’t matter if it’s an auto body shop or a sign for a bakery, he says: “I could charge ’em more, and I know I’m worth more, but is that realistic?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983763\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh shows off his custom jacket. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At 60, Phresh hasn’t stopped painting. He organized this gathering, and completed parts of the new mural, though he was largely assisted by painters from the community, including Dream’s son Akil and other members of TDK. Next summer, he and some of those same artists plan to hold an event titled \u003cem>The Kings of the East Bay\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking further ahead, to the future of the art form and the the next generation of graf writers, Phresh sounds slightly resigned as he says, “These new-school kids … I don’t really like a lot of the damage they do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taking a breath of accountability, he adds, “But at the same time, I can’t blame ’em,” he says, “‘Cause I influenced them.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983772\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983772\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7949-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh poses in front of his newly revamped ‘Oakland Is Proud 2’ mural, located at the same site of his legendary ‘Oakland Is Proud’ piece, originally painted nearly 40 years ago. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Del Phresh first painted the words “\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop/timeline#oakland-is-proud-mural-broadcast-nationwide\">OAKLAND IS PROUD\u003c/a>” on a wall in East Oakland in the mid-’80s, he was on a mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Oakland’s reputation was ravaged by the war on drugs, and all it entailed: the influx of crack cocaine, extremely high unemployment, over-policing, swollen jails and nightly news reports sensationalizing crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to set the record straight about his community, Phresh grabbed a few aerosol cans and ensured the world put some respect on the Town’s name by painting a giant mural along E. 12th Street, reading “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983757\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983757\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/MES4690.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"316\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/MES4690.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/MES4690-160x105.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The original ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD’ mural on E. 12th Street in Oakland, painted by Del Phresh. \u003ccite>(Oakland Wiki)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Four decades later, I meet with Phresh on the concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th Street, across from where the original piece was painted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At the time it was the early ’80s, and mid-’80s, and the city was full of crime and corruption, and poverty and prostitution and drugs,” he tells me. “And it had a negative reputation. So I thought, ‘I want to show the Bay Area — hell, the world — that regardless of that, we are \u003cem>proud\u003c/em> of our city. We love Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “OAKLAND IS PROUD” mural became a symbol of the Town’s resolve, and its cultural relevancy extended to city marketing, album covers, tribute murals and even a nationally syndicated television show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phresh’s original piece was painted over long ago. But last weekend, here at the same exact location, he and a few friends remade it, painting “OAKLAND IS PROUD 2” in metallic silver and royal blue along E. 12th Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983758\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7944-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘OAKLAND IS PROUD 2,’ a re-creation of Del Phresh’s famed mural, in the same spot as the original along E. 12th Street in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Given Oakland’s current issues, ranging from housing to violence, and the way people remain passionate about the Town despite its depiction in the media, Phresh’s piece is as relevant today as it was when he first painted it nearly 40 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>From an East Oakland Wall to the World\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After first painting a smaller, scrappy iteration of the mural on a wall of the historic St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, Phresh returned (this time with permission of the center’s Ray Castor) and spent the entire summer of 1987 completing “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it was done, the multicolored, bubble-letter piece stretched the length of a full city block, and soon became a cultural landmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was featured in the opening credits of Mark Curry’s television show \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bde9KfcRL4\">\u003cem>Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and provided a fresh background for the cover image of \u003ca href=\"https://www.discogs.com/release/1332001-Capital-Tax-Capital-Tax?srsltid=AfmBOoriQZqQsU-NcueEAucMReW51sSJ4UhrYgGkDC7wmMScjZa5l5po\">Capital Tax’s 1989 self-titled record\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983703\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983703\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/001_kqedarts_albumcoveroaklandisproud_02092023_720.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/001_kqedarts_albumcoveroaklandisproud_02092023_720.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/001_kqedarts_albumcoveroaklandisproud_02092023_720-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland rap group Capital Tax featured Del Phresh’s ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD’ mural on the cover of their 1989 EP, shown here in the original photo location. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Phresh collaborated with Oaklandish to \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandish.com/products/oaklandish-flag\">create merchandise using the logo\u003c/a>, as well as a piece reading “\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandish.com/blogs/news/oakland-is-proud-del-phresh?srsltid=AfmBOopzDn2n-LfhYZZinMkHdiFijYhu8cEPP5lykbMHklgeRkR-r55K\">OAKLAND IS STILL PROUD\u003c/a>,” painted on the wooden boards covering the retail store during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mural’s legacy doesn’t stop there. It’s appeared on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/CandiceAntique/status/787397848140775424?s=20\">event flyers\u003c/a>, and has been remixed within \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/bigchimpn/status/855980297766060032?s=20\">other prominent murals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They got a photo of it at the Oakland Airport,” Presh says, adding that he’s even seen it used in commercials promoting tourism to Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Repping his Home Turf\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Well-recognized as a style king in his craft, Phresh made noise locally when he won a mural competition hosted by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop/timeline#home-turf-premieres-on-kron-tv\">KRON-TV show \u003cem>Home Turf\u003c/em>\u003c/a> in 1986. A year later, he stepped onto the international stage by appearing in Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff’s seminal 1987 book \u003cem>Spraycan Art\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fitted in a customized jean jacket and hand-painted baseball hat embroidered with his given name, Joel, Phresh remembers his initial discovery of this spot on E. 12th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My first piece on this wall, I got arrested for it.” It was a style piece with bubble letters, he says, and it made waves. “Back in the day,” says Phresh, “you didn’t see graffiti out here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others had scribbled on the walls and tagged their turfs, but it wasn’t stylized images and lettering — graf writing as we know it now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983701\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983701\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234.jpg\" alt=\"An African American man in a colorful hat and painted jean jacket.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2197\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-160x183.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-768x879.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-1342x1536.jpg 1342w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7958-scaled-e1763008600234-1790x2048.jpg 1790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh poses for a photo beneath the BART tracks in East Oakland, across the street from where his legendary ‘Oakland Is Proud’ piece was originally painted nearly 40 years ago. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the Town’s scene got popping, Phresh honed his skills by hitting up the surfaces of AC Transit’s 82 bus, tagging his first graf handle “GERM” as he rode through East Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t until being arrested for painting the wall on E. 12th that he changed his name. Handcuffed and sitting in a patrol van, it hit him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fresh. I like that, because that’s gonna be synonymous with with hip-hop forever,” he remembers thinking. “But I gotta be original.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added “Ph” in place of “F,” and “\u003cem>Bow!\u003c/em>,” he exclaims, “that’s how I got my name, sitting in the back of the paddy wagon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Getting Active in Graffiti Crews\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While Phresh treated the Town as his playground — he was the first to do a piece in the \u003ca href=\"https://tiratana.org/a-truncated-history-of-graffiti-writing-in-oakland-and-the-23rd-yards/\">23rd Yard\u003c/a> of East Oakland — he really got his start by running around Berkeley and San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fly kid named Dizzy D, known for sporting Pumas and Adidas suits, was the first to take Phresh around the Bay, bombing walls. Soon after, Phresh got his first paid gig, painting at a store under the old Leopold’s Records near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was almost done,” says Phresh, reminiscing on his first paid job, “and this kid came in, and he’s like ‘I’m Kaos, I’m from TF.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mention of the well-known TF, or Task Force crew, caused Phresh to freak out, but he played it cool. When he was invited to join the crew, he calmly obliged.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/9WS6_pvyuIo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/9WS6_pvyuIo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>His work then started to spread all around the Bay, taking off after he met two kids who went by the names Style and West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They arranged a meeting on that same concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th. One of the trio had the idea to form their own crew. They called it the “Bomb Squad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were bombing the shit out of the city,” says Phresh, noting that the crew’s acronym of “BSK” came together when they added the word “Kings” to their title.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“BSK was the first crew (in Oakland),” says Phresh, adding that other crews immediately popped up thereafter. “We had the fame, we had the notoriety, we had the stats.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>At the time, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDp38sltic8\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a> was just starting his crew \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dreamtdk/\">TDK\u003c/a>, formed with a collection of his close friends and cousins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But as the ’80s and ’90s went on,” recalls Phresh, “TDK out-clipped BSK by a long shot.” TDK, originally known as “Those Damn Kids,” grew to dozens of members. Still strong today, they’ve created some of the best-known murals and pieces in the Bay Area, and behind the scenes have contributed vastly to the culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Respect of His Peers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the late ’90s, Presh and Mike “Dream” Francisco used to hang out and sketch together at Built to Last Tattoo in East Oakland. “Before Mike passed, one day I was in there and I was like, ‘Dream, would you allow me to write TDK?'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Presh says the late graf legend looked at him and said, “Is you stupid, man? Of course you can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983755\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-scaled.jpg\" alt='A close up image of a mural that reads \"PROUD,\" painted in metallic silver and royal blue.' width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7965_720-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Del Phresh’s signature on the ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD 2’ piece.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>TDK’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13926619/spie-one-tdk-bay-area-graffiti-history-hip-hop\">Spie 1, a legendary graf writer in his own right\u003c/a>, recalls going to East Oakland to see Phresh’s “OAKLAND IS PROUD” piece. He met Phresh around the same time while attending an event at Stanford University, when \u003cem>Spraycan Art\u003c/em> co-author Henry Chalfant hosted a screening of the seminal graffiti documentary he co-produced for PBS, \u003ca href=\"https://www.stylewars.com/\">\u003cem>Style Wars\u003c/em>.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s done a lot for putting Oakland on the map,” says Spie, telling me about Phresh on a recent phone call. He describes his old friend as funny, personable, fun-loving and down to earth, calling him “the one who cares.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two were part of a wave of artists fighting to end South African apartheid, and also collaborated on a piece in Berkeley’s Revolution Books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Spie says, you can’t overlook the impact of “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The statement itself, it’s uplifting,” says Spie. “It totally gives an instillment of great pride to people in Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a huge piece of art visible from BART and located in the economically disenfranchised flatlands of East Oakland, the mural tacitly acknowledged the city’s struggles, Spie says, while speaking to the historic resilience of its residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983720\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983720\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a jean jacket sitting by train tracks.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2041\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2-160x163.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2-768x784.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/DelPhresh2-1505x1536.jpg 1505w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pioneering Oakland graf writer Del Phresh takes a seat on E.12th Street \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A Lasting Influence\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Since the late ’80s, Oakland has changed tenfold, as has the public perspective on graffiti. An art form once seen as a blight or public nuisance is now readily commissioned by developers and real estate agents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phresh is happy that a few of his friends from back in the day are making money off their craft, explaining that when they were kids, that was their goal. “We all was hoping to do that when we started,” he says. “Parlay this art into making money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I ask if he himself has been properly compensated for his work, Phresh instantly replies, “Oh, hell no.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a BART train whizzes overhead, he clarifies that it’s not because he doesn’t understand his own worth. “With my art,” says Phresh, “I could charge three million for my stuff if I want to, based on my reputation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’d rather give people something they can afford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You gotta be sensible,” he says. “So, I always give my partners player prices for the work I do.” It doesn’t matter if it’s an auto body shop or a sign for a bakery, he says: “I could charge ’em more, and I know I’m worth more, but is that realistic?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13983763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13983763\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/img_7963-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh shows off his custom jacket. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At 60, Phresh hasn’t stopped painting. He organized this gathering, and completed parts of the new mural, though he was largely assisted by painters from the community, including Dream’s son Akil and other members of TDK. Next summer, he and some of those same artists plan to hold an event titled \u003cem>The Kings of the East Bay\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking further ahead, to the future of the art form and the the next generation of graf writers, Phresh sounds slightly resigned as he says, “These new-school kids … I don’t really like a lot of the damage they do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taking a breath of accountability, he adds, “But at the same time, I can’t blame ’em,” he says, “‘Cause I influenced them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981412\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1144px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981412\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting.jpg\" alt=\"A man sitting in front of a white board with writing on it.\" width=\"1144\" height=\"1754\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting.jpg 1144w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting-160x245.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting-768x1178.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting-1002x1536.jpg 1002w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1144px) 100vw, 1144px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">EastSide Arts Alliance cofounder Greg Morozumi, pictured planning the 2001 Malcolm X Jazz Festival. With Morozumi’s passing in June and two other cofounders stepping down, the EastSide Arts Alliance will be led by a collective. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oakland’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/21803/eastside_arts_alliance\">EastSide Arts Alliance\u003c/a> is a cultural hub where young artists are politicized, community members are fed and events like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/programs/malcolm-x-jazz-arts-festival\">Malcolm X Jazz Festival\u003c/a> are organized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a traditional jazz fest, the event is a community resource where creatives, educators and entrepreneurs celebrate a variety of arts. It’s where 10 years ago \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2014/01/09/261101520/amiri-baraka-poet-and-co-founder-of-black-arts-movement-dies-at-79\">Amiri Baraka\u003c/a>, the father of the Black Arts Movement, was honored after he transitioned. It’s where \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnJEz776THs\">a young Kehlani once performed\u003c/a> under the mentorship of the late \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13972818/dwayne-wiggins-dead-oakland-musician-tony-toni-tone-died\">D’Wayne Wiggins\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Saturday, Sept. 20, EastSide Arts Alliance kicks off its 25th anniversary with \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/calendar/tastes-of-eastside\">A Taste of EastSide\u003c/a>, the first in a year-long series of events celebrating the center with art, food, history and community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The afternoon \u003ca href=\"https://donorbox.org/eastside-arts-alliance-25th-anniversary-giving-campaign?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAac0m59hLWeTNQTBkUR8idP-wpemAX9EzvxbbXvgh94Tl1i_2IthyiqOrw6myA_aem_6dPCml5WDgEQa-mGuWqR0A\">fundraiser\u003c/a> and performance includes the talented \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dnagadance/\">Dnaga Dance Company\u003c/a>, longtime EastSide Arts collaborator and \u003ca href=\"https://www.deepwatersdance.com/\">Deep Waters Dance Theatre\u003c/a> founder amara tabor-smith, violinist \u003ca href=\"https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/joan-tarika-lewis\">Tarika Lewis\u003c/a> — the first woman to join the Black Panther Party — and others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981409\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a woman in a light blue shirt and a man in a black shirt, sun glasses and hat standing in a park. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1307\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0-768x502.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0-1536x1004.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elena Serrano and Greg Morozumi, two of the co-founders behind EastSide Arts Alliance pictured at Malcolm X Jazz Festival at San Antonio Park. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The event comes at a time of transition for for the community institution. \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/blog/greg-jung-morozumi\">Greg Jung Morozumi\u003c/a>, EastSide Arts Alliance co-founder and mentor to many, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/blog/greg-jung-morozumi\">passed in June\u003c/a>. Elena Serrano and Susanne Takehara, the center’s two remaining founding members, will soon step down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet even as the baton is passed to the next generation, Serrano says, the work isn’t going to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The birth of an community institution\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seeds that grew into EastSide Arts Alliance were planted in the late 1990s, when four collectives came together. Aerosol writers \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDp38sltic8\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://dreamtdk.com/\">TDK\u003c/a> crew, \u003ca href=\"https://favianna.com/\">Favianna Rodriguez\u003c/a>’s C4 collective, the Black Dot’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Against-Gentrification-Marcel-Diallo-sees-a-2622101.php\">Marcel Diallo\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2009/10/seeing-with-the-blackeyed-peathe-art-of-letitia-ntofon/\">Letitia Ntofon\u003c/a> and organizers from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/tallersinfronteras/?hl=en\">Taller sin Fronteras\u003c/a> (also known as TSF or Workshop Without Borders) all came together to curate the first Malcolm X Jazz Festival in 2000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were informed by the work of Amiri Baraka, Yuri Kochiyama, Malaquías Montoya and especially Malcolm X. The festival exemplified “the liberation of people from Third World,” says Serrano — and art was the unifying force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981408\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg.jpg\" alt=\"Two men pose for a photo\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg-768x545.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg-1536x1089.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poet, playwright and author Amiri Baraka with organizer, artist and mentor Greg Morozumi, circa 1992. The following year, Morozumi would organize a ‘No Justice, No Peace’ event at Oakland’s Pro Arts, predating his work with EastSide Arts Alliance. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Serrano says, reflecting on the first Malcolm X Jazz Festival. “We booked 11 acts on the main stage.” Attempting to reach all demographics with “straight-ahead jazz, jazz with hip-hop, Asian jazz, Latin jazz” and more, Serrano says, they soon learned to book less performers. But their heart was in the right place, and San Antonio Park provided a perfect location for their mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Formerly \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/transportation/documents/projects/san-antonio-park-master-plan/saphistoryarticle.pdf\">the site of bear and bull fights in the 1800s\u003c/a>, San Antonio Park is located on the rolling hills of the 20s in East Oakland. At the time of the first jazz festival, organizers saw the surrounding community of Southeast Asian, Chicano, Indigenous, and African-American residents as a prime example of Third World solidarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But,” says Serrano, “it was also one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As philanthropic efforts were aimed at curbing the neighborhood’s problems, Serrano and company emphasized its benefits, like its diversity. “This is the most culturally rich community ever,” she says. “This is a true asset.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the newly founded EastSide Arts Alliance secured funding, they launched a cultural space focused on unity to “build power amongst the people” and make needed change, says Serrano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981411\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1110px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981411\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed.jpg\" alt=\"A man standing, reading a book, while standing in front of a bookcase. \" width=\"1110\" height=\"740\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed.jpg 1110w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">EastSide Arts Alliance co-founder Greg Morozumi reading one of his many books. To honor his love of books, EastSide now has a reading room dedicated to him. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A far-ranging influence\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over the decades, and spanning three different locations, the center has provided a home for young people. It’s where artists grow into refined practitioners, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ladimeuna/?hl=en\">Leslie “Dime” Lopez\u003c/a>. At the turn of the millennium, Lopez was a teenager who just wanted to spray paint. Now in her late 30s, Dime’s aerosol artwork now covers walls throughout the Bay Area and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Graf was a big thing during that time in my life,” she says, reflecting on her teenage years during a recent phone call. She was introduced to the center when a close friend volunteered at EastSide Arts’ first Malcolm X Jazz Festival. Lopez tagged along, and soon she started attending programs, working on murals and doing banner pieces on the sidewalk. “It was the very first stages,” says Lopez, “of being a part of a community of writers that were doing a bigger things in the neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/kev.akhidenor\">Kevin Akhidenor\u003c/a>, an educator, lyricist and accomplished freestyle rapper, also found a home at EastSide starting in 2002, when he and a friend first attended its Beats Flows program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akhidenor clearly remembers his first day, when he was a glasses-wearing fresh face on the scene. When he walked into the center, program leaders “bum-rushed” him — “they were just roasting me, and battling me,” he laughs. Momentarily overwhelmed, he quickly responded: “Battling and freestyling ain’t never been no issue to me,” he reflects, “so I just battled back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akhidenor has been involved ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13832468\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13832468\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_.jpg\" alt=\"The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival in 2009.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-520x293.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival in 2009. \u003ccite>(Gabe Meline)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2003, Akhidenor met Greg Morozumi, Elena Serrano and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/tracibartlow/?hl=en\">Traci Bartlow\u003c/a>, and realized, “This is an arts political organization.” He soon joined the Malcolm X Jazz Festival planning committee, hosted a stage at that year’s event and eventually joined EastSide’s staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well-known jazz musician \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/howard-wiley\">Howard Wiley\u003c/a> has been part of the Malcolm X Jazz Festival since the event’s second year. He remembers it vividly — not only because he played alongside Marcus Shelby’s group, but because he borrowed his grandmother’s diesel Mercedes Benz to get there. “And I didn’t have a license,” Wiley says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, he’s become the de facto curator of the main stage. One of the most important aspects for him of the jazz festival, and EastSide as a whole, is how artists gain political knowledge from people who’ve lived it firsthand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through Morozumi and Serrano, Wiley has met members of the Last Poets and hung-out with famed jazz saxophonist David Murray. He’s heard about conversations with Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane and Malcolm X from people who were there when the titans talked. He was also blessed with Greg Morozumi’s record collection before he passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he had to go into hospice,” Wiley says, “we moved him out, and we were just moving all these tapes, records and books.” Blown away by the wealth in Morozumi’s archives, Wiley says, “Man, that was a dude who was committed to knowledge of the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981410\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1686px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981410\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo showing a man's back as he sits at a desk. \" width=\"1686\" height=\"1118\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk.jpg 1686w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk-1536x1019.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Greg Morozumi was a constant learner, and eternal teacher. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘You want to make the ancestors proud’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the space adjacent to EastSide Arts is \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/bandung-books\">Bandung Books\u003c/a>, where many of Greg’s old books have found a home. “That idea of literacy,” says Serrano, “is something that we want to stress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Known for community events like the last month’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/blog/thank-you-for-attending-xicana-moratorium\">Xicana Moratorium Block Party,\u003c/a> the center’s most foundational practice is the simple act of reading. The first program at EastSide was the Community Archive Resource Project, which started with materials Greg had collected over 50 years of organizing work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comprised of binders of material from around the world, highlighting community actions against police brutality and uplifting the importance of the arts, Greg would use the archive as a tool for mentorship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When this generation of young people in our music studio wants to write about police brutality,” says Serrano, “Greg would be like, ‘Okay, look at all this stuff that came before you. You don’t have to reinvent stuff, you have to take it to the next level.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/archive-carp\">Now digitized\u003c/a>, Serrano says Greg’s archives of posters, music, buttons and books push artists to ask themselves, “Now, what is your role?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the coming months, Serrano will fully transition out of leadership at the center, and pass the baton to a collective of people who’ve been with the center since their teens, including Kevin Akhidenor and Leslie “Dime” Lopez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My heart is split in so many different ways,” says Lopez, about the forthcoming changes. On one hand, “I’m excited for our elders, and to continue their legacy and to really stand on the shoulders of those that built the space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she can’t help but feel the pressure of taking the reins. “It’s scary,” Lopez says, “you want to make your parents proud, you know? And you want to make the ancestors proud as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reflecting on the legacy of Greg Morozumi, as well as Elena Serrano and Susanne Takehara, Lopez gives them their flowers: “They shared so much and gave so much of their lives to this space,” she says, “for us to continue that work, the only thing we can do is pay it forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/calendar/tastes-of-eastside\">A Taste of EastSide\u003c/a> takes place Saturday, Sept. 20, at EastSide Arts Alliance (2277 International Blvd., Oakland). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/calendar/tastes-of-eastside\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981412\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1144px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981412\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting.jpg\" alt=\"A man sitting in front of a white board with writing on it.\" width=\"1144\" height=\"1754\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting.jpg 1144w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting-160x245.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting-768x1178.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.MalcolmX.2001.sitting-1002x1536.jpg 1002w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1144px) 100vw, 1144px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">EastSide Arts Alliance cofounder Greg Morozumi, pictured planning the 2001 Malcolm X Jazz Festival. With Morozumi’s passing in June and two other cofounders stepping down, the EastSide Arts Alliance will be led by a collective. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oakland’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/21803/eastside_arts_alliance\">EastSide Arts Alliance\u003c/a> is a cultural hub where young artists are politicized, community members are fed and events like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/programs/malcolm-x-jazz-arts-festival\">Malcolm X Jazz Festival\u003c/a> are organized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a traditional jazz fest, the event is a community resource where creatives, educators and entrepreneurs celebrate a variety of arts. It’s where 10 years ago \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2014/01/09/261101520/amiri-baraka-poet-and-co-founder-of-black-arts-movement-dies-at-79\">Amiri Baraka\u003c/a>, the father of the Black Arts Movement, was honored after he transitioned. It’s where \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnJEz776THs\">a young Kehlani once performed\u003c/a> under the mentorship of the late \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13972818/dwayne-wiggins-dead-oakland-musician-tony-toni-tone-died\">D’Wayne Wiggins\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Saturday, Sept. 20, EastSide Arts Alliance kicks off its 25th anniversary with \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/calendar/tastes-of-eastside\">A Taste of EastSide\u003c/a>, the first in a year-long series of events celebrating the center with art, food, history and community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The afternoon \u003ca href=\"https://donorbox.org/eastside-arts-alliance-25th-anniversary-giving-campaign?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAac0m59hLWeTNQTBkUR8idP-wpemAX9EzvxbbXvgh94Tl1i_2IthyiqOrw6myA_aem_6dPCml5WDgEQa-mGuWqR0A\">fundraiser\u003c/a> and performance includes the talented \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dnagadance/\">Dnaga Dance Company\u003c/a>, longtime EastSide Arts collaborator and \u003ca href=\"https://www.deepwatersdance.com/\">Deep Waters Dance Theatre\u003c/a> founder amara tabor-smith, violinist \u003ca href=\"https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/joan-tarika-lewis\">Tarika Lewis\u003c/a> — the first woman to join the Black Panther Party — and others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981409\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a woman in a light blue shirt and a man in a black shirt, sun glasses and hat standing in a park. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1307\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0-768x502.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/0-1536x1004.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elena Serrano and Greg Morozumi, two of the co-founders behind EastSide Arts Alliance pictured at Malcolm X Jazz Festival at San Antonio Park. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The event comes at a time of transition for for the community institution. \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/blog/greg-jung-morozumi\">Greg Jung Morozumi\u003c/a>, EastSide Arts Alliance co-founder and mentor to many, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/blog/greg-jung-morozumi\">passed in June\u003c/a>. Elena Serrano and Susanne Takehara, the center’s two remaining founding members, will soon step down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet even as the baton is passed to the next generation, Serrano says, the work isn’t going to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The birth of an community institution\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The seeds that grew into EastSide Arts Alliance were planted in the late 1990s, when four collectives came together. Aerosol writers \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDp38sltic8\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://dreamtdk.com/\">TDK\u003c/a> crew, \u003ca href=\"https://favianna.com/\">Favianna Rodriguez\u003c/a>’s C4 collective, the Black Dot’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Against-Gentrification-Marcel-Diallo-sees-a-2622101.php\">Marcel Diallo\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2009/10/seeing-with-the-blackeyed-peathe-art-of-letitia-ntofon/\">Letitia Ntofon\u003c/a> and organizers from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/tallersinfronteras/?hl=en\">Taller sin Fronteras\u003c/a> (also known as TSF or Workshop Without Borders) all came together to curate the first Malcolm X Jazz Festival in 2000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were informed by the work of Amiri Baraka, Yuri Kochiyama, Malaquías Montoya and especially Malcolm X. The festival exemplified “the liberation of people from Third World,” says Serrano — and art was the unifying force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981408\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981408\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg.jpg\" alt=\"Two men pose for a photo\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg-768x545.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Amiri-Baraka-and-Greg-1536x1089.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poet, playwright and author Amiri Baraka with organizer, artist and mentor Greg Morozumi, circa 1992. The following year, Morozumi would organize a ‘No Justice, No Peace’ event at Oakland’s Pro Arts, predating his work with EastSide Arts Alliance. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Serrano says, reflecting on the first Malcolm X Jazz Festival. “We booked 11 acts on the main stage.” Attempting to reach all demographics with “straight-ahead jazz, jazz with hip-hop, Asian jazz, Latin jazz” and more, Serrano says, they soon learned to book less performers. But their heart was in the right place, and San Antonio Park provided a perfect location for their mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Formerly \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/transportation/documents/projects/san-antonio-park-master-plan/saphistoryarticle.pdf\">the site of bear and bull fights in the 1800s\u003c/a>, San Antonio Park is located on the rolling hills of the 20s in East Oakland. At the time of the first jazz festival, organizers saw the surrounding community of Southeast Asian, Chicano, Indigenous, and African-American residents as a prime example of Third World solidarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But,” says Serrano, “it was also one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As philanthropic efforts were aimed at curbing the neighborhood’s problems, Serrano and company emphasized its benefits, like its diversity. “This is the most culturally rich community ever,” she says. “This is a true asset.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the newly founded EastSide Arts Alliance secured funding, they launched a cultural space focused on unity to “build power amongst the people” and make needed change, says Serrano.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981411\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1110px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981411\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed.jpg\" alt=\"A man standing, reading a book, while standing in front of a bookcase. \" width=\"1110\" height=\"740\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed.jpg 1110w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/unnamed-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">EastSide Arts Alliance co-founder Greg Morozumi reading one of his many books. To honor his love of books, EastSide now has a reading room dedicated to him. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A far-ranging influence\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over the decades, and spanning three different locations, the center has provided a home for young people. It’s where artists grow into refined practitioners, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ladimeuna/?hl=en\">Leslie “Dime” Lopez\u003c/a>. At the turn of the millennium, Lopez was a teenager who just wanted to spray paint. Now in her late 30s, Dime’s aerosol artwork now covers walls throughout the Bay Area and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Graf was a big thing during that time in my life,” she says, reflecting on her teenage years during a recent phone call. She was introduced to the center when a close friend volunteered at EastSide Arts’ first Malcolm X Jazz Festival. Lopez tagged along, and soon she started attending programs, working on murals and doing banner pieces on the sidewalk. “It was the very first stages,” says Lopez, “of being a part of a community of writers that were doing a bigger things in the neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/kev.akhidenor\">Kevin Akhidenor\u003c/a>, an educator, lyricist and accomplished freestyle rapper, also found a home at EastSide starting in 2002, when he and a friend first attended its Beats Flows program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akhidenor clearly remembers his first day, when he was a glasses-wearing fresh face on the scene. When he walked into the center, program leaders “bum-rushed” him — “they were just roasting me, and battling me,” he laughs. Momentarily overwhelmed, he quickly responded: “Battling and freestyling ain’t never been no issue to me,” he reflects, “so I just battled back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Akhidenor has been involved ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13832468\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13832468\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_.jpg\" alt=\"The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival in 2009.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/MalcolmX.MAIN_-520x293.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival in 2009. \u003ccite>(Gabe Meline)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2003, Akhidenor met Greg Morozumi, Elena Serrano and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/tracibartlow/?hl=en\">Traci Bartlow\u003c/a>, and realized, “This is an arts political organization.” He soon joined the Malcolm X Jazz Festival planning committee, hosted a stage at that year’s event and eventually joined EastSide’s staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well-known jazz musician \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/howard-wiley\">Howard Wiley\u003c/a> has been part of the Malcolm X Jazz Festival since the event’s second year. He remembers it vividly — not only because he played alongside Marcus Shelby’s group, but because he borrowed his grandmother’s diesel Mercedes Benz to get there. “And I didn’t have a license,” Wiley says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, he’s become the de facto curator of the main stage. One of the most important aspects for him of the jazz festival, and EastSide as a whole, is how artists gain political knowledge from people who’ve lived it firsthand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through Morozumi and Serrano, Wiley has met members of the Last Poets and hung-out with famed jazz saxophonist David Murray. He’s heard about conversations with Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane and Malcolm X from people who were there when the titans talked. He was also blessed with Greg Morozumi’s record collection before he passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he had to go into hospice,” Wiley says, “we moved him out, and we were just moving all these tapes, records and books.” Blown away by the wealth in Morozumi’s archives, Wiley says, “Man, that was a dude who was committed to knowledge of the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981410\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1686px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981410\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo showing a man's back as he sits at a desk. \" width=\"1686\" height=\"1118\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk.jpg 1686w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Morozumi.officedesk-1536x1019.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Greg Morozumi was a constant learner, and eternal teacher. \u003ccite>(EastSide Arts Alliance)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘You want to make the ancestors proud’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the space adjacent to EastSide Arts is \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/bandung-books\">Bandung Books\u003c/a>, where many of Greg’s old books have found a home. “That idea of literacy,” says Serrano, “is something that we want to stress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Known for community events like the last month’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/blog/thank-you-for-attending-xicana-moratorium\">Xicana Moratorium Block Party,\u003c/a> the center’s most foundational practice is the simple act of reading. The first program at EastSide was the Community Archive Resource Project, which started with materials Greg had collected over 50 years of organizing work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comprised of binders of material from around the world, highlighting community actions against police brutality and uplifting the importance of the arts, Greg would use the archive as a tool for mentorship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When this generation of young people in our music studio wants to write about police brutality,” says Serrano, “Greg would be like, ‘Okay, look at all this stuff that came before you. You don’t have to reinvent stuff, you have to take it to the next level.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/archive-carp\">Now digitized\u003c/a>, Serrano says Greg’s archives of posters, music, buttons and books push artists to ask themselves, “Now, what is your role?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the coming months, Serrano will fully transition out of leadership at the center, and pass the baton to a collective of people who’ve been with the center since their teens, including Kevin Akhidenor and Leslie “Dime” Lopez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My heart is split in so many different ways,” says Lopez, about the forthcoming changes. On one hand, “I’m excited for our elders, and to continue their legacy and to really stand on the shoulders of those that built the space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she can’t help but feel the pressure of taking the reins. “It’s scary,” Lopez says, “you want to make your parents proud, you know? And you want to make the ancestors proud as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reflecting on the legacy of Greg Morozumi, as well as Elena Serrano and Susanne Takehara, Lopez gives them their flowers: “They shared so much and gave so much of their lives to this space,” she says, “for us to continue that work, the only thing we can do is pay it forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/calendar/tastes-of-eastside\">A Taste of EastSide\u003c/a> takes place Saturday, Sept. 20, at EastSide Arts Alliance (2277 International Blvd., Oakland). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/calendar/tastes-of-eastside\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "ybca-bay-area-then-1990s-rigo-23-margaret-kilgallen",
"title": "‘Bay Area Then’ Uplifts the Radical Artists of ’90s San Francisco",
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"headTitle": "‘Bay Area Then’ Uplifts the Radical Artists of ’90s San Francisco | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979732\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB.jpg\" alt=\"four people stand in front of a mural depicting scenes from Gaza and San Francisco, including Palestinians using bullhorns, self-driving cars, journalists being trampled and a tall red and white tower\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1323\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979732\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB-768x508.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB-1536x1016.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rigo 23’s ‘Terra Nullius,’ which connects San Francisco’s tech industry to the destruction of Gaza, is a powerful highlight of ‘Bay Area Then,’ on view through Jan. 25, 2026 at YBCA. \u003ccite>(Robbie Sweeny)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/ybca\">Yerba Buena Center for the Arts\u003c/a>’ new exhibition \u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/event/bay-area-then/\">\u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> \u003c/a>offers a glimpse of San Francisco in the ’90s, before tech and its hyper-driven version of capitalism overtook the city, and when rents were low enough for artists to thrive. Working-class young people could not only afford to live here — they also had the time and energy to run weird, experimental galleries and participate in revolutionary organizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smartly curated by Eungie Joo, \u003cem>Bay Area Then\u003c/em> surveys the vibrant cultures that emerged from the AIDS crisis, the LAPD beating of Rodney King and the first Gulf War, connecting the dots from each to today’s political struggles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show opens with clusters of ephemera: amateur film photos, graffiti zines and photocopied flyers. Whether protesting art censorship or advocating for squatting in abandoned properties, the flyers point to a hopeful radicalism that thrived in an age before ubiquitous AI and mass surveillance. These informal pieces — whose creators probably never thought they’d end up in a museum — lend \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> a grassroots feel that’s rare for a white-walled, capital-A art institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979708\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1976px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979708\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1976\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-scaled.jpg 1976w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-160x207.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-768x995.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-1186x1536.jpg 1186w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-1581x2048.jpg 1581w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1976px) 100vw, 1976px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flyers, photos and other ephemera from the ’90s in ‘Bay Area Then’ at YBCA document artist-run spaces and grassroots political movements. \u003ccite>(Nastia Voynovskaya for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Museums often examine protest movements of the past from a safe distance; rarely do they dare engage with what’s transgressive today. Refreshingly, \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> features contemporary works from artists active since the ’90s, including Rigo 23, whose jaw-dropping \u003ci>Terra Nullius\u003c/i> is a centerpiece of the show. The mural depicts Palestinian civilians shouting through bullhorns while drones hover overhead. Juxtaposing San Francisco’s Sutro Tower with the West Bank wall — and self-driving cars with tanks — the piece forces the viewer to confront the reality of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986136/demonstrators-rally-outside-google-conference-call-for-end-to-israel-contracts\">Bay Area tech giants’ military contracts\u003c/a>, which have helped create the infrastructure for Israel’s destruction of Gaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The inclusion of this piece and others marks a departure for YBCA, which changed leadership this year. In 2024, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13952460/artists-deface-work-ybca-pro-palestine-protest\">artists from an exhibition titled \u003ci>Bay Area Now\u003c/i> modified their own pieces\u003c/a> with messages like “Ceasefire Now,” the show closed down entirely for a month, prompting accusations of censorship. When the exhibition reopened, it contained tepid disclaimers stating that the work represented the opinions of the artists and not YBCA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979706\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979706\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1475\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-2000x1152.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-160x92.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-768x442.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-1536x885.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-2048x1180.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Margaret Kilgallen, ‘Main Drag’ (2001). \u003ccite>(Robbie Sweeny)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i>, the artists are given space to say things with their chests. A large-scale 2023 aerosol piece by graffiti artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13926619/spie-one-tdk-bay-area-graffiti-history-hip-hop\">Spie One\u003c/a> depicts seeds blossoming into raised fists of resistance on Palestinian soil; it hangs next to a 1997 work by the late graffiti legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/10141391/dream-but-dont-sleep-remembering-mike-dream-francisco\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a> that criticizes U.S. colonialism in the Philippines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all the art in the show is explicitly political. A gem of \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> is \u003ci>Main Drag\u003c/i>, the last major installation by Mission School icon Margaret Kilgallen, who passed away in 2001. Across two walls, Kilgallen remixes sign-painting techniques with stylized illustrations of working-class people going about their everyday lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a loving approach, and one that’s felt throughout \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i>, as artists honor the extraordinary potential of everyday people to create a better world.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/event/bay-area-then/\">Bay Area Then\u003c/a>’ is on view through Jan. 25, 2026, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco). The exhibition features Nao Bustamante, Carolyn Castaño, Bill Daniel, Sergio De La Torre and Chris Treggiari, Beatrix Fowler, Mike “Dream” Francisco, Johanna Jackson, Chris Johanson and Ajax Oakford, Arnold Kemp, Margaret Kilgallen, Josh Lazcano, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Ruby Neri, Manuel Ocampo, Eamon Ore-Giron, Gina Osterloh, Rigo 23, Spie One and others. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "In a new YBCA exhibit, Rigo 23, Margaret Kilgallen and Mike ‘Dream’ Francisco affirm the power of everyday people.",
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"title": "‘Bay Area Then’ Uplifts the Radical Artists of ’90s San Francisco | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979732\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB.jpg\" alt=\"four people stand in front of a mural depicting scenes from Gaza and San Francisco, including Palestinians using bullhorns, self-driving cars, journalists being trampled and a tall red and white tower\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1323\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979732\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB-768x508.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/X8cOfMeB-1536x1016.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rigo 23’s ‘Terra Nullius,’ which connects San Francisco’s tech industry to the destruction of Gaza, is a powerful highlight of ‘Bay Area Then,’ on view through Jan. 25, 2026 at YBCA. \u003ccite>(Robbie Sweeny)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/ybca\">Yerba Buena Center for the Arts\u003c/a>’ new exhibition \u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/event/bay-area-then/\">\u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> \u003c/a>offers a glimpse of San Francisco in the ’90s, before tech and its hyper-driven version of capitalism overtook the city, and when rents were low enough for artists to thrive. Working-class young people could not only afford to live here — they also had the time and energy to run weird, experimental galleries and participate in revolutionary organizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smartly curated by Eungie Joo, \u003cem>Bay Area Then\u003c/em> surveys the vibrant cultures that emerged from the AIDS crisis, the LAPD beating of Rodney King and the first Gulf War, connecting the dots from each to today’s political struggles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show opens with clusters of ephemera: amateur film photos, graffiti zines and photocopied flyers. Whether protesting art censorship or advocating for squatting in abandoned properties, the flyers point to a hopeful radicalism that thrived in an age before ubiquitous AI and mass surveillance. These informal pieces — whose creators probably never thought they’d end up in a museum — lend \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> a grassroots feel that’s rare for a white-walled, capital-A art institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979708\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1976px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979708\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1976\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-scaled.jpg 1976w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-160x207.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-768x995.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-1186x1536.jpg 1186w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/IMG_0540-1581x2048.jpg 1581w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1976px) 100vw, 1976px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flyers, photos and other ephemera from the ’90s in ‘Bay Area Then’ at YBCA document artist-run spaces and grassroots political movements. \u003ccite>(Nastia Voynovskaya for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Museums often examine protest movements of the past from a safe distance; rarely do they dare engage with what’s transgressive today. Refreshingly, \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> features contemporary works from artists active since the ’90s, including Rigo 23, whose jaw-dropping \u003ci>Terra Nullius\u003c/i> is a centerpiece of the show. The mural depicts Palestinian civilians shouting through bullhorns while drones hover overhead. Juxtaposing San Francisco’s Sutro Tower with the West Bank wall — and self-driving cars with tanks — the piece forces the viewer to confront the reality of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11986136/demonstrators-rally-outside-google-conference-call-for-end-to-israel-contracts\">Bay Area tech giants’ military contracts\u003c/a>, which have helped create the infrastructure for Israel’s destruction of Gaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The inclusion of this piece and others marks a departure for YBCA, which changed leadership this year. In 2024, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13952460/artists-deface-work-ybca-pro-palestine-protest\">artists from an exhibition titled \u003ci>Bay Area Now\u003c/i> modified their own pieces\u003c/a> with messages like “Ceasefire Now,” the show closed down entirely for a month, prompting accusations of censorship. When the exhibition reopened, it contained tepid disclaimers stating that the work represented the opinions of the artists and not YBCA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979706\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979706\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1475\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-2000x1152.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-160x92.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-768x442.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-1536x885.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Margaret-Kilgallen-Main-Drag-2001-photo-by-Robbie-Sweeny-2048x1180.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Margaret Kilgallen, ‘Main Drag’ (2001). \u003ccite>(Robbie Sweeny)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i>, the artists are given space to say things with their chests. A large-scale 2023 aerosol piece by graffiti artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13926619/spie-one-tdk-bay-area-graffiti-history-hip-hop\">Spie One\u003c/a> depicts seeds blossoming into raised fists of resistance on Palestinian soil; it hangs next to a 1997 work by the late graffiti legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/10141391/dream-but-dont-sleep-remembering-mike-dream-francisco\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a> that criticizes U.S. colonialism in the Philippines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all the art in the show is explicitly political. A gem of \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i> is \u003ci>Main Drag\u003c/i>, the last major installation by Mission School icon Margaret Kilgallen, who passed away in 2001. Across two walls, Kilgallen remixes sign-painting techniques with stylized illustrations of working-class people going about their everyday lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a loving approach, and one that’s felt throughout \u003ci>Bay Area Then\u003c/i>, as artists honor the extraordinary potential of everyday people to create a better world.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘\u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/event/bay-area-then/\">Bay Area Then\u003c/a>’ is on view through Jan. 25, 2026, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco). The exhibition features Nao Bustamante, Carolyn Castaño, Bill Daniel, Sergio De La Torre and Chris Treggiari, Beatrix Fowler, Mike “Dream” Francisco, Johanna Jackson, Chris Johanson and Ajax Oakford, Arnold Kemp, Margaret Kilgallen, Josh Lazcano, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Ruby Neri, Manuel Ocampo, Eamon Ore-Giron, Gina Osterloh, Rigo 23, Spie One and others. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "kalani-cecaci-mural-oakland-graffiti-angus-cloud-mike-dream",
"title": "A Massive Oakland Mural Uplifts the Town’s Culture of Resistance",
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"headTitle": "A Massive Oakland Mural Uplifts the Town’s Culture of Resistance | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>No matter how much Oakland changes, the Town’s creative resistance remains irrepressible, from the \u003ca href=\"https://chavezfoundation.org/2024/02/19/cesar-chavez-and-the-black-panthers\">Black Panthers and United Farm Workers\u003c/a> of the ’60s to today’s hip-hop and graffiti movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even amid ongoing gentrification and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036919/barbara-lee-pledges-to-unite-oakland-in-first-remarks-as-mayor-elect\">political challenges\u003c/a>, long-time Oaklanders always find a way to find joy and support their own. [aside postid='arts_13973907']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the idea behind a new, 3,500-square-foot \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/murals\">mural\u003c/a> standing tall and proud at the intersection of Thomas L. Berkley Way and Clay Street in Downtown Oakland. Third-generation East Oakland resident Kalani Cecaci creative-directed and painted the multi-panel piece with the help of over 50 self-taught aerosol artists, including Akil Francisco, the son of graffiti legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/mike-dream-francisco\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a>. The wall also includes a homage to Cecaci’s close friend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13932485/tributes-angus-cloud-euphoria-oakland-osa-kehlani-zendaya-kev-choice-jwalt\">Angus Cloud\u003c/a>, the late artist and actor whose final film, \u003cem>Freaky Tales\u003c/em>, is currently in theaters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mural, commissioned by \u003ca href=\"https://www.abgartgroup.com/\">ABG Art Group\u003c/a>, is just as personal to the artists as it is to the wider community it depicts. It’s a representation of what Oakland means for people who grew up on this side of the tracks. For those less familiar, the wall serves as a guide to local culture and its significance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975376\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975376\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new mural on Thomas L. Berkley Way and Clay Street in downtown Oakland on April 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Native Land Forever’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“This is my favorite wall,” Cecaci says, pointing to a panel with the phrase “Native Land Forever” and two indigenous figures, a young woman in ceremonial garb and a smiling elder. When given the opportunity to create a mural in Oakland, the recognition of tribal land and culture was a given for Cecaci.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a reminder that the land we walk on right now, Oakland, was something else before. It belonged to the Ohlone people, and people don’t think about that or how important it is,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The font, with feathers spelling out all 21 letters, is the creation of Oakland artist Tre Sorensen. He came up with it when he and Cecaci visited the Oglala Lakota tribe at Wounded Knee Reserve in South Dakota, where one of the tribe members asked him to design letters for a tattoo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bordering the phrase is the representation of an Ohlone chief holding a Miwok basket in honor of Cecaci’s friend’s father, a tribe member, who recently passed away. On the right is a woman, another friend of Cecaci’s, Sabina Vargas of the Mexica tribe, engaging in ceremony.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not scared to tell somebody, ‘Yo, you’re on stolen land, brother, like, it’s not your people’s [land], you feel me, so respect it,’” says the artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975374\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975374\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Akil Francisco stands beside a mural designed by Kalani Cecaci in downtown Oakland on April 24, 2025, honoring fallen graffiti artists, including his father, Mike “Dream” Francisco. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Honoring Oakland’s fallen graffiti artists\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The second panel is dedicated to Oakland’s graffiti culture. The wall consists of over 60 individual tags in various styles, merging and fading into one another in a vibrant interwoven display.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The names at the very top layer of the piece form what Cecaci calls “Heaven’s Spot,” paying respects to well-known Bay Area graffiti writers who passed away in recent years. These late painters include Nautical, 3AYEM, Ghost51, Sern, DIEN, Shrooms, Math and Aneml. The ANGUS tag represents Angus Cloud, who used the moniker for his graffiti work. LUCHO pays respects to \u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2024/07/luis-manuel-arguello-inglis-dolores-park-homicide-victim-honored-with-mural-on-24th-and-folsom/\">Luis Manuel Arguello-Inglis\u003c/a>, a San Francisco teenager who was killed at Dolores Park last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below Heaven’s Spot, there is a familiar name rendered in an earth-tone color scheme: Dream, a.k.a. Mike “Dream” Francisco. Dream and his crew, TDK, revolutionized the Bay Area graffiti scene by adding fine art elements to their work and using it to call out atrocities impacting communities of color. Nearly 25 years after his death, Dream’s legacy lives on through his son, Akil Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Graffiti] is just an art form that has been traditionally passed down from so many generations,” says Akil. “It’s really all just deeper than doing art. It all comes back to the friendships, the conversations, the stories.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975373\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975373\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Akil Francisco shows a tattoo dedicated to his father, Mike “Dream” Francisco. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The wall features the tags of 50 other artists who have achieved a high level of artistic expertise, manipulating spray paint to create saturation, fine lines and imitations of light patterns. For many, graffiti is a life-long practice, and the stakes of perfecting the craft are high in an artform that’s oftentimes criminalized. Viewers who pay attention to Oakland’s freeway overpasses and train yards might recognize some of the emblems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t view graffiti as art, because all you see most of the time is all the quick tags. But go walk the train tracks, you’ll see some of the dopest artwork you’ll see in your lifetime,” Cecaci says. “When I look at the wall, I see people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, different everything, and they’re all here for one common purpose, and that’s to paint graffiti.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An homage to bike culture\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On any warm day in Oakland, groups of mostly young men on ATVs, dirt bikes and motorcycles bring life to the streets with the rumblings of their engines. Sometimes they ride in twos and threes; other times dozens of riders take over the street. Although they may not always wear helmets or follow traffic laws, the way this subculture creates a sense of community is undeniable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like a beautiful dance of machines,” says Cecaci. “Seeing so many people from different parts of Oakland, different cliques, different hoods, and they’re all getting along for one common goal, and that’s the joy of the bikes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975370\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975370\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The new mural in downtown Oakland features an homage to bike culture. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The panel displays an ATV rider in a helmet and hoodie riding past the Fairyland sign, which Cecaci replaced with the words “Ohlone Land.” He says he chose the image because of how bike culture keeps the community together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Bikes up, guns down’ is important, and it saves a lot of people,” he notes. “Sure people see it as a nuisance, but it’s something that unifies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The next tribute to Angus Cloud: a new skate park\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Throughout Oakland, Angus Cloud’s image has been immortalized in what feels like every few blocks. While many see the young actor who played Fezco on \u003cem>Euphoria\u003c/em>, those who grew up with him see Conor Angus Cloud Hickey — a brother, son, dear friend and multi-talented artist who gave back to his community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cecaci and Angus had been best friends since high school. Angus’ mother, Lisa Cloud, played an inspirational role in both of their careers. While some parents told their kids not to paint on the walls, Lisa provided the paint, and Angus invited his friends to join him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This fool is the sickest artist I’ve ever met. Like, the things that came out of his mind — he was a fucking dope poet, sick rapper,” he says. “Very talented, interested in the world, curious, and he always said yes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975372\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975372\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mural honoring fallen graffiti artists, designed by Kalani Cecaci, features Angus Cloud, who passed away in 2023, in downtown Oakland on April 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lisa says she never pushed Angus in a particular direction; she just encouraged him to pursue his talents with rigor. “To belong makes you bloom, to fit in you have to wither a bit,” Lisa says. “Above all else, I gave him the permission and encouragement to go to the things that make him bloom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Cecaci and Lisa have vivid memories of Angus’ tenacious spirit and authenticity. Even through the fame, his nonchalant confidence showed that he was not there to impress, but to be himself and represent Oakland the entire way. When he came home, Lisa says he would buy bags of McDonald’s burgers, cigarettes and lighters to distribute to the unhoused people in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The public connected with him in a very different way. He meant a lot to them,” Lisa reflects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975367\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975367\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mural artist Kalani Cecaci spray paints the names of fellow artists on a mural he designed honoring fallen graffiti artists in downtown Oakland on April 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The panel displays a 30-foot-tall Angus over the backdrop of Town Park, a skate park in West Oakland that he frequented. There’s a replica of the last piece Angus ever painted, which he made for a friend who passed away known as DIEN.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Angus mural serves as a precursor for more homages to him to come. Just two blocks away, a plot of land sits barren with plans of a skate park and recreational area for Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), where Angus attended high school. This project, called Cloud Park, is backed by OSA. With the right funding and city approval, OSA Executive Director Mike Oz says they could break ground as soon as this summer. The school is currently organizing a fundraiser showing of \u003cem>Freaky Tales\u003c/em> at the Grand Lake Theatre slated for June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no Oakland for me without Conor. I’m just proud of him,” says Cecaci. “He represented his city well, so that’s why we paint him. … Fuck being famous, he was so much bigger than that to us and I wish people understood that.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>No matter how much Oakland changes, the Town’s creative resistance remains irrepressible, from the \u003ca href=\"https://chavezfoundation.org/2024/02/19/cesar-chavez-and-the-black-panthers\">Black Panthers and United Farm Workers\u003c/a> of the ’60s to today’s hip-hop and graffiti movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even amid ongoing gentrification and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036919/barbara-lee-pledges-to-unite-oakland-in-first-remarks-as-mayor-elect\">political challenges\u003c/a>, long-time Oaklanders always find a way to find joy and support their own. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the idea behind a new, 3,500-square-foot \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/murals\">mural\u003c/a> standing tall and proud at the intersection of Thomas L. Berkley Way and Clay Street in Downtown Oakland. Third-generation East Oakland resident Kalani Cecaci creative-directed and painted the multi-panel piece with the help of over 50 self-taught aerosol artists, including Akil Francisco, the son of graffiti legend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/mike-dream-francisco\">Mike “Dream” Francisco\u003c/a>. The wall also includes a homage to Cecaci’s close friend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13932485/tributes-angus-cloud-euphoria-oakland-osa-kehlani-zendaya-kev-choice-jwalt\">Angus Cloud\u003c/a>, the late artist and actor whose final film, \u003cem>Freaky Tales\u003c/em>, is currently in theaters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mural, commissioned by \u003ca href=\"https://www.abgartgroup.com/\">ABG Art Group\u003c/a>, is just as personal to the artists as it is to the wider community it depicts. It’s a representation of what Oakland means for people who grew up on this side of the tracks. For those less familiar, the wall serves as a guide to local culture and its significance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975376\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975376\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-14-BL-KQED-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new mural on Thomas L. Berkley Way and Clay Street in downtown Oakland on April 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Native Land Forever’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“This is my favorite wall,” Cecaci says, pointing to a panel with the phrase “Native Land Forever” and two indigenous figures, a young woman in ceremonial garb and a smiling elder. When given the opportunity to create a mural in Oakland, the recognition of tribal land and culture was a given for Cecaci.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a reminder that the land we walk on right now, Oakland, was something else before. It belonged to the Ohlone people, and people don’t think about that or how important it is,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The font, with feathers spelling out all 21 letters, is the creation of Oakland artist Tre Sorensen. He came up with it when he and Cecaci visited the Oglala Lakota tribe at Wounded Knee Reserve in South Dakota, where one of the tribe members asked him to design letters for a tattoo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bordering the phrase is the representation of an Ohlone chief holding a Miwok basket in honor of Cecaci’s friend’s father, a tribe member, who recently passed away. On the right is a woman, another friend of Cecaci’s, Sabina Vargas of the Mexica tribe, engaging in ceremony.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not scared to tell somebody, ‘Yo, you’re on stolen land, brother, like, it’s not your people’s [land], you feel me, so respect it,’” says the artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975374\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975374\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-08-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Akil Francisco stands beside a mural designed by Kalani Cecaci in downtown Oakland on April 24, 2025, honoring fallen graffiti artists, including his father, Mike “Dream” Francisco. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Honoring Oakland’s fallen graffiti artists\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The second panel is dedicated to Oakland’s graffiti culture. The wall consists of over 60 individual tags in various styles, merging and fading into one another in a vibrant interwoven display.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The names at the very top layer of the piece form what Cecaci calls “Heaven’s Spot,” paying respects to well-known Bay Area graffiti writers who passed away in recent years. These late painters include Nautical, 3AYEM, Ghost51, Sern, DIEN, Shrooms, Math and Aneml. The ANGUS tag represents Angus Cloud, who used the moniker for his graffiti work. LUCHO pays respects to \u003ca href=\"https://missionlocal.org/2024/07/luis-manuel-arguello-inglis-dolores-park-homicide-victim-honored-with-mural-on-24th-and-folsom/\">Luis Manuel Arguello-Inglis\u003c/a>, a San Francisco teenager who was killed at Dolores Park last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below Heaven’s Spot, there is a familiar name rendered in an earth-tone color scheme: Dream, a.k.a. Mike “Dream” Francisco. Dream and his crew, TDK, revolutionized the Bay Area graffiti scene by adding fine art elements to their work and using it to call out atrocities impacting communities of color. Nearly 25 years after his death, Dream’s legacy lives on through his son, Akil Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Graffiti] is just an art form that has been traditionally passed down from so many generations,” says Akil. “It’s really all just deeper than doing art. It all comes back to the friendships, the conversations, the stories.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975373\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975373\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Akil Francisco shows a tattoo dedicated to his father, Mike “Dream” Francisco. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The wall features the tags of 50 other artists who have achieved a high level of artistic expertise, manipulating spray paint to create saturation, fine lines and imitations of light patterns. For many, graffiti is a life-long practice, and the stakes of perfecting the craft are high in an artform that’s oftentimes criminalized. Viewers who pay attention to Oakland’s freeway overpasses and train yards might recognize some of the emblems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t view graffiti as art, because all you see most of the time is all the quick tags. But go walk the train tracks, you’ll see some of the dopest artwork you’ll see in your lifetime,” Cecaci says. “When I look at the wall, I see people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, different everything, and they’re all here for one common purpose, and that’s to paint graffiti.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An homage to bike culture\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On any warm day in Oakland, groups of mostly young men on ATVs, dirt bikes and motorcycles bring life to the streets with the rumblings of their engines. Sometimes they ride in twos and threes; other times dozens of riders take over the street. Although they may not always wear helmets or follow traffic laws, the way this subculture creates a sense of community is undeniable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like a beautiful dance of machines,” says Cecaci. “Seeing so many people from different parts of Oakland, different cliques, different hoods, and they’re all getting along for one common goal, and that’s the joy of the bikes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975370\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975370\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-16-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The new mural in downtown Oakland features an homage to bike culture. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The panel displays an ATV rider in a helmet and hoodie riding past the Fairyland sign, which Cecaci replaced with the words “Ohlone Land.” He says he chose the image because of how bike culture keeps the community together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Bikes up, guns down’ is important, and it saves a lot of people,” he notes. “Sure people see it as a nuisance, but it’s something that unifies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The next tribute to Angus Cloud: a new skate park\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Throughout Oakland, Angus Cloud’s image has been immortalized in what feels like every few blocks. While many see the young actor who played Fezco on \u003cem>Euphoria\u003c/em>, those who grew up with him see Conor Angus Cloud Hickey — a brother, son, dear friend and multi-talented artist who gave back to his community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cecaci and Angus had been best friends since high school. Angus’ mother, Lisa Cloud, played an inspirational role in both of their careers. While some parents told their kids not to paint on the walls, Lisa provided the paint, and Angus invited his friends to join him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This fool is the sickest artist I’ve ever met. Like, the things that came out of his mind — he was a fucking dope poet, sick rapper,” he says. “Very talented, interested in the world, curious, and he always said yes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975372\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975372\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250424-OAKLANDMURAL-03-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mural honoring fallen graffiti artists, designed by Kalani Cecaci, features Angus Cloud, who passed away in 2023, in downtown Oakland on April 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lisa says she never pushed Angus in a particular direction; she just encouraged him to pursue his talents with rigor. “To belong makes you bloom, to fit in you have to wither a bit,” Lisa says. “Above all else, I gave him the permission and encouragement to go to the things that make him bloom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Cecaci and Lisa have vivid memories of Angus’ tenacious spirit and authenticity. Even through the fame, his nonchalant confidence showed that he was not there to impress, but to be himself and represent Oakland the entire way. When he came home, Lisa says he would buy bags of McDonald’s burgers, cigarettes and lighters to distribute to the unhoused people in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The public connected with him in a very different way. He meant a lot to them,” Lisa reflects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13975367\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13975367\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/04/250423-OAKLANDMURAL-02-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mural artist Kalani Cecaci spray paints the names of fellow artists on a mural he designed honoring fallen graffiti artists in downtown Oakland on April 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The panel displays a 30-foot-tall Angus over the backdrop of Town Park, a skate park in West Oakland that he frequented. There’s a replica of the last piece Angus ever painted, which he made for a friend who passed away known as DIEN.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Angus mural serves as a precursor for more homages to him to come. Just two blocks away, a plot of land sits barren with plans of a skate park and recreational area for Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), where Angus attended high school. This project, called Cloud Park, is backed by OSA. With the right funding and city approval, OSA Executive Director Mike Oz says they could break ground as soon as this summer. The school is currently organizing a fundraiser showing of \u003cem>Freaky Tales\u003c/em> at the Grand Lake Theatre slated for June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no Oakland for me without Conor. I’m just proud of him,” says Cecaci. “He represented his city well, so that’s why we paint him. … Fuck being famous, he was so much bigger than that to us and I wish people understood that.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "nba-all-star-weekend-bay-area-culture-murals-rappers-community",
"title": "At NBA All-Star Weekend, True Bay Area Culture Thrived — If You Knew Where to Find It",
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"headTitle": "At NBA All-Star Weekend, True Bay Area Culture Thrived — If You Knew Where to Find It | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of basketball fanatics snaked around San Francisco’s Chinatown, awaiting the limited edition release of Nike’s Kobe Bryant “Year of the Snake” sneakers. Red and gold lanterns dangled above the narrow streets — where the city’s Lunar New Year parade would commence just days later — providing a natural and calculated backdrop for the shoe behemoth’s latest Asian-inspired drop. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To celebrate the moment, a nearby mural was unveiled by local artists \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/tdk\">TDK Vogue\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/twinwallsmuralcompany/?hl=en\">Twin Walls\u003c/a>, depicting the late Bryant surrounded by Asian children, a black mamba and Chinese iconography. This clash of a global corporation and the multicultural, street-level talent of the Bay served as a bold reminder of the Bay Area’s vibrantly diverse, creatively imbued enclaves and intersections — just in time for NBA All-Star Weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spanning three days, the annual showcase of the most skilled basketballers in the world completely took over the Bay Area this past weekend, with hundreds of high-profile events scattered throughout greater San Francisco and Oakland. It provided no shortage of after-hours shenanigans that showcased the most eccentric — and most embarrassing — elements of today’s Bay Area culture in a series of concerts, parties and “activations” for fans visiting from around the globe (the NBA reported 34 nations in attendance at the weekend’s games).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971951\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971951\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Kobe Bryant tribute mural titled ‘Mamba Mentality’ at Willie ‘Woo Woo’ Wong Playground in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The mural was completed by Elaine Chu and Marina Perez-Wong of Twin Walls, TDK Vogue and Joseph Lopez for a Nike event held during NBA All-Star Weekend. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The weekend kicked off with the Rising Stars Game on Friday, which saw the NBA’s youngest talents going head-to-head against each other, with the victors facing off against the league’s most established stars in Sunday’s big game. Vallejo’s own rising star, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/larussell\">LaRussell\u003c/a>, stole the show with a halftime performance of a previously unreleased song based on All- Star Weekend. “I used to watch All-Star from the house, now we here” he announced to the crowd, before performing an acoustic version of “GT Coupe” from his extensive catalog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, LaRussell was a major force throughout the weekend, popping up as a guest at Jordan Brand-sponsored events, and delivering a cathartic, out-of-body live performance for a VIP crowd at Stephen Curry’s Club Thirty — the 11-time All-Star’s pop-up lounge hosted at Splash, a mega sports bar that just opened next door to Chase Center. With appearances from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/saweetie\">Saweetie\u003c/a>, Too Short, P-Lo, Money B of Digital Underground, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/mistah-fab\">Mistah F.A.B.\u003c/a> and Richie Rich, LaRussell lifted the predominantly Bay Area crowd with live-band renditions of regional anthems, including 2Pac’s “I Get Around,” P-Lo’s “Put Me On Something,” Mistah F.A.B.’s “N.E.W Oakland” and Mac Dre’s “Get Stupid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rest of the weekend contained Bay Area Easter eggs and overt hat-tips alike to the region’s unique sound and history. Visuals of the Bay’s iconic bridges and architecture flashed on the arena jumbotron while Bay Area classics from Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go” blared from the stadium-capacity speakers. Subtle touches, like ongoing audio clips of Too $hort instructing referees to “blow the whistle” during Saturday’s Three-Point Contest, added to the thoughtful incorporation of Bay Area culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971956\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971956\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saweetie performs during the 74th NBA All-Star Game at Chase Center on Feb. 16, 2025 in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Sunday’s marquee game, a skit by onetime Bay Area resident Katt Williams about the Golden Gate Bridge set a comedic tone. E-40 and hall-of-famers Chris Mullin and Barry Bonds followed by introducing Raphael Saadiq for a pregame performance of Bay Area music, including covers of rock legends Metallica, Steve Miller, Santana and the Doobie Brothers. Oakland R&B legends En Vogue joined Saweetie, Too Short and E-40 for the halftime show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it wasn’t all as smoothly executed as a Steph Curry layup in the paint; there were plenty of hollow moments and figurative air balls, too. The weekend’s most-publicized events and primetime headliners hinged on \u003ca href=\"https://48hills.org/2025/02/why-is-sfs-nba-all-star-weekend-musical-lineup-so-meh/\">sauceless “meh” celebrities like Flo Rida and the Chainsmokers\u003c/a> rather than utilizing the Bay’s rich plentitude of local, fan-favorite artistry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This meant the best happenings transpired off-site, often by invitation from local figures and entities who made a genuine effort to appease the Bay Area audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13971701'] A Marshawn Lynch event in Alameda featuring \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13913821/endeavors-agency-oakland-assan-jethmal-rozz-nash\">Hueman\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13957194/seiji-oda-bay-area-rap-lo-fi-minimalist-hyphy\">Seiji Oda\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13920049/sydney-welchs-photography-features-the-latest-wave-of-bay-area-talent\">Sydney Welch\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13955802/bay-area-rappers-food-lyrics-illustrations-e-40-larry-june\">Larry June\u003c/a>’s (free) sold-out show at August Hall with his latest collaborators, \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/larry-june-2-chainz-the-alchemist-life-is-beautiful/\">2Chainz and the Alchemist\u003c/a>. San Francisco designer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13929529/sewing-new-life-into-levis-jeans\">Paolo Cui\u003c/a>’s involvement with Nike Tech Fleece to make customized, Japanese sashiko-sewn gear for NBA All-Stars like Victor Wembanyama. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13936639/jubo-iguanas-filipino-burrito-juborrito-collaboration-san-jose\">Jubo Clothing\u003c/a>’s “For The Soil” drop. Filmmakers like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13928650/pens-pals-putting-on-for-tehran-in-the-bay\">Mohammad Gorjestani\u003c/a> and rappers like P-Lo (who \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13971354/p-lo-for-the-soil-warriors-golden-state-entertainment-nba-all-star-weekend\">just released an album with the Golden State Warriors\u003c/a>) appearing at the Union and Jordan Brand sneaker release party at the St. Joseph’s Art Society. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the quick-thrill moments of seeing a towering NBA legend like Tracy McGrady casually strolling past you on the street, the weekend’s magic was most palpable outside of the high-altitude stratosphere. Those priced out of the arena populated smaller experiences and All-Star themed parties at satellite venues, helping the Bay Area’s endlessly divergent culture to stand out. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971952\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971952\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fans line up for an NBA All-Star Weekend event at Foot Locker in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Finding genuine community in a time of perilous, unyielding, AI-boosted capitalism feels harder than ever. For every community-centered, person-to-person interaction I had with local clothing designers, artists and advocates, I received an invitation from a faceless PR account for a brand-sponsored champagne tasting or corporate-funded afterparty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its worst, NBA All-Star in the Bay Area felt like “a big-ass commercial” (as my colleague \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13969956/nba-all-star-game-different-bay-area-oakland-san-francisco\">Pendarvis Harshaw pointed out\u003c/a> during Saturday’s Dunk Contest). Picture a high-culture experience nefariously mixed with big-business interests, plus influencers like Mr. Beast and Kai Cenat, and packaged as sports entertainment. It’s harder than ever in our world to tell what’s for profit and what’s for poetry. Who does it for the love of the game of basketball, and who’s doing it to play the game of networking and market share? \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I congratulated a local friend in the arts community who’d just finished a big brand sneaker collab for All-Star Weekend in their hometown of San Francisco, they responded with a somber reality: “Meh this was kinda wack… but I’m sure [visitors] can watch the influencers play.” As a voracious consumer of the NBA, and its constellation of stars and brand identities, to hear a trusted community member say their work was undervalued, even dismissed, gave me pause. That feeling was amplified throughout All-Star weekend, and that’s part of what we navigate daily as Bay Area people. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971950\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971950\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Hoopbus, a basketball nonprofit, appeared at Bay Area schools and hosted free community events during NBA All-Star Weekend. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But it still felt hella good to see people come together like a giant regional family, proudly flaunting on a national stage our art, our spirit, our showmanship and our care for collective Bay Area success. I romped around in a newly released \u003ca href=\"https://www.lidshd.com/products/nba-all-star-nba-asg-x-grateful-dead-9forty-a-frame\">Grateful Dead All-Star snapback\u003c/a>, dapping people up in a city that felt more activated than I can remember in years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a chance for us to show the industry what we have to offer,” LaRussell shared on stage. “Our light and our love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When stripped away of all the corporate elements, that’s exactly what we did, and continue to do, as a community: supply enough game and hustle to remain long after the NBA leaves town.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of basketball fanatics snaked around San Francisco’s Chinatown, awaiting the limited edition release of Nike’s Kobe Bryant “Year of the Snake” sneakers. Red and gold lanterns dangled above the narrow streets — where the city’s Lunar New Year parade would commence just days later — providing a natural and calculated backdrop for the shoe behemoth’s latest Asian-inspired drop. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To celebrate the moment, a nearby mural was unveiled by local artists \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/tdk\">TDK Vogue\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/twinwallsmuralcompany/?hl=en\">Twin Walls\u003c/a>, depicting the late Bryant surrounded by Asian children, a black mamba and Chinese iconography. This clash of a global corporation and the multicultural, street-level talent of the Bay served as a bold reminder of the Bay Area’s vibrantly diverse, creatively imbued enclaves and intersections — just in time for NBA All-Star Weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spanning three days, the annual showcase of the most skilled basketballers in the world completely took over the Bay Area this past weekend, with hundreds of high-profile events scattered throughout greater San Francisco and Oakland. It provided no shortage of after-hours shenanigans that showcased the most eccentric — and most embarrassing — elements of today’s Bay Area culture in a series of concerts, parties and “activations” for fans visiting from around the globe (the NBA reported 34 nations in attendance at the weekend’s games).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971951\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971951\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.kobemural-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Kobe Bryant tribute mural titled ‘Mamba Mentality’ at Willie ‘Woo Woo’ Wong Playground in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The mural was completed by Elaine Chu and Marina Perez-Wong of Twin Walls, TDK Vogue and Joseph Lopez for a Nike event held during NBA All-Star Weekend. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The weekend kicked off with the Rising Stars Game on Friday, which saw the NBA’s youngest talents going head-to-head against each other, with the victors facing off against the league’s most established stars in Sunday’s big game. Vallejo’s own rising star, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/larussell\">LaRussell\u003c/a>, stole the show with a halftime performance of a previously unreleased song based on All- Star Weekend. “I used to watch All-Star from the house, now we here” he announced to the crowd, before performing an acoustic version of “GT Coupe” from his extensive catalog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, LaRussell was a major force throughout the weekend, popping up as a guest at Jordan Brand-sponsored events, and delivering a cathartic, out-of-body live performance for a VIP crowd at Stephen Curry’s Club Thirty — the 11-time All-Star’s pop-up lounge hosted at Splash, a mega sports bar that just opened next door to Chase Center. With appearances from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/saweetie\">Saweetie\u003c/a>, Too Short, P-Lo, Money B of Digital Underground, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/mistah-fab\">Mistah F.A.B.\u003c/a> and Richie Rich, LaRussell lifted the predominantly Bay Area crowd with live-band renditions of regional anthems, including 2Pac’s “I Get Around,” P-Lo’s “Put Me On Something,” Mistah F.A.B.’s “N.E.W Oakland” and Mac Dre’s “Get Stupid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rest of the weekend contained Bay Area Easter eggs and overt hat-tips alike to the region’s unique sound and history. Visuals of the Bay’s iconic bridges and architecture flashed on the arena jumbotron while Bay Area classics from Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go” blared from the stadium-capacity speakers. Subtle touches, like ongoing audio clips of Too $hort instructing referees to “blow the whistle” during Saturday’s Three-Point Contest, added to the thoughtful incorporation of Bay Area culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971956\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971956\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.saweetie-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saweetie performs during the 74th NBA All-Star Game at Chase Center on Feb. 16, 2025 in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Sunday’s marquee game, a skit by onetime Bay Area resident Katt Williams about the Golden Gate Bridge set a comedic tone. E-40 and hall-of-famers Chris Mullin and Barry Bonds followed by introducing Raphael Saadiq for a pregame performance of Bay Area music, including covers of rock legends Metallica, Steve Miller, Santana and the Doobie Brothers. Oakland R&B legends En Vogue joined Saweetie, Too Short and E-40 for the halftime show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it wasn’t all as smoothly executed as a Steph Curry layup in the paint; there were plenty of hollow moments and figurative air balls, too. The weekend’s most-publicized events and primetime headliners hinged on \u003ca href=\"https://48hills.org/2025/02/why-is-sfs-nba-all-star-weekend-musical-lineup-so-meh/\">sauceless “meh” celebrities like Flo Rida and the Chainsmokers\u003c/a> rather than utilizing the Bay’s rich plentitude of local, fan-favorite artistry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This meant the best happenings transpired off-site, often by invitation from local figures and entities who made a genuine effort to appease the Bay Area audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> A Marshawn Lynch event in Alameda featuring \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13913821/endeavors-agency-oakland-assan-jethmal-rozz-nash\">Hueman\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13957194/seiji-oda-bay-area-rap-lo-fi-minimalist-hyphy\">Seiji Oda\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13920049/sydney-welchs-photography-features-the-latest-wave-of-bay-area-talent\">Sydney Welch\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13955802/bay-area-rappers-food-lyrics-illustrations-e-40-larry-june\">Larry June\u003c/a>’s (free) sold-out show at August Hall with his latest collaborators, \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/larry-june-2-chainz-the-alchemist-life-is-beautiful/\">2Chainz and the Alchemist\u003c/a>. San Francisco designer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13929529/sewing-new-life-into-levis-jeans\">Paolo Cui\u003c/a>’s involvement with Nike Tech Fleece to make customized, Japanese sashiko-sewn gear for NBA All-Stars like Victor Wembanyama. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13936639/jubo-iguanas-filipino-burrito-juborrito-collaboration-san-jose\">Jubo Clothing\u003c/a>’s “For The Soil” drop. Filmmakers like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13928650/pens-pals-putting-on-for-tehran-in-the-bay\">Mohammad Gorjestani\u003c/a> and rappers like P-Lo (who \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13971354/p-lo-for-the-soil-warriors-golden-state-entertainment-nba-all-star-weekend\">just released an album with the Golden State Warriors\u003c/a>) appearing at the Union and Jordan Brand sneaker release party at the St. Joseph’s Art Society. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the quick-thrill moments of seeing a towering NBA legend like Tracy McGrady casually strolling past you on the street, the weekend’s magic was most palpable outside of the high-altitude stratosphere. Those priced out of the arena populated smaller experiences and All-Star themed parties at satellite venues, helping the Bay Area’s endlessly divergent culture to stand out. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971952\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971952\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.line_-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fans line up for an NBA All-Star Weekend event at Foot Locker in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Finding genuine community in a time of perilous, unyielding, AI-boosted capitalism feels harder than ever. For every community-centered, person-to-person interaction I had with local clothing designers, artists and advocates, I received an invitation from a faceless PR account for a brand-sponsored champagne tasting or corporate-funded afterparty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its worst, NBA All-Star in the Bay Area felt like “a big-ass commercial” (as my colleague \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13969956/nba-all-star-game-different-bay-area-oakland-san-francisco\">Pendarvis Harshaw pointed out\u003c/a> during Saturday’s Dunk Contest). Picture a high-culture experience nefariously mixed with big-business interests, plus influencers like Mr. Beast and Kai Cenat, and packaged as sports entertainment. It’s harder than ever in our world to tell what’s for profit and what’s for poetry. Who does it for the love of the game of basketball, and who’s doing it to play the game of networking and market share? \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I congratulated a local friend in the arts community who’d just finished a big brand sneaker collab for All-Star Weekend in their hometown of San Francisco, they responded with a somber reality: “Meh this was kinda wack… but I’m sure [visitors] can watch the influencers play.” As a voracious consumer of the NBA, and its constellation of stars and brand identities, to hear a trusted community member say their work was undervalued, even dismissed, gave me pause. That feeling was amplified throughout All-Star weekend, and that’s part of what we navigate daily as Bay Area people. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971950\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971950\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/NBAAllStar.bus_-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Hoopbus, a basketball nonprofit, appeared at Bay Area schools and hosted free community events during NBA All-Star Weekend. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But it still felt hella good to see people come together like a giant regional family, proudly flaunting on a national stage our art, our spirit, our showmanship and our care for collective Bay Area success. I romped around in a newly released \u003ca href=\"https://www.lidshd.com/products/nba-all-star-nba-asg-x-grateful-dead-9forty-a-frame\">Grateful Dead All-Star snapback\u003c/a>, dapping people up in a city that felt more activated than I can remember in years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a chance for us to show the industry what we have to offer,” LaRussell shared on stage. “Our light and our love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When stripped away of all the corporate elements, that’s exactly what we did, and continue to do, as a community: supply enough game and hustle to remain long after the NBA leaves town.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "barry-mcgee-new-era-berggruen-interview",
"title": "Barry McGee Enters a New Era: ‘It’s a Rebirth, of Some Sort’",
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"headTitle": "Barry McGee Enters a New Era: ‘It’s a Rebirth, of Some Sort’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Inside Berggruen Gallery, at the opening of his first solo show in San Francisco since 2015, Barry McGee stood against the front wall, surrounded by a crush of 20 people. The gallery’s lights dimmed for closing time, but its large crowd stayed put: art renegades with skateboards, backpacks, sketchbooks and denim jackets, drinking Modelo and smoking blunts outside, and then another, far smaller contingent of obviously wealthy art-world people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not a new dichotomy for Barry McGee. A globally known artist shown in major museums and biennials all over the world, McGee has retained the artistic approach that made him a key figure in the Mission School. His style has immediacy, and constancy; as a holdover from his graffiti days, he still prefers to work under pressure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966457\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, at left, signs books for fans at the opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s a pivotal time for McGee. Having left the gallery Ratio 3 — now \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13925929/ratio-3-san-francisco-gallery-closing-after-20-years\">closed\u003c/a> — and separated from his wife, he’s immersed himself in working, often until 4 a.m. “It’s one of my favorite places to go, and just get lost and in the work somehow,” he told me. “With this new independence, I have to ground myself every now and then, and know when to stop, or to go outside and breathe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this moment, which, at age 58, he calls “a rebirth,” it was the right time to get McGee’s thoughts on the San Francisco underground, his unease at success in the art world, the current graffiti landscape and what his art practice looks like these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966065\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee on KQED’s rooftop in San Francisco on Oct. 3, 2024, with the Mission District in the background. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s been almost 10 years since your \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Barry-McGee-s-latest-exhibit-looks-at-his-Bay-6670485.php\">last big gallery show\u003c/a> here in San Francisco. Why has it been so long?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m not sure exactly why. I’ve done things in other places, like Los Angeles. The San Francisco gallery scene has done the shift where young galleries are artist-run spaces now, and there’s John Berggruen and maybe two or three others that are true San Francisco galleries, that are still kind of putting along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someone had dropped out of a slot at John Berggruen, and I could tell they were anxious to have it filled. And somehow, in the art circuit, people know I can do something within two weeks. I’m like the go-to when someone drops out. So it was about two and a half weeks, a quick turnaround.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 20 years ago, John and I had done a project. So it seemed like the right fit, and a nice time to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I was really impressed by just how much work is in this show. What made this show so robust? Have you felt more productive lately?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I like making artwork. It’s what I do. And it comes pretty easy to me. I like the pressure, obviously. If someone needs something done within a week, or better yet, like three days, I can usually get something assembled pretty quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966456\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966456\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I want to get your thoughts on the current state of the art scene here in San Francisco. Rents are insanely unaffordable. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/sfai\">SFAI\u003c/a> has closed, and the only other art school here \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/sf-cca-art-college-19717095.php\">is struggling\u003c/a>. And the underground, from which you sprung, is still alive, but, I think, nowhere near as strong. Are you worried about the future for artists in San Francisco? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I used to be worried more, but I feel like the underground art scene is maybe the strongest I’ve ever seen it, right now. It feels diverse, and completely detached from the system that’s in place for artists. Even the nonprofits that I grew up on, like New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, the Luggage Store — from art school, you’d get handed fairly softly to these nonprofits to show your work, or to help you develop your work, or write grants. But now it feels like that’s completely eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So from what I’ve seen, it’s just kids just having shows in garages, or in any space they can find. It feels good in the best way possible, like it’s not for the commerce. I mean, it’s always good to sell something, or for someone to love something enough to buy it. But it feels like it’s coming from a really honest place that I haven’t seen for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966460\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966460\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skateboards were a common sight at the opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It sounds like what you’re saying is, even in what was considered underground circles in the ’90s, there was an apparatus through smaller nonprofits to be in the system. And now people are saying, “We’re going to do our own thing, we don’t need you.”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, I come from the generation where there were still NEA grants. Like, you could write grants, and a lot of times you could get them. And now that’s not there anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I see shows that are as good as any gallery at, like, Adobe Books, or garages in Daly City. I think artists always know how to get the work out there. When the system’s not in place, or if they never grew up with the system, the kids will just do it naturally. They’ll find the place for it. They’ll do it outdoors if they have to. Some of the best shows I’ve seen were in outdoor abandoned spaces, where they just do it for one night and bands play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it’s going to be a great couple of years coming up. And in my honest opinion, it feels like nothing I’ve seen before. Which is always a good thing in the arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966455\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966455\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crowd spills out onto Hawthorne Street at the opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I walked to your opening past YBCA and SFMOMA, these giant institutions that have been criticized for being more about money than about presenting Bay Area art. And it was great to walk down the block and turn the corner, and see so many people spilling out on the sidewalk, and be like, “Yes! Look at this happening, in such close proximity!”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, that was nice. I mean, I think I understand the dilemma they’re in. They can’t be as spontaneous. Their decisions are like five years out that they’re making. So the art can be completely stale by the time it’s on the wall, or it’s not what kids are into. That’s how it was when I used to go to the museum, even when it was on Van Ness, in the old building. There was nothing that ever spoke to me, or connected. There’s fantastic museums in this country, but I feel like San Francisco’s a little bit still in New York or whatever the latest fashion is with artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mean adhering to national trends rather than having a finger on the pulse of the Bay Area?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel like the Oakland Museum does a much better job being in touch and in tune with the community. I think SFMOMA’s gotten a lot better. But I don’t know. I’m not running that place. I know they’re trying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966458\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1333px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1333\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966458\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c.jpg 1333w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-1024x1536.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1333px) 100vw, 1333px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2023; acrylic and vinyl on panel. \u003ccite>(Courtesy the artist and Perrotin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>At your opening, you were surrounded, filling sketchbooks and drawing on skateboards for fans and friends. And just 10 feet away was a price list that ranges from $6,000 to $250,000. I wondered: Do any of your old friends or people from the early Mission scene give you a hard time for essentially being too successful?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They should, for sure. I mean, I’ve had mild success. I’m aware of it. I know John Berggruen is a blue chip gallery. I know that they sell work that’s much more expensive, and historically sits in art history in a much cleaner way than my work would. So that’s part of the fun of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mean people talking shit about your success is part of the fun of it? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, there’s truth to that! I mean, the idea of success in America is a very, very peculiar thing. I’m super uncomfortable with it. I know what I need to get by, and to make everything happen to keep my studio afloat. I wish I had a little more success — it would make things easier at this age — but it is what it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obviously you have to sell stuff to keep afloat, but success to me is not being a pig about it, and not screwing people over to get ahead. All the principles that were instilled in me at a younger age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966454\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1766px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1766\" height=\"2560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-scaled.jpg 1766w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-800x1160.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1020x1479.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-160x232.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-768x1114.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1059x1536.jpg 1059w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1412x2048.jpg 1412w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1920x2784.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1766px) 100vw, 1766px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2023; gouache on paper in artist frame. \u003ccite>(Courtesy the artist and Perrotin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’re one of the few visual artists I’ve talked to who seems conflicted about it. It’s refreshing that you acknowledge that tension. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of success in America is just insane. It’s like a successful war somewhere, you know, “a successful operation.” That idea is disgusting to me. I’m into the whole community rising up, ideally, in a perfect world. That’s what happened with graffiti. It started with a few thousand kids, and now it feels like 100,000 kids, worldwide, that are interested in having something to say, and doing it on their terms, for better or for worse. I’m not a big advocate for everything that’s out there, but it’s grown in this way that’s both beautiful and scary at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why do you say it’s scary?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes I look at it and I’m just like, “This is insane, how kids are hanging off of buildings and rappelling off of upper decks of bridges just to get their name out there.” It’s daunting. That’s what you have to do today to get recognized. I mean, this is coming from someone that doesn’t even do graffiti anymore, but I still look at it all the time, and I’m still enamored by it. But you have to be rappelling off a building or hanging off a ledge, and making your final piece look like you’re not twitching or shaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966463\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The downstairs of Berggruen Gallery, showcasing the work of others, during the opening of ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27. 2024. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mentioned lifting up the community, and it made me think of the act of giving over space in your exhibition to others, in the downstairs room, which seems to be a tradition for you. Why do you do that? Why do you say, “I’m going to cram this with hundreds of small framed works and photos by my friends?” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I get older, a solo show is the epitome of the things that I don’t like in art. It doesn’t feel right to command that much space, or to have your name on that much square footage. My favorite shows are always group shows, or shows in a community center or bookstore, where it just looks good. And that’s one of the few things you can control in art, while you’re alive, is how you want your art to look. I like the way it looks when you have all that different visual energy in one room, sitting next to each other. I hate to say it in this way, but it feels healing to have that much visual information in a room. It feels warm, and inclusive. It feels the opposite of how the upstairs feels, with all the white walls and space, and the formula of selling artwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is there a particular piece down there that you were especially happy to include? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John was kind enough to let us pull any of the artwork that he had in his inventory, which included these amazing Philip Gustons from the ’60s. There’s a Kiki Smith, who, when I was in art school, she was the blue chip artist at the time. And then there’s some Robert Crumbs in there that are two-sided, which I probably took out of a sketchbook, that are sitting next to some of my degenerate art friends. When I have the opportunity, it’s amazing to be able to put the work together like that, when it doesn’t belong, and when physically, it can’t happen in any other situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I like it as a sort of egalitarian equalizer. You have R. Crumb right next to Bozo Texino, you know? And, like, what really is the difference?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no difference. They all hang equally in my world. I’ve studied line my entire life, and I like the Bozo Texino line just as much as Philip Guston’s. It’s just that one’s on a freight train, and one’s sitting in the vault of a museum for years and years, without people being able to see it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966461\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966461\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-768x517.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-1920x1292.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2024; acrylic and gouache on panel. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There’s a story a lot of people have heard about you, about quietly slipping your art into the piles of amateur art at thrift stores around the Mission, so people who stumble upon it can buy it for, like, 50¢. Do you still do that at all?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t do that anymore. But I do work under aliases, which is fun, to do something similar, under aliases. Where you just leave stuff, or have a cafe show — that style, where it feels more detached from myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Detached from Barry McGee, the personal brand that you probably never wanted to be a personal brand?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I definitely don’t want to be a personal brand, but yeah, it feels detached from that, which I like. That’s what graffiti is still good for. I like that you can still write a political statement about something, or about a shitty situation, along a wall, and nobody really knows who did it. Which I feel is one of the last great things. It’s amazing what a 99¢ can of spray paint can achieve still.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s someone close in my neighborhood in the Mission, an old anarchist type, that spray paints on bedsheets, ties shoes on the bottom and throws it over the freeway overpass. They get the message out there for the traffic coming into the city. And it looks good, it gets their point across, it gets you to think, and it sits there for a couple days before the city workers take it down. I like that crude, old-fashioned approach. It’s built into the DNA of San Francisco, a little bit. People in the Bay Area know how to get their point across, to get their dissatisfaction across in efficient ways. It’s better and faster than the internet, I feel like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966464\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966464\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2024; acrylic, gouache, ink and aerosol on paper. In the background, at left, is a piece made on a circular tabletop, found discarded on the street in the Mission District. ‘Everyone knows San Francisco has the best trash,’ says McGee.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It seems like you’re in a prolific stage — what’s next for you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Probably some things that you wouldn’t know that I did, for sure. I feel like I’m an activist in that way. And I’m mad that I still am, at 58. Because from 17 ’til now, it’s been nonstop protests with very little change. I understand change takes a long time, but there’s nothing that I could gauge in my lifetime that was just like, “Wow, that worked. That changed something.” Which makes me think that history just completely repeats itself, and so you have to do it constantly.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ is on view through Nov. 7, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. Details here.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Barry McGee Enters a New Era: ‘It’s a Rebirth, of Some Sort’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Inside Berggruen Gallery, at the opening of his first solo show in San Francisco since 2015, Barry McGee stood against the front wall, surrounded by a crush of 20 people. The gallery’s lights dimmed for closing time, but its large crowd stayed put: art renegades with skateboards, backpacks, sketchbooks and denim jackets, drinking Modelo and smoking blunts outside, and then another, far smaller contingent of obviously wealthy art-world people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not a new dichotomy for Barry McGee. A globally known artist shown in major museums and biennials all over the world, McGee has retained the artistic approach that made him a key figure in the Mission School. His style has immediacy, and constancy; as a holdover from his graffiti days, he still prefers to work under pressure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966457\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/IMG_8391-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, at left, signs books for fans at the opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s a pivotal time for McGee. Having left the gallery Ratio 3 — now \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13925929/ratio-3-san-francisco-gallery-closing-after-20-years\">closed\u003c/a> — and separated from his wife, he’s immersed himself in working, often until 4 a.m. “It’s one of my favorite places to go, and just get lost and in the work somehow,” he told me. “With this new independence, I have to ground myself every now and then, and know when to stop, or to go outside and breathe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this moment, which, at age 58, he calls “a rebirth,” it was the right time to get McGee’s thoughts on the San Francisco underground, his unease at success in the art world, the current graffiti landscape and what his art practice looks like these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966065\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/241003-BARRY-MCGEE-MD-01-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee on KQED’s rooftop in San Francisco on Oct. 3, 2024, with the Mission District in the background. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s been almost 10 years since your \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Barry-McGee-s-latest-exhibit-looks-at-his-Bay-6670485.php\">last big gallery show\u003c/a> here in San Francisco. Why has it been so long?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m not sure exactly why. I’ve done things in other places, like Los Angeles. The San Francisco gallery scene has done the shift where young galleries are artist-run spaces now, and there’s John Berggruen and maybe two or three others that are true San Francisco galleries, that are still kind of putting along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someone had dropped out of a slot at John Berggruen, and I could tell they were anxious to have it filled. And somehow, in the art circuit, people know I can do something within two weeks. I’m like the go-to when someone drops out. So it was about two and a half weeks, a quick turnaround.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 20 years ago, John and I had done a project. So it seemed like the right fit, and a nice time to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I was really impressed by just how much work is in this show. What made this show so robust? Have you felt more productive lately?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I like making artwork. It’s what I do. And it comes pretty easy to me. I like the pressure, obviously. If someone needs something done within a week, or better yet, like three days, I can usually get something assembled pretty quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966456\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966456\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000636-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I want to get your thoughts on the current state of the art scene here in San Francisco. Rents are insanely unaffordable. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/sfai\">SFAI\u003c/a> has closed, and the only other art school here \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/sf-cca-art-college-19717095.php\">is struggling\u003c/a>. And the underground, from which you sprung, is still alive, but, I think, nowhere near as strong. Are you worried about the future for artists in San Francisco? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I used to be worried more, but I feel like the underground art scene is maybe the strongest I’ve ever seen it, right now. It feels diverse, and completely detached from the system that’s in place for artists. Even the nonprofits that I grew up on, like New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, the Luggage Store — from art school, you’d get handed fairly softly to these nonprofits to show your work, or to help you develop your work, or write grants. But now it feels like that’s completely eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So from what I’ve seen, it’s just kids just having shows in garages, or in any space they can find. It feels good in the best way possible, like it’s not for the commerce. I mean, it’s always good to sell something, or for someone to love something enough to buy it. But it feels like it’s coming from a really honest place that I haven’t seen for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966460\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966460\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/roseskateboards-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skateboards were a common sight at the opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It sounds like what you’re saying is, even in what was considered underground circles in the ’90s, there was an apparatus through smaller nonprofits to be in the system. And now people are saying, “We’re going to do our own thing, we don’t need you.”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, I come from the generation where there were still NEA grants. Like, you could write grants, and a lot of times you could get them. And now that’s not there anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I see shows that are as good as any gallery at, like, Adobe Books, or garages in Daly City. I think artists always know how to get the work out there. When the system’s not in place, or if they never grew up with the system, the kids will just do it naturally. They’ll find the place for it. They’ll do it outdoors if they have to. Some of the best shows I’ve seen were in outdoor abandoned spaces, where they just do it for one night and bands play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think it’s going to be a great couple of years coming up. And in my honest opinion, it feels like nothing I’ve seen before. Which is always a good thing in the arts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966455\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966455\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000657-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crowd spills out onto Hawthorne Street at the opening reception for ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I walked to your opening past YBCA and SFMOMA, these giant institutions that have been criticized for being more about money than about presenting Bay Area art. And it was great to walk down the block and turn the corner, and see so many people spilling out on the sidewalk, and be like, “Yes! Look at this happening, in such close proximity!”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, that was nice. I mean, I think I understand the dilemma they’re in. They can’t be as spontaneous. Their decisions are like five years out that they’re making. So the art can be completely stale by the time it’s on the wall, or it’s not what kids are into. That’s how it was when I used to go to the museum, even when it was on Van Ness, in the old building. There was nothing that ever spoke to me, or connected. There’s fantastic museums in this country, but I feel like San Francisco’s a little bit still in New York or whatever the latest fashion is with artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mean adhering to national trends rather than having a finger on the pulse of the Bay Area?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel like the Oakland Museum does a much better job being in touch and in tune with the community. I think SFMOMA’s gotten a lot better. But I don’t know. I’m not running that place. I know they’re trying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966458\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1333px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1333\" height=\"2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966458\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c.jpg 1333w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/cc7c58ff98749cc2cb61bd96b0bc984c-1024x1536.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1333px) 100vw, 1333px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2023; acrylic and vinyl on panel. \u003ccite>(Courtesy the artist and Perrotin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>At your opening, you were surrounded, filling sketchbooks and drawing on skateboards for fans and friends. And just 10 feet away was a price list that ranges from $6,000 to $250,000. I wondered: Do any of your old friends or people from the early Mission scene give you a hard time for essentially being too successful?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They should, for sure. I mean, I’ve had mild success. I’m aware of it. I know John Berggruen is a blue chip gallery. I know that they sell work that’s much more expensive, and historically sits in art history in a much cleaner way than my work would. So that’s part of the fun of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mean people talking shit about your success is part of the fun of it? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, there’s truth to that! I mean, the idea of success in America is a very, very peculiar thing. I’m super uncomfortable with it. I know what I need to get by, and to make everything happen to keep my studio afloat. I wish I had a little more success — it would make things easier at this age — but it is what it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obviously you have to sell stuff to keep afloat, but success to me is not being a pig about it, and not screwing people over to get ahead. All the principles that were instilled in me at a younger age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966454\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1766px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1766\" height=\"2560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-scaled.jpg 1766w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-800x1160.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1020x1479.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-160x232.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-768x1114.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1059x1536.jpg 1059w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1412x2048.jpg 1412w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/8186eeb5005d1c9744a75922c12618ef-1920x2784.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1766px) 100vw, 1766px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2023; gouache on paper in artist frame. \u003ccite>(Courtesy the artist and Perrotin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You’re one of the few visual artists I’ve talked to who seems conflicted about it. It’s refreshing that you acknowledge that tension. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of success in America is just insane. It’s like a successful war somewhere, you know, “a successful operation.” That idea is disgusting to me. I’m into the whole community rising up, ideally, in a perfect world. That’s what happened with graffiti. It started with a few thousand kids, and now it feels like 100,000 kids, worldwide, that are interested in having something to say, and doing it on their terms, for better or for worse. I’m not a big advocate for everything that’s out there, but it’s grown in this way that’s both beautiful and scary at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why do you say it’s scary?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes I look at it and I’m just like, “This is insane, how kids are hanging off of buildings and rappelling off of upper decks of bridges just to get their name out there.” It’s daunting. That’s what you have to do today to get recognized. I mean, this is coming from someone that doesn’t even do graffiti anymore, but I still look at it all the time, and I’m still enamored by it. But you have to be rappelling off a building or hanging off a ledge, and making your final piece look like you’re not twitching or shaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966463\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/P1000608-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The downstairs of Berggruen Gallery, showcasing the work of others, during the opening of ‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ on Sept. 27. 2024. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mentioned lifting up the community, and it made me think of the act of giving over space in your exhibition to others, in the downstairs room, which seems to be a tradition for you. Why do you do that? Why do you say, “I’m going to cram this with hundreds of small framed works and photos by my friends?” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I get older, a solo show is the epitome of the things that I don’t like in art. It doesn’t feel right to command that much space, or to have your name on that much square footage. My favorite shows are always group shows, or shows in a community center or bookstore, where it just looks good. And that’s one of the few things you can control in art, while you’re alive, is how you want your art to look. I like the way it looks when you have all that different visual energy in one room, sitting next to each other. I hate to say it in this way, but it feels healing to have that much visual information in a room. It feels warm, and inclusive. It feels the opposite of how the upstairs feels, with all the white walls and space, and the formula of selling artwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is there a particular piece down there that you were especially happy to include? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John was kind enough to let us pull any of the artwork that he had in his inventory, which included these amazing Philip Gustons from the ’60s. There’s a Kiki Smith, who, when I was in art school, she was the blue chip artist at the time. And then there’s some Robert Crumbs in there that are two-sided, which I probably took out of a sketchbook, that are sitting next to some of my degenerate art friends. When I have the opportunity, it’s amazing to be able to put the work together like that, when it doesn’t belong, and when physically, it can’t happen in any other situation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>I like it as a sort of egalitarian equalizer. You have R. Crumb right next to Bozo Texino, you know? And, like, what really is the difference?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no difference. They all hang equally in my world. I’ve studied line my entire life, and I like the Bozo Texino line just as much as Philip Guston’s. It’s just that one’s on a freight train, and one’s sitting in the vault of a museum for years and years, without people being able to see it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966461\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966461\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-768x517.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/1152c3e1588d327899c433cd3b18e640-1920x1292.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2024; acrylic and gouache on panel. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There’s a story a lot of people have heard about you, about quietly slipping your art into the piles of amateur art at thrift stores around the Mission, so people who stumble upon it can buy it for, like, 50¢. Do you still do that at all?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t do that anymore. But I do work under aliases, which is fun, to do something similar, under aliases. Where you just leave stuff, or have a cafe show — that style, where it feels more detached from myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Detached from Barry McGee, the personal brand that you probably never wanted to be a personal brand?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I definitely don’t want to be a personal brand, but yeah, it feels detached from that, which I like. That’s what graffiti is still good for. I like that you can still write a political statement about something, or about a shitty situation, along a wall, and nobody really knows who did it. Which I feel is one of the last great things. It’s amazing what a 99¢ can of spray paint can achieve still.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s someone close in my neighborhood in the Mission, an old anarchist type, that spray paints on bedsheets, ties shoes on the bottom and throws it over the freeway overpass. They get the message out there for the traffic coming into the city. And it looks good, it gets their point across, it gets you to think, and it sits there for a couple days before the city workers take it down. I like that crude, old-fashioned approach. It’s built into the DNA of San Francisco, a little bit. People in the Bay Area know how to get their point across, to get their dissatisfaction across in efficient ways. It’s better and faster than the internet, I feel like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966464\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966464\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/3b0a3d750ff8476889489fb0097ed3fd-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barry McGee, ‘Untitled,’ 2024; acrylic, gouache, ink and aerosol on paper. In the background, at left, is a piece made on a circular tabletop, found discarded on the street in the Mission District. ‘Everyone knows San Francisco has the best trash,’ says McGee.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It seems like you’re in a prolific stage — what’s next for you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Probably some things that you wouldn’t know that I did, for sure. I feel like I’m an activist in that way. And I’m mad that I still am, at 58. Because from 17 ’til now, it’s been nonstop protests with very little change. I understand change takes a long time, but there’s nothing that I could gauge in my lifetime that was just like, “Wow, that worked. That changed something.” Which makes me think that history just completely repeats itself, and so you have to do it constantly.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Barry McGee: Old Mystified’ is on view through Nov. 7, 2024, at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. Details here.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "banksys-animal-murals-meanings-london-zoo-monkeys-rhino-pelicans",
"title": "The Paint Is Dry on Banksy’s Nine Days of Animal-Themed London Street Art",
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"headTitle": "The Paint Is Dry on Banksy’s Nine Days of Animal-Themed London Street Art | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>On the 10th day, after creating the mountain goat, elephants, pelicans, a rhinoceros and a gorilla, among other animals, Banksy rested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The elusive street artist’s menagerie that appeared around London over nine consecutive days apparently came to a conclusion after a final mural surprised staff who arrived early to feed the animals Tuesday at the London Zoo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13925194']There was nothing new posted Wednesday on the artist’s website or his Instagram page, where his avid fans typically learn of his recent work. Those who live close enough often rush out to view it and snap photos — sometimes before it can be snapped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The zoo mural depicting a gorilla lifting up the entrance gate as birds took flight, a sea lion waddled away and three sets of eyes peered out from the darkness inside, was the last in the series, the BBC reported. A spokesperson for Banksy did not return multiple messages by The Associated Press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fans of the artist, whose real identity is not known, continued to debate the meanings of the paintings online. Some suggested the animals represented people and that the murals spoke to the Israel-Palestinian war. Others said they referred to the recent riots in Britain blamed on the far-right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1821885856325472442\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Banksy, who has been known to advocate for human and animal rights, could have been suggesting the creatures needed to be liberated from incarceration, some said. Others suggested more innocent whimsy: the final painting was the big reveal of where all those other animals came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jasper Tordoff, the Banksy expert at MyArtBroker, said there had been a theory as the number of animals multiplied successively from one to two to three in the first works that the artist was creating a Noah’s Ark theme that mirrored his previous religious satire. But that theory seemed shot when the fourth work was a lone wolf that “came out of nowhere,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13887999']Banksy’s art is often pointedly political and Tordoff said these recent murals, created using stencils and spray paint, are clever but simple works that are meant to be fun. The artist’s company told the Observer that the series was meant to bring some joy during a period of dark news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Tordoff said Banksy may be making a commentary on human nature and the desire for possessions as at least one of the works has been stolen and others moved to preserve them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re in this pantomime of Banksy. We’re part of this installation in a way,” Tordoff said. “Banksy undoubtedly knew that all of this would be covered with photographs and CCTV about what the public reaction is, and that might be part of it, because that’s been just as entertaining in my view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a look at the nine works that were mostly painted as silhouettes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 5: A mountain goat perched on a narrow building buttress and looking down as crumbling rocks appear to fall in west London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 6: Two elephants painted on boarded-up windows on the side of a rowhouse in Chelsea face each other and reach out with their trunks. Followers on Instagram suggest they are the proverbial “elephants in the room” — that can’t be missed but no one wants to discuss them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 7: Three monkeys swing and hang on the side of a railway bridge in east London. Some fans say they represent the “see no, hear no, speak no evil” wise monkeys from ancient Japan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/mark_samuels/status/1821220436337730012\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 8: A lone howling wolf on a satellite dish breaks up what had appeared to be an ascending sequence of animals. The dish art had a short shelf life as masked men showed up with a ladder and climbed up on the roof above a storefront in south London, removed it and ran away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 9: Two pelicans were painted perched on the sign for a fish and chip shop in northeast London. One of the birds has its beak pointed upward and is catching a fish in its big mouth while the second one appears to be snapping up a fish that is part of the sign. The owners of the shop, which is closed until September, said on Instagram that it was “over the moon” Banksy decorated their shop. “Contrary to some beliefs, we didn’t ask him to do this, but are very grateful he did!” Bonners Fish Bar wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 10: A big cat stretches out on a dilapidated plywood billboard in north London. Crowds that had gathered to see it booed as contractors arrived to remove it for security reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/MyKindofLondon/status/1822663568807923715\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 11: The windows of a small police guard post were painted with a circling school of piranhas so that it appeared to look like a fish tank. This is the only work in the series painted in color. The sentry box near the Old Bailey criminal courthouse was taken to City of London corporate offices to protect it, a spokesperson said. It will eventually be placed where it can be viewed by the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 12: A rhinoceros painted on a brick wall appeared to be mounting a small Nissan car parked in front of it on the sidewalk. The rhino was later tagged with graffiti and the car was removed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/StreetArtUtopia/status/1822988803562213607\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 13: The zoo mural was discovered early Tuesday, said Dan Simmonds, animal operations manager at the zoo. “I’ve worked here for about 20 years, and this definitely wins the prize for my most surprising arrival at work,” he said. “A massive surprise for me. But indeed for all of London, indeed all of the world.” A day later, cyclists and runners stopped to snap selfies and photos of the painting that was behind barriers, protected by an acrylic shield and overseen by three security guards.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There was nothing new posted Wednesday on the artist’s website or his Instagram page, where his avid fans typically learn of his recent work. Those who live close enough often rush out to view it and snap photos — sometimes before it can be snapped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The zoo mural depicting a gorilla lifting up the entrance gate as birds took flight, a sea lion waddled away and three sets of eyes peered out from the darkness inside, was the last in the series, the BBC reported. A spokesperson for Banksy did not return multiple messages by The Associated Press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fans of the artist, whose real identity is not known, continued to debate the meanings of the paintings online. Some suggested the animals represented people and that the murals spoke to the Israel-Palestinian war. Others said they referred to the recent riots in Britain blamed on the far-right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Banksy, who has been known to advocate for human and animal rights, could have been suggesting the creatures needed to be liberated from incarceration, some said. Others suggested more innocent whimsy: the final painting was the big reveal of where all those other animals came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jasper Tordoff, the Banksy expert at MyArtBroker, said there had been a theory as the number of animals multiplied successively from one to two to three in the first works that the artist was creating a Noah’s Ark theme that mirrored his previous religious satire. But that theory seemed shot when the fourth work was a lone wolf that “came out of nowhere,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Banksy’s art is often pointedly political and Tordoff said these recent murals, created using stencils and spray paint, are clever but simple works that are meant to be fun. The artist’s company told the Observer that the series was meant to bring some joy during a period of dark news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Tordoff said Banksy may be making a commentary on human nature and the desire for possessions as at least one of the works has been stolen and others moved to preserve them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re in this pantomime of Banksy. We’re part of this installation in a way,” Tordoff said. “Banksy undoubtedly knew that all of this would be covered with photographs and CCTV about what the public reaction is, and that might be part of it, because that’s been just as entertaining in my view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a look at the nine works that were mostly painted as silhouettes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 5: A mountain goat perched on a narrow building buttress and looking down as crumbling rocks appear to fall in west London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 6: Two elephants painted on boarded-up windows on the side of a rowhouse in Chelsea face each other and reach out with their trunks. Followers on Instagram suggest they are the proverbial “elephants in the room” — that can’t be missed but no one wants to discuss them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 7: Three monkeys swing and hang on the side of a railway bridge in east London. Some fans say they represent the “see no, hear no, speak no evil” wise monkeys from ancient Japan.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 8: A lone howling wolf on a satellite dish breaks up what had appeared to be an ascending sequence of animals. The dish art had a short shelf life as masked men showed up with a ladder and climbed up on the roof above a storefront in south London, removed it and ran away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 9: Two pelicans were painted perched on the sign for a fish and chip shop in northeast London. One of the birds has its beak pointed upward and is catching a fish in its big mouth while the second one appears to be snapping up a fish that is part of the sign. The owners of the shop, which is closed until September, said on Instagram that it was “over the moon” Banksy decorated their shop. “Contrary to some beliefs, we didn’t ask him to do this, but are very grateful he did!” Bonners Fish Bar wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 10: A big cat stretches out on a dilapidated plywood billboard in north London. Crowds that had gathered to see it booed as contractors arrived to remove it for security reasons.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 11: The windows of a small police guard post were painted with a circling school of piranhas so that it appeared to look like a fish tank. This is the only work in the series painted in color. The sentry box near the Old Bailey criminal courthouse was taken to City of London corporate offices to protect it, a spokesperson said. It will eventually be placed where it can be viewed by the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 12: A rhinoceros painted on a brick wall appeared to be mounting a small Nissan car parked in front of it on the sidewalk. The rhino was later tagged with graffiti and the car was removed.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Aug. 13: The zoo mural was discovered early Tuesday, said Dan Simmonds, animal operations manager at the zoo. “I’ve worked here for about 20 years, and this definitely wins the prize for my most surprising arrival at work,” he said. “A massive surprise for me. But indeed for all of London, indeed all of the world.” A day later, cyclists and runners stopped to snap selfies and photos of the painting that was behind barriers, protected by an acrylic shield and overseen by three security guards.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "who-is-handala-the-spiky-haired-boy-who-symbolizes-palestinian-resistance",
"title": "Who is Handala, the Spiky-Haired Boy Who Symbolizes Palestinian Resistance?",
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"content": "\u003cp>His hair is like a hedgehog, his feet are bare, his clothes are rags and his back is to the world always. His name is Handala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A character created by Palestinian newspaper cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969 — two years after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/10738897/the-six-day-war-40-years-on\">1967 Arab-Israeli war\u003c/a> — the boy known as Handala is a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and resistance to occupation to this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13940282']As the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972402/san-francisco-becomes-largest-city-in-u-s-to-approve-cease-fire-resolution\">Israel-Hamas war rages on in Gaza\u003c/a>, there has been renewed interest in Handala and what he represents. For instance, a group of artists in Italy recently banded together to create a poster that pays tribute to Handala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An Italian publishing house asked artists to send in their work — with one rule: All the figures had to be drawn with their backs to the reader, like Handala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the 80 submissions it received, the publishing house created a poster \u003ca href=\"https://www.erisedizioni.org/ebook/Handala-1.pdf\">that is available online\u003c/a> and has been circulating widely on social media over the past few months. There is a monster, a mouse and a two-headed person, all with their backs to the reader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13951634\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1725px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13951634\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1725\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-scaled.jpg 1725w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-800x1187.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1020x1514.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-160x237.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-768x1140.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1035x1536.jpg 1035w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1380x2048.jpg 1380w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1920x2849.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1725px) 100vw, 1725px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In Italy, publishing house Eris Edizioni solicited contributions from artists to reimagine Handala and created a poster. It reads: “Without flags and united for Handala / To ask for an immediate cease-fire.” \u003ccite>(Anna Matilde Sali)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In solidarity, a \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwVR8_LzkexwEYaoGTjM_N6nCFkj7hIB/viewhttps://ssl.form-mailer.jp/fms/1ca67e6f809306\">group of artists in Japan\u003c/a> created \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwVR8_LzkexwEYaoGTjM_N6nCFkj7hIB/view\">its own poster\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a history of who Handala and his creator are.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Who is Handala?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Handala is forever 10 years old — the age that Ali was when his family was forced to move during the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. Palestinians and their supporters refer to that displacement as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176097958/un-nakba-day-explained-anniversary-palestine-israel\">Nakba\u003c/a>, or Arabic for “catastrophe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ali’s refugee boy character shares his name with a resilient, bitter plant that grows in the Middle East called \u003cem>handal\u003c/em>. It has deep roots and will always grow back even if it’s weeded out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13937170']“This character represents insurgency, refusal and struggle,” says Egyptian columnist Nadi Hafez of \u003ca href=\"https://www.alqabas.com/\">\u003cem>al-Qabas\u003c/em> newspaper\u003c/a>, where Ali worked for a long time. “And it satirizes the politics around the Palestinian cause, or the politics of the Arab world, or indeed international politics when it comes to the Palestinian cause.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Handala didn’t turn his back to the reader until 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, when a coalition of Arab countries led by Egypt and Syria fought Israel in October of that year. At the time, there was a push by countries including the U.S. for a settlement of the conflict. By turning Handala’s back to the world, Ali was expressing his rejection of solutions from foreign nations imposed on Palestinians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The overpowering image is Handala silently watching things going on,” says cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/01/18/1225003548/joe-sacco-palestine-gaza-comics-journalism\">author of the graphic novel \u003cem>Palestine\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. “He is silent, but he is observing, and it is clear to the reader that he is knowing, he knows what’s going on. He knows there is hypocrisy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13951636\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13951636\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-scaled-e1707237141692.jpg\" alt=\"Three images. A cartoon of a two figures with their backs turned, one a small boy, one a girl wearing a hijab. A mural of a small boy holding up a large slice of watermelon. A photo of a leg tattoo featuring a small boy with his back turned.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"891\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just a few of the Handala interpretations that have been circulating on social media. \u003ccite>((L): Instagram @yesimhotinthis; (C) Roots/ Pali Graffiti Art/ Instagram @bodez.art; (R) Instagram @sensualputty, @malamiastudio, Calle Loiza.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During times of upheaval between Israel and Palestinians, Ali sometimes showed Handala engaged in activities that signify resistance, like throwing rocks, although there has been criticism of the way he depicted Israeli soldiers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The rights of resistance are understood, and when that is expressed through Handala, I think that is just a sign of incredible frustration about diplomacy, peace talks that generally lead nowhere,” Sacco says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Who was Naji al-Ali, Handala’s creator?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Born in 1938 in the Palestinian village of al-Shajara in Galilee in what is now northern Israel, Naji al-Ali drew more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/al-ali-naji\">40,000 cartoons\u003c/a> during his career and was equally critical of Israeli and Arab governments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13937219']Ali was a pan-Arab nationalist and was jailed many times for his anti-government activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He spent much of his career in Kuwait, where he worked for \u003ca href=\"https://alseyassah.com/\">\u003cem>al-Seyassah\u003c/em>\u003c/a> newspaper and then at \u003cem>al-Qabas\u003c/em> newspaper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ali was killed in 1987, shot by unknown assailants outside \u003cem>al-Qabas\u003c/em>‘ office in London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>London’s Metropolitan Police reopened the case in 2017, but the murder remains unsolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Why Handala continues to be relevant\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Handala’s image is popular in street art and graffiti, especially on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Matthew-DeMaio-Handala-and-the-Statue-of-Liberty-Bethlehem-Wall-Courtesy-of-the_fig3_273087602\">Israeli-built barrier\u003c/a> that separates Israel from the West Bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13951632\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13951632\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/gettyimages-1832021163_custom-be0af48d1e51b10b3376a4f77af6daf0b7a3cf40-scaled-e1707237482476.jpg\" alt=\"A young man walks past a graffiti image of a young boy with his back turned.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1279\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man walks near a mural of Handala in the village of al-Fara, in the occupied West Bank, following an Israeli raid on Dec. 8, 2023. \u003ccite>(Zain Jaafar/ AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Handala was the perfect embodiment of dispossession,” Sacco says. “Handala became the symbol for the poor and all those [ordinary] Arabs who were being shafted by their own elite, and by the West, and by Israel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hafez, the Egyptian columnist who knew Ali, says that Handala remains important in this moment during the war.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Handala is the character that the artist Naji al-Ali has made immortal in the human consciousness,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Who+is+Handala%2C+the+barefoot%2C+spiky-haired+boy+who+symbolizes+Palestinian+resistance%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>His hair is like a hedgehog, his feet are bare, his clothes are rags and his back is to the world always. His name is Handala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A character created by Palestinian newspaper cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969 — two years after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/10738897/the-six-day-war-40-years-on\">1967 Arab-Israeli war\u003c/a> — the boy known as Handala is a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and resistance to occupation to this day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972402/san-francisco-becomes-largest-city-in-u-s-to-approve-cease-fire-resolution\">Israel-Hamas war rages on in Gaza\u003c/a>, there has been renewed interest in Handala and what he represents. For instance, a group of artists in Italy recently banded together to create a poster that pays tribute to Handala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An Italian publishing house asked artists to send in their work — with one rule: All the figures had to be drawn with their backs to the reader, like Handala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the 80 submissions it received, the publishing house created a poster \u003ca href=\"https://www.erisedizioni.org/ebook/Handala-1.pdf\">that is available online\u003c/a> and has been circulating widely on social media over the past few months. There is a monster, a mouse and a two-headed person, all with their backs to the reader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13951634\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1725px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13951634\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1725\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-scaled.jpg 1725w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-800x1187.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1020x1514.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-160x237.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-768x1140.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1035x1536.jpg 1035w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1380x2048.jpg 1380w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-1-copy_custom-b3d19557c656e6da4a8a48c2098e48d40d4b7271-1920x2849.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1725px) 100vw, 1725px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In Italy, publishing house Eris Edizioni solicited contributions from artists to reimagine Handala and created a poster. It reads: “Without flags and united for Handala / To ask for an immediate cease-fire.” \u003ccite>(Anna Matilde Sali)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In solidarity, a \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwVR8_LzkexwEYaoGTjM_N6nCFkj7hIB/viewhttps://ssl.form-mailer.jp/fms/1ca67e6f809306\">group of artists in Japan\u003c/a> created \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwVR8_LzkexwEYaoGTjM_N6nCFkj7hIB/view\">its own poster\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a history of who Handala and his creator are.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Who is Handala?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Handala is forever 10 years old — the age that Ali was when his family was forced to move during the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. Palestinians and their supporters refer to that displacement as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176097958/un-nakba-day-explained-anniversary-palestine-israel\">Nakba\u003c/a>, or Arabic for “catastrophe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ali’s refugee boy character shares his name with a resilient, bitter plant that grows in the Middle East called \u003cem>handal\u003c/em>. It has deep roots and will always grow back even if it’s weeded out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This character represents insurgency, refusal and struggle,” says Egyptian columnist Nadi Hafez of \u003ca href=\"https://www.alqabas.com/\">\u003cem>al-Qabas\u003c/em> newspaper\u003c/a>, where Ali worked for a long time. “And it satirizes the politics around the Palestinian cause, or the politics of the Arab world, or indeed international politics when it comes to the Palestinian cause.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Handala didn’t turn his back to the reader until 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, when a coalition of Arab countries led by Egypt and Syria fought Israel in October of that year. At the time, there was a push by countries including the U.S. for a settlement of the conflict. By turning Handala’s back to the world, Ali was expressing his rejection of solutions from foreign nations imposed on Palestinians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The overpowering image is Handala silently watching things going on,” says cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/01/18/1225003548/joe-sacco-palestine-gaza-comics-journalism\">author of the graphic novel \u003cem>Palestine\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. “He is silent, but he is observing, and it is clear to the reader that he is knowing, he knows what’s going on. He knows there is hypocrisy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13951636\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13951636\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/handala-scaled-e1707237141692.jpg\" alt=\"Three images. A cartoon of a two figures with their backs turned, one a small boy, one a girl wearing a hijab. A mural of a small boy holding up a large slice of watermelon. A photo of a leg tattoo featuring a small boy with his back turned.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"891\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just a few of the Handala interpretations that have been circulating on social media. \u003ccite>((L): Instagram @yesimhotinthis; (C) Roots/ Pali Graffiti Art/ Instagram @bodez.art; (R) Instagram @sensualputty, @malamiastudio, Calle Loiza.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During times of upheaval between Israel and Palestinians, Ali sometimes showed Handala engaged in activities that signify resistance, like throwing rocks, although there has been criticism of the way he depicted Israeli soldiers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The rights of resistance are understood, and when that is expressed through Handala, I think that is just a sign of incredible frustration about diplomacy, peace talks that generally lead nowhere,” Sacco says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Who was Naji al-Ali, Handala’s creator?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Born in 1938 in the Palestinian village of al-Shajara in Galilee in what is now northern Israel, Naji al-Ali drew more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/al-ali-naji\">40,000 cartoons\u003c/a> during his career and was equally critical of Israeli and Arab governments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Ali was a pan-Arab nationalist and was jailed many times for his anti-government activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He spent much of his career in Kuwait, where he worked for \u003ca href=\"https://alseyassah.com/\">\u003cem>al-Seyassah\u003c/em>\u003c/a> newspaper and then at \u003cem>al-Qabas\u003c/em> newspaper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ali was killed in 1987, shot by unknown assailants outside \u003cem>al-Qabas\u003c/em>‘ office in London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>London’s Metropolitan Police reopened the case in 2017, but the murder remains unsolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Why Handala continues to be relevant\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Handala’s image is popular in street art and graffiti, especially on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Matthew-DeMaio-Handala-and-the-Statue-of-Liberty-Bethlehem-Wall-Courtesy-of-the_fig3_273087602\">Israeli-built barrier\u003c/a> that separates Israel from the West Bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13951632\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13951632\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/gettyimages-1832021163_custom-be0af48d1e51b10b3376a4f77af6daf0b7a3cf40-scaled-e1707237482476.jpg\" alt=\"A young man walks past a graffiti image of a young boy with his back turned.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1279\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man walks near a mural of Handala in the village of al-Fara, in the occupied West Bank, following an Israeli raid on Dec. 8, 2023. \u003ccite>(Zain Jaafar/ AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Handala was the perfect embodiment of dispossession,” Sacco says. “Handala became the symbol for the poor and all those [ordinary] Arabs who were being shafted by their own elite, and by the West, and by Israel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hafez, the Egyptian columnist who knew Ali, says that Handala remains important in this moment during the war.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Handala is the character that the artist Naji al-Ali has made immortal in the human consciousness,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Who+is+Handala%2C+the+barefoot%2C+spiky-haired+boy+who+symbolizes+Palestinian+resistance%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "dregs-one-history-of-the-bay-intluniz-mac-mall-keak-da-sneak-midway",
"title": "Dregs One Turns ‘History of the Bay’ Into an Epic San Francisco Day Party",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13931462\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13931462\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/dsc06369_720.jpg\" alt=\"People handed Dregs-One rolling trays, hats and other miscellaneous items for him to freestyle about, and he did so with ease.\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/dsc06369_720.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/dsc06369_720-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People handed Dregs-One rolling trays, hats and other miscellaneous items for him to freestyle about, and he did so with ease. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There aren’t many artists in the Bay Area stitching the fabrics of community more colorfully than rapper, graffiti writer and historian \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dregs_one/?hl=en\">Dregs One\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proud San Francisco lyricist and social advocate has undertaken one of the more important preservation projects in recent memory with his podcast \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-of-the-bay/id1643362991\">History of the Bay\u003c/a>. The series invites an intergenerational cast of Bay Area personalities — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuJ-CQU-MJE\">P-Lo\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkK9dYcLjso\">Rocky Rivera\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13925761/magic-mike-richmond-calvin-t-rap-hip-hop\">Magic Mike\u003c/a> — to discuss their experiences in Bay Area hip-hop, culture and politics with a laid-back, in-the-know flavor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13931387']Having received attention for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13916721/sucka-free-history-with-dregs-one\">archiving largely untold Bay Area rap stories\u003c/a>, Dregs is now expanding his platform to community events with the inaugural \u003ca href=\"https://www.tixr.com/groups/midwaysf/events/derby-of-san-francisco-presents-history-of-the-bay-with-luniz-dregs-one-more-71892\">History of the Bay Day Party\u003c/a>. From the looks of it, it’ll be a real-life Bay Area Player’s Holiday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spirit of connecting the Bay Area’s vast galaxy of hip-hop, the event includes a multitude of guests. Oakland rap legends the Luniz headline the stage, with Keak Da Sneak, Nef the Pharaoh, Mac Mall, San Quinn and Dregs One himself rounding out the afternoon lineup. (Also on stage is a panel on women in Bay Area hip-hop, moderated by KQED’s own Nastia Voynovskaya, an editor for KQED’s Bay Area hip-hop history series \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop\">That’s My Word\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond music, the day showcases the many subterraneous layers in hip-hop: graffiti artists (featuring a real-time mural painted by \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyHVKCClBBo\">Crayone\u003c/a>); disc jockeys (with DJ sets from Juice, Sean G and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13910221/family-not-a-group-san-francisco-rap\">Family Not A Group’s Jenset\u003c/a>); and traditionally unheard voices (CMG from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13925177/the-conscious-daughters-raps-sucka-free-thelma-and-louise-rewrote-the-rules\">Conscious Daughters\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/isawdray/?hl=en\">D-Ray\u003c/a> discuss their roles as women making waves in the scene). Throw into the mix food, ice cream from Mitchell’s, a live podcast recording, and vendors such as Derby of San Francisco and \u003ca href=\"https://www.dyingbreedsf.com/\">Dying Breed\u003c/a> purveying wildly localized merch — think Starters-esque windbreaker jackets with “FRI$CO” and “415” stitched onto them — and you’ve got a full-on function.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13923938,arts_13931108']With this summer marking the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13923938/thats-my-word-intro\">50th anniversary of hip-hop\u003c/a>, it’s a more fitting time than ever for Dregs One to champion the musical genre and cultural lifestyle in block-party fashion. At its core, hip-hop is — and will hopefully always be — an empowering intersection for jubilant expression, self-love, knowledge and the occasional thizz dance in a space filled with other hip-hop heads who, like anyone, want to be seen and appreciated. There’s no better moment to tap in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The History of the Bay Day Party gets underway Sunday, July 9, at 2 p.m. at The Midway in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://www.tixr.com/groups/midwaysf/events/derby-of-san-francisco-presents-history-of-the-bay-with-luniz-dregs-one-more-71892\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrcnRVZo1Y9S-8xIlv8knxRcYwCqsu1OC\">‘History of the Bay’ podcast\u003c/a> airs regularly with periodic live recordings at Amoeba Music in San Francisco. Abbreviated versions can be seen on \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@dregs_one\">Dregs One’s TikTok\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Performances by the Luniz, Keak Da Sneak, Mac Mall and others celebrate the Bay Area's contributions to hip-hop.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13931462\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13931462\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/dsc06369_720.jpg\" alt=\"People handed Dregs-One rolling trays, hats and other miscellaneous items for him to freestyle about, and he did so with ease.\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/dsc06369_720.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/dsc06369_720-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People handed Dregs-One rolling trays, hats and other miscellaneous items for him to freestyle about, and he did so with ease. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There aren’t many artists in the Bay Area stitching the fabrics of community more colorfully than rapper, graffiti writer and historian \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dregs_one/?hl=en\">Dregs One\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proud San Francisco lyricist and social advocate has undertaken one of the more important preservation projects in recent memory with his podcast \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-of-the-bay/id1643362991\">History of the Bay\u003c/a>. The series invites an intergenerational cast of Bay Area personalities — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuJ-CQU-MJE\">P-Lo\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkK9dYcLjso\">Rocky Rivera\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13925761/magic-mike-richmond-calvin-t-rap-hip-hop\">Magic Mike\u003c/a> — to discuss their experiences in Bay Area hip-hop, culture and politics with a laid-back, in-the-know flavor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Having received attention for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13916721/sucka-free-history-with-dregs-one\">archiving largely untold Bay Area rap stories\u003c/a>, Dregs is now expanding his platform to community events with the inaugural \u003ca href=\"https://www.tixr.com/groups/midwaysf/events/derby-of-san-francisco-presents-history-of-the-bay-with-luniz-dregs-one-more-71892\">History of the Bay Day Party\u003c/a>. From the looks of it, it’ll be a real-life Bay Area Player’s Holiday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spirit of connecting the Bay Area’s vast galaxy of hip-hop, the event includes a multitude of guests. Oakland rap legends the Luniz headline the stage, with Keak Da Sneak, Nef the Pharaoh, Mac Mall, San Quinn and Dregs One himself rounding out the afternoon lineup. (Also on stage is a panel on women in Bay Area hip-hop, moderated by KQED’s own Nastia Voynovskaya, an editor for KQED’s Bay Area hip-hop history series \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop\">That’s My Word\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond music, the day showcases the many subterraneous layers in hip-hop: graffiti artists (featuring a real-time mural painted by \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyHVKCClBBo\">Crayone\u003c/a>); disc jockeys (with DJ sets from Juice, Sean G and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13910221/family-not-a-group-san-francisco-rap\">Family Not A Group’s Jenset\u003c/a>); and traditionally unheard voices (CMG from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13925177/the-conscious-daughters-raps-sucka-free-thelma-and-louise-rewrote-the-rules\">Conscious Daughters\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/isawdray/?hl=en\">D-Ray\u003c/a> discuss their roles as women making waves in the scene). Throw into the mix food, ice cream from Mitchell’s, a live podcast recording, and vendors such as Derby of San Francisco and \u003ca href=\"https://www.dyingbreedsf.com/\">Dying Breed\u003c/a> purveying wildly localized merch — think Starters-esque windbreaker jackets with “FRI$CO” and “415” stitched onto them — and you’ve got a full-on function.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>With this summer marking the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13923938/thats-my-word-intro\">50th anniversary of hip-hop\u003c/a>, it’s a more fitting time than ever for Dregs One to champion the musical genre and cultural lifestyle in block-party fashion. At its core, hip-hop is — and will hopefully always be — an empowering intersection for jubilant expression, self-love, knowledge and the occasional thizz dance in a space filled with other hip-hop heads who, like anyone, want to be seen and appreciated. There’s no better moment to tap in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The History of the Bay Day Party gets underway Sunday, July 9, at 2 p.m. at The Midway in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://www.tixr.com/groups/midwaysf/events/derby-of-san-francisco-presents-history-of-the-bay-with-luniz-dregs-one-more-71892\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrcnRVZo1Y9S-8xIlv8knxRcYwCqsu1OC\">‘History of the Bay’ podcast\u003c/a> airs regularly with periodic live recordings at Amoeba Music in San Francisco. Abbreviated versions can be seen on \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@dregs_one\">Dregs One’s TikTok\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "at-the-bay-area-hip-hop-archives-leaving-a-legacy-is-an-art",
"title": "At the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives, Leaving a Legacy is an Art",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s note\u003c/strong>: This story is part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop\">That’s My Word\u003c/a>\u003cem>, KQED’s year-long exploration of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop\">Bay Area hip-hop\u003c/a> history.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The uneven power dynamics in hip-hop — and the music industry in general — are no secret: Mostly white executives enrich themselves from Black ingenuity, invest in the salacious and the sensational, and ignore the true diversity of the culture. That’s why, on a January Zoom call with the inaugural inductee class of the \u003ca href=\"https://microphonemechanics.com/bay-area-hip-hop-archives\">Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives\u003c/a>, Jahi implored: “Don’t leave your legacy to chance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those in the virtual room included well-known figures like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/suga_t_/\">Suga T\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://djdsharp.co/\">DJ D Sharp\u003c/a> of the Golden State Warriors. There was also \u003ca href=\"https://thembisamshaka.com/\">Thembisa Mshaka\u003c/a>, former editor of the influential industry magazine \u003ci>Gavin Report\u003c/i>; Helen Warren, mother of the late, great turntablist Pam the Funkstress; Black Panther-descended aerosol artist \u003ca href=\"http://www.refa1.com/\">Refa One\u003c/a>; rapper-turned-elementary educator \u003ca href=\"https://mysticworldwide.com/\">Mystic\u003c/a>; and others connected to hip-hop’s revolutionary core, who’ve helped build the culture in the Bay from the ground up. [aside postid='arts_13927349']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For archive curator Jahi, the time is right to preserve the Bay Area’s impact on hip-hop culture, which celebrates its 50th anniversary on Aug. 11, the day of \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/dj-kool-herc-block-party\">DJ Kool Herc’s fateful 1973 Bronx block party\u003c/a>. Not to mention that, in recent years, the Bay Area has seen the untimely passing of numerous hip-hop greats in their 40s and 50s. The loss of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13818092/pam-the-funkstress-pioneering-bay-area-dj-passes-away\">Pam the Funkstress\u003c/a>, Digital Underground frontman \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13896288/remembering-shock-g-the-funky-digital-underground-frontman-who-shaped-oakland-rap\">Shock G\u003c/a>, Zion I’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13920198/zumbi-zion-i-improper-restraint-at-hospital\">Zumbi\u003c/a> and Blackalicious’ \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13899378/blackalicious-gift-of-gab-a-celebrated-mc-dies-at-age-50\">Gift of Gab\u003c/a> sent shockwaves of grief throughout the Bay Area. For Jahi’s generation, time is precious, and the creators of the culture feel an imperative to leave a record for posterity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you think about ancient Egypt and other societies, their cultures took dynasties to grow and develop,” says Jahi with reverence. “And in 50 years, look what we’ve created.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929194\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-800x1028.jpg\" alt=\"Jahi wears a fedora and black suit while giving a speech on stage. \" width=\"800\" height=\"1028\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-800x1028.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-160x206.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-768x987.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1.jpg 935w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives curator Jahi had a successful career as an MC before foraying into exhibitions, theater and legacy work. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jahi)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indeed, hip-hop is now a multi-billion dollar industry with influence on Wall Street, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.paris2024.org/en/sport/breaking/\">2024 Olympics\u003c/a> and beyond. But it still remains a Black, working-class, grassroots culture that empowers, heals and politically mobilizes, an aspect that was front of mind for Jahi as he planned the archive, which is housed at the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.org/aamlo/\">African American Museum and Library at Oakland\u003c/a> (AAMLO).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since inducting the first Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives class of 15 honorees during Black History Month, Jahi has gathered 1,000 artifacts and counting from their personal collections, some of which will be on view at AAMLO’s Aug. 11 block party celebrating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, with another viewing to come in February 2024. Concert flyers, setlists, photos, audio and video interviews are getting the “white-glove” museum treatment for future fans, artists and scholars to explore. Jahi is also hosting a \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/Cryc31GpDH6/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D\">Meet the Curator Night\u003c/a> with music and discussion at AAMLO on May 19, and is gearing up to announce the next 40 honorees on Juneteenth next month. [pullquote size='large' citation='Jahi, Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives curator']‘When you think about ancient Egypt and other societies, their cultures took dynasties to grow and develop. And in 50 years, look what we’ve created.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To create the archive, Jahi sought out a partnership with a Black-led institution, and he found the right collaborator in AAMLO and its Chief Curator Bamidele Agbasegbe-Demerson. Prior to the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives’ launch, AAMLO already had close to 12,000 artifacts and documents chronicling Black life in Northern California, from the Gold Rush to the Black Panther Party. “So we’re joining their community,” Jahi says. “And when we’re done, we’ll probably have about ten or 12,000 pieces from the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives. It’s a level up — in terms of preservation, protection and, most importantly, the opportunity for artists to tell their story in their own voices so they are not erased.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond artists, the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives honors people who’ve played a crucial role in facilitating the local scene, such as promoter \u003ca href=\"https://ankhmarketing.com/\">Ankh Marketing\u003c/a>, which has produced community events and big-name concerts with Goapele and Erykah Badu alike, and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/lkadOO6UuR0\">the Upper Room\u003c/a>, a substance-free gathering space for the San Francisco spoken word and alternative hip-hop scenes of the ’90s. Other inductees include MC and queer party producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/aimathedrmr/?hl=en\">Aima the Dreamer\u003c/a>; journalist, scholar and DJ \u003ca href=\"https://daveyd.com/\">Davey D\u003c/a> (who serves as an advisor on KQED’s \u003cem>That’s My Word\u003c/em>); dance historian and photographer \u003ca href=\"http://www.iamtracibartlow.com/\">Traci Bartlow\u003c/a>; \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/realdjkevykev/?hl=en\">DJ Kevy Kev\u003c/a>; the “Black Panther of hip-hop,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris\">Paris\u003c/a>; poet and educator \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mrdavis510/?hl=en\">Hodari Davis\u003c/a>; and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/phestohierosoul/?hl=en\">Phesto Dee\u003c/a> of Souls of Mischief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/uMqQgf__apQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahi himself comes from the activist, alternative corner of hip-hop — what he refers to as the “socially conscious, mostly profanity-free, life-affirming lane.” He’s called Oakland home for 24 years, but he grew up DJing and freestyling in East Cleveland in the early ’80s. It was a turbulent time in American history, with the crack epidemic and rise of mass incarceration, and hip-hop offered him a sense of belonging and an artistic outlet. “All the rappers had perfect attendance, because we was always at school 30 minutes before school opened so we could battle,” says Jahi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahi’s path into music was somewhat unconventional: He had a successful career at an educational nonprofit before embarking on a professional music career at 28 years old, in the late ’90s. Public Enemy’s Chuck D and KRS One gave him some of his first big opportunities, which led to a major-label album and a successful stint in Europe. He later founded the production company Microphone Mechanics, which has been his springboard into museum exhibitions, theater and, now, the archives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahi has an inclusive vision of hip-hop, and isn’t about creating a dichotomy of street-versus-conscious, mainstream-versus-underground — nor is he into shaming or excluding practitioners of the art form who are different from him. Instead, he wants to celebrate the many styles and philosophies, the collective efforts, that have made the culture such a potent form of expression. “Hip-hop is a house with many rooms, and we’ve been in the sex, drugs, violence, pimp, hustler room,” he says. “It’s not the whole house.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the unveiling of the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives in February, artists spoke of unity and pride. “We built this community,” said Mystic. “We built this when we had no models. We created magazines, we produced albums, we threw events. We created what the dream needed to be, and it was grounded in the radically loving and socially political foundation that is Oakland.” [aside postid='arts_13906176']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody likes to make us believe, especially as Black people, that our history is kind of happenstance. You know, Martin just kind of wrote a speech, and Malcolm just showed up,” said Davey D. “And that makes for a good story, it makes it sound like these individuals were superhuman, when in fact they put in a lot of work. They were very intentional, they were in the pocket, they thought about things. Even in hip-hop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the mic was passed around, other inductees spoke of their hopes for the next 50 years of hip-hop culture as calls of “ashe” resounded throughout AAMLO’s high-ceilinged, marbled halls. “For the level of murder and violence that exists in our streets, what are we saying with this culture?” asked Refa One. “Is it more healing and food, or is it toxic? Because it could be either one. … It could be a weapon to liberate us, or one to put our people down. … It’s got to have that knowledge element. That fifth element is key.” [aside postid='arts_13923978']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his part, Jahi has ambitious plans to invest in that fifth element. After the next group of Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives inductees are announced on Juneteenth, he’s planning on hosting Friday nights at OMCA throughout the month of August, curating talks, performances and screenings for hip-hop’s 50th anniversary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DJ Kool Herc’s foundational 1973 party was a back-to-school event. So in that spirit, AAMLO’s Aug. 11 block party will be a family-friendly affair hosted by \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop/timeline#home-turf-premieres-on-kron-tv\">Dominique DiPrima\u003c/a>, with school supply giveaways, music by DJs Davey D, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13915614/black-the-bay-areas-mother-of-djs-is-getting-the-recognition-she-deserves\">Black\u003c/a> and True Justice and an appearance from 12-year-old race car driver Cam-Man Races. The second class of the Archives will be formally inducted, and select items from the collections will be on view, with more to come next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, of course, Jahi is busy documenting items and stories for the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives, which he anticipates will be fully up and running in person and online in two to five years. He’s moving with intention, and already coming up with a succession plan and fundraising structure to keep the archives sustainable for generations to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So a Black child that looks like me, that comes from the hood, can know that without anything other than sheer determination, you can make something happen,” Jahi says. “That’s what this legacy work is also about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11687704\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_-800x60.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"60\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_-400x30.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_-768x58.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Upcoming Events\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives’ \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/Cryc31GpDH6/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D\">Meet the Curator night\u003c/a> takes place at the African American Museum and Library at Oakland on May 19, 5-7 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Jahi curates \u003ca href=\"https://museumca.org/about-friday-nights-at-omca-with-off-the-grid/?utm_campaign=OMCA+friday&utm_source=g&utm_medium=g&utm_campaignid=17402932715&utm_adgroupid=143053530931&utm_adid=601813286558&utm_placement=g&utm_agency=gupta&gclid=CjwKCAjw04yjBhApEiwAJcvNoeLJe-Tq8pu1hXdxKKrMNMwIdyAT1TnduoOrcc2dy-Osklytg0t1rhoCP3QQAvD_BwE\">Friday Nights at the Oakland Museum of California\u003c/a> throughout the month of August. Diamano Coura West African Dance Company performs on Aug. 4; Aug. 11 features DJ sets by Jahi and Davey D, a meet-and-greet with race-car driver Cameron “Cam-Man” Carraway, a turfing dance class with Telice and an induction ceremony for the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives. Destiny Muhammad plays Bay Area hip-hop on jazz harp on Aug. 18; and programming concludes Aug. 25 with an evening of aerosol art with Refa One and hands-on beatmaking activities led by Seti X of June Jordan School for Equity. KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/if-cities-could-dance\">If Cities Could Dance\u003c/a> series will screen on Aug. 4 and 11, and our video podcast \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/whatspimpin\">What’s Pimpin’?\u003c/a> screens on Aug. 18 and 25. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s note\u003c/strong>: This story is part of \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop\">That’s My Word\u003c/a>\u003cem>, KQED’s year-long exploration of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop\">Bay Area hip-hop\u003c/a> history.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The uneven power dynamics in hip-hop — and the music industry in general — are no secret: Mostly white executives enrich themselves from Black ingenuity, invest in the salacious and the sensational, and ignore the true diversity of the culture. That’s why, on a January Zoom call with the inaugural inductee class of the \u003ca href=\"https://microphonemechanics.com/bay-area-hip-hop-archives\">Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives\u003c/a>, Jahi implored: “Don’t leave your legacy to chance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those in the virtual room included well-known figures like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/suga_t_/\">Suga T\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://djdsharp.co/\">DJ D Sharp\u003c/a> of the Golden State Warriors. There was also \u003ca href=\"https://thembisamshaka.com/\">Thembisa Mshaka\u003c/a>, former editor of the influential industry magazine \u003ci>Gavin Report\u003c/i>; Helen Warren, mother of the late, great turntablist Pam the Funkstress; Black Panther-descended aerosol artist \u003ca href=\"http://www.refa1.com/\">Refa One\u003c/a>; rapper-turned-elementary educator \u003ca href=\"https://mysticworldwide.com/\">Mystic\u003c/a>; and others connected to hip-hop’s revolutionary core, who’ve helped build the culture in the Bay from the ground up. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For archive curator Jahi, the time is right to preserve the Bay Area’s impact on hip-hop culture, which celebrates its 50th anniversary on Aug. 11, the day of \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/dj-kool-herc-block-party\">DJ Kool Herc’s fateful 1973 Bronx block party\u003c/a>. Not to mention that, in recent years, the Bay Area has seen the untimely passing of numerous hip-hop greats in their 40s and 50s. The loss of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13818092/pam-the-funkstress-pioneering-bay-area-dj-passes-away\">Pam the Funkstress\u003c/a>, Digital Underground frontman \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13896288/remembering-shock-g-the-funky-digital-underground-frontman-who-shaped-oakland-rap\">Shock G\u003c/a>, Zion I’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13920198/zumbi-zion-i-improper-restraint-at-hospital\">Zumbi\u003c/a> and Blackalicious’ \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13899378/blackalicious-gift-of-gab-a-celebrated-mc-dies-at-age-50\">Gift of Gab\u003c/a> sent shockwaves of grief throughout the Bay Area. For Jahi’s generation, time is precious, and the creators of the culture feel an imperative to leave a record for posterity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you think about ancient Egypt and other societies, their cultures took dynasties to grow and develop,” says Jahi with reverence. “And in 50 years, look what we’ve created.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13929194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13929194\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-800x1028.jpg\" alt=\"Jahi wears a fedora and black suit while giving a speech on stage. \" width=\"800\" height=\"1028\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-800x1028.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-160x206.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1-768x987.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/Jahi-photo-1.jpg 935w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives curator Jahi had a successful career as an MC before foraying into exhibitions, theater and legacy work. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jahi)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indeed, hip-hop is now a multi-billion dollar industry with influence on Wall Street, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.paris2024.org/en/sport/breaking/\">2024 Olympics\u003c/a> and beyond. But it still remains a Black, working-class, grassroots culture that empowers, heals and politically mobilizes, an aspect that was front of mind for Jahi as he planned the archive, which is housed at the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.org/aamlo/\">African American Museum and Library at Oakland\u003c/a> (AAMLO).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since inducting the first Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives class of 15 honorees during Black History Month, Jahi has gathered 1,000 artifacts and counting from their personal collections, some of which will be on view at AAMLO’s Aug. 11 block party celebrating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, with another viewing to come in February 2024. Concert flyers, setlists, photos, audio and video interviews are getting the “white-glove” museum treatment for future fans, artists and scholars to explore. Jahi is also hosting a \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/Cryc31GpDH6/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D\">Meet the Curator Night\u003c/a> with music and discussion at AAMLO on May 19, and is gearing up to announce the next 40 honorees on Juneteenth next month. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To create the archive, Jahi sought out a partnership with a Black-led institution, and he found the right collaborator in AAMLO and its Chief Curator Bamidele Agbasegbe-Demerson. Prior to the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives’ launch, AAMLO already had close to 12,000 artifacts and documents chronicling Black life in Northern California, from the Gold Rush to the Black Panther Party. “So we’re joining their community,” Jahi says. “And when we’re done, we’ll probably have about ten or 12,000 pieces from the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives. It’s a level up — in terms of preservation, protection and, most importantly, the opportunity for artists to tell their story in their own voices so they are not erased.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond artists, the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives honors people who’ve played a crucial role in facilitating the local scene, such as promoter \u003ca href=\"https://ankhmarketing.com/\">Ankh Marketing\u003c/a>, which has produced community events and big-name concerts with Goapele and Erykah Badu alike, and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/lkadOO6UuR0\">the Upper Room\u003c/a>, a substance-free gathering space for the San Francisco spoken word and alternative hip-hop scenes of the ’90s. Other inductees include MC and queer party producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/aimathedrmr/?hl=en\">Aima the Dreamer\u003c/a>; journalist, scholar and DJ \u003ca href=\"https://daveyd.com/\">Davey D\u003c/a> (who serves as an advisor on KQED’s \u003cem>That’s My Word\u003c/em>); dance historian and photographer \u003ca href=\"http://www.iamtracibartlow.com/\">Traci Bartlow\u003c/a>; \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/realdjkevykev/?hl=en\">DJ Kevy Kev\u003c/a>; the “Black Panther of hip-hop,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.guerrillafunk.com/paris\">Paris\u003c/a>; poet and educator \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mrdavis510/?hl=en\">Hodari Davis\u003c/a>; and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/phestohierosoul/?hl=en\">Phesto Dee\u003c/a> of Souls of Mischief.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/uMqQgf__apQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/uMqQgf__apQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Jahi himself comes from the activist, alternative corner of hip-hop — what he refers to as the “socially conscious, mostly profanity-free, life-affirming lane.” He’s called Oakland home for 24 years, but he grew up DJing and freestyling in East Cleveland in the early ’80s. It was a turbulent time in American history, with the crack epidemic and rise of mass incarceration, and hip-hop offered him a sense of belonging and an artistic outlet. “All the rappers had perfect attendance, because we was always at school 30 minutes before school opened so we could battle,” says Jahi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahi’s path into music was somewhat unconventional: He had a successful career at an educational nonprofit before embarking on a professional music career at 28 years old, in the late ’90s. Public Enemy’s Chuck D and KRS One gave him some of his first big opportunities, which led to a major-label album and a successful stint in Europe. He later founded the production company Microphone Mechanics, which has been his springboard into museum exhibitions, theater and, now, the archives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahi has an inclusive vision of hip-hop, and isn’t about creating a dichotomy of street-versus-conscious, mainstream-versus-underground — nor is he into shaming or excluding practitioners of the art form who are different from him. Instead, he wants to celebrate the many styles and philosophies, the collective efforts, that have made the culture such a potent form of expression. “Hip-hop is a house with many rooms, and we’ve been in the sex, drugs, violence, pimp, hustler room,” he says. “It’s not the whole house.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the unveiling of the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives in February, artists spoke of unity and pride. “We built this community,” said Mystic. “We built this when we had no models. We created magazines, we produced albums, we threw events. We created what the dream needed to be, and it was grounded in the radically loving and socially political foundation that is Oakland.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody likes to make us believe, especially as Black people, that our history is kind of happenstance. You know, Martin just kind of wrote a speech, and Malcolm just showed up,” said Davey D. “And that makes for a good story, it makes it sound like these individuals were superhuman, when in fact they put in a lot of work. They were very intentional, they were in the pocket, they thought about things. Even in hip-hop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the mic was passed around, other inductees spoke of their hopes for the next 50 years of hip-hop culture as calls of “ashe” resounded throughout AAMLO’s high-ceilinged, marbled halls. “For the level of murder and violence that exists in our streets, what are we saying with this culture?” asked Refa One. “Is it more healing and food, or is it toxic? Because it could be either one. … It could be a weapon to liberate us, or one to put our people down. … It’s got to have that knowledge element. That fifth element is key.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his part, Jahi has ambitious plans to invest in that fifth element. After the next group of Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives inductees are announced on Juneteenth, he’s planning on hosting Friday nights at OMCA throughout the month of August, curating talks, performances and screenings for hip-hop’s 50th anniversary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DJ Kool Herc’s foundational 1973 party was a back-to-school event. So in that spirit, AAMLO’s Aug. 11 block party will be a family-friendly affair hosted by \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/bayareahiphop/timeline#home-turf-premieres-on-kron-tv\">Dominique DiPrima\u003c/a>, with school supply giveaways, music by DJs Davey D, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13915614/black-the-bay-areas-mother-of-djs-is-getting-the-recognition-she-deserves\">Black\u003c/a> and True Justice and an appearance from 12-year-old race car driver Cam-Man Races. The second class of the Archives will be formally inducted, and select items from the collections will be on view, with more to come next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, of course, Jahi is busy documenting items and stories for the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives, which he anticipates will be fully up and running in person and online in two to five years. He’s moving with intention, and already coming up with a succession plan and fundraising structure to keep the archives sustainable for generations to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So a Black child that looks like me, that comes from the hood, can know that without anything other than sheer determination, you can make something happen,” Jahi says. “That’s what this legacy work is also about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11687704\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_-800x60.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"60\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_-400x30.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/06/Turntable.Break_-768x58.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Upcoming Events\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives’ \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/Cryc31GpDH6/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D\">Meet the Curator night\u003c/a> takes place at the African American Museum and Library at Oakland on May 19, 5-7 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Jahi curates \u003ca href=\"https://museumca.org/about-friday-nights-at-omca-with-off-the-grid/?utm_campaign=OMCA+friday&utm_source=g&utm_medium=g&utm_campaignid=17402932715&utm_adgroupid=143053530931&utm_adid=601813286558&utm_placement=g&utm_agency=gupta&gclid=CjwKCAjw04yjBhApEiwAJcvNoeLJe-Tq8pu1hXdxKKrMNMwIdyAT1TnduoOrcc2dy-Osklytg0t1rhoCP3QQAvD_BwE\">Friday Nights at the Oakland Museum of California\u003c/a> throughout the month of August. Diamano Coura West African Dance Company performs on Aug. 4; Aug. 11 features DJ sets by Jahi and Davey D, a meet-and-greet with race-car driver Cameron “Cam-Man” Carraway, a turfing dance class with Telice and an induction ceremony for the Bay Area Hip-Hop Archives. Destiny Muhammad plays Bay Area hip-hop on jazz harp on Aug. 18; and programming concludes Aug. 25 with an evening of aerosol art with Refa One and hands-on beatmaking activities led by Seti X of June Jordan School for Equity. KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/if-cities-could-dance\">If Cities Could Dance\u003c/a> series will screen on Aug. 4 and 11, and our video podcast \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/whatspimpin\">What’s Pimpin’?\u003c/a> screens on Aug. 18 and 25. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "brett-cook-reflects-on-30-years-of-socially-conscious-art",
"title": "Brett Cook Reflects on 30 Years of Socially Conscious Art",
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"headTitle": "Brett Cook Reflects on 30 Years of Socially Conscious Art | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>One of the highlights of \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em>, Brett Cook’s career-spanning exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (with choreographer Liz Leman) seeks to make poignant, emotionally-resonant art out of unthinkable tragedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Black (W)hole” is an installation of six “Young Ghosts” — people of color from Oakland, all killed before their 32nd birthdays. Cook fashioned ancestor altars for the six subjects – Alex Goodwin Jr., Sahleem Tindle, Sultan Bey, Vernon Eddins Jr., Victor McElhaney, and Yasmeen Vaughan – using oil paint, mirrored plexiglass, wood, dye-infused metal prints, artificial flowers, and string lights. The choice of a mirrored surface is especially appropriate, as viewers can gaze deeply into the portal-like portraits and see their own reflections. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The portraits, adorned with photographs of their subjects from various stages of their brief lives, effectively serve as bridges to the spirit world, and reminders that urban youth of today often face greater trauma than their parents once did. These six Black lives mattered. Honoring their lives is an opportunity to lift up community health by naming them and acknowledging their existence. Some of us knew these six young people. Many of us know people just like them, who were taken too soon. While grief is unavoidable in these situations, there is solace to be found in Cook’s art, which celebrates these unfortunate martyrs while issuing a subliminal call to end the violence on our streets that kills our youth. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928966\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-1020x801.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"503\" class=\"size-large wp-image-13928966\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-1020x801.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-800x628.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-768x603.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-1536x1206.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook’s portrait of Victor McElhaney, as part of the ‘The Black (W)hole.’ \u003ccite>(Eric Arnold)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That the installation serves its intended function was confirmed by a recent visit to the YBCA gallery, where Lynette McElhaney, Victor’s mother and a former Oakland city councilmember, was observed communing with her son’s portrait. McElhaney’s suffering has been the most public of all the Young Ghosts’ mothers; it’s entirely ironic that the founder of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention was later personally impacted by violence. She will never be the same again. But on this Thursday afternoon, in a nearly-empty gallery, she appears to be having a therapeutic experience, staring into Victor’s portrait and thinking unspoken words. The installation won’t bring her son back. But it allows her to interact with his image in a deeply spiritual way. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook’s artistic practice over the past 30-something years has frequently attained these elevated levels of poignance. His journey of creative expression began with a cultural identification with hip-hop, and an attraction to graffiti. Cook went from being a tagger to a piecer, and then a muralist, portraitist and multimedia creator, mastering each step along the way. His art has been intertwined with his work in education, which has added pedagogy, often of a radical nature, to his toolkit. And though he’s exhibited in Europe, completed projects in Mexico, and been part of an avant-garde New York loft scene during the late ’90s and early 2000s, much of his formative years as an artist-educator were shaped by his time in the Bay Area of the early ’80s through mid-’90s. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I started painting on walls, there was no hip-hop section at the record store,” Cook remembers, though hip-hop was already an extension of his cultural existence. “I was a popper. I was a writer. I wrote rhymes. And because I could draw good, I started painting on walls. I was painting in San Diego before Beat Street, before Sprite commercials with beats in them. And so there wasn’t even that traditional apprenticeship program, to kind of scaffold what I thought graffiti or hip-hop was supposed to be. It was really just a cultural expression of myself.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928965\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-800x530.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928965\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon.jpg 1089w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Crayon,’ spray enamel on masonry (non-permissional\u003cbr>work), Psycho City, Market and Franklin Streets, San Francisco, 1988. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Coming of age in hip-hop\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cook arrived in the Bay Area as a young UC Berkeley undergrad in 1986 – a time when local hip-hop and the graffiti subculture were both in formative stages. During the late ’80s, “there were comic book stores all over Telegraph (Avenue in Berkeley), and people were tagging all around. You could tell what a writer looked like, and you’re still stealing caps from spray fixative shops, from the art stores. For me, that was the burgeoning of the golden age of graffiti here in the Bay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13926619']Cook studied art classes as an undergrad. But he also got an education in Hip-Hop Community 101. His neighbor in the UC Berkeley dorms was Ben “Beni B” Nickleberry – a hip-hop DJ who would mix records on turntables in his dorm room, whose KALX-FM show featured some of the earliest appearances by Digital Underground, and who would go on to become a founding member of the Bay Area Hip-Hop Coalition and the force behind indie hip-hop label ABB Records. Cook also soon met Dave “Davey D” Cook (no relation), who would go from KALX DJ to KMEL on-air personality to KPFA public affairs host and San Francisco State professor. Cook the art student also played on the lacrosse team with Michael O’Connor, who would later become a nightlife impresario, known for legendary venues Mr. Fives, the Justice League, and the New Parish. He remembers zipping on a scooter with O’Connor to catch shows at Wolfgang’s nightclub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all just there as part of the same cultural tokens, all these people that became pillars of hip-hop evolution,” Cook says. “That was just part of our social network, you know, we need to call it hip-hop. (But) we were just like, yeah, that’s our folks.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928969\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.self_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"745\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13928969\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.self_.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.self_-160x199.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Self,’ spray enamel on masonry,\u003cbr>non-permissional public work, Fruitvale tracks, Oakland, 1998.\u003cbr>The text reads: ‘The wall is my canvas, the canvas is my message, the message is my theory, the theory is my life.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back then, aerosol art was regarded as “a pejorative medium,” Cook says. When he started studying painting at UC Berkeley, his art teachers “would not look at this as a legitimate medium. And I understood that as racist. It was almost part of this chip on my shoulder that I had as a young practitioner.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Diego, Cook recalls associating hip-hop with Black and brown inner-city communities, and thinking that was what defined hip-hop. The Bay’s multiculturalism threw him for a loop, before becoming part of his milieu. Another compelling aspect was the Bay’s focus on social justice and activism, and the influence of both institutional and non-profit spaces. In addition to hip-hop culture and graffiti style being embraced locally, he says, “this is a place with a mural tradition. This is a place with a public art tradition. There were all these other kind of engines that gave it energy in a unique way.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late ’80s, he says, the Bay stood out from other regions. “Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco were all mural-making centers at that time,” Cook says, but “spray paint was not really embraced the same way it was here.” While New York also had an established mural tradition, and was obviously a major center of hip-hop culture, Cook notes street artists there felt more pressured to go the commercial route. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928959\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the ’90s, Cook threw himself into street art, most of it non-permitted, sometimes collaborating with another artist named Aaron Wade, sometimes piecing on his own. In addition to graffiti’s continued development, all kinds of other public work flourished at the time, in what Cook refers to as “a high-water mark of public art expression.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Institutional support came first from community-oriented nonprofits and cultural centers, and later spread to museums and academic institutions. Early on, he says, the Luggage Store and Mural Resource Center supported emerging artists, as did Precita Eyes, which named Cook “Best New Muralist” for his spray-paint creations in 1993. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13928681']In the mid-’90s, Cook became part of the first wave of Bay Area aerosol artists to exhibit at larger, well-respected institutional spaces, along with Barry “Twist” McGee. Those years were especially vibrant: Cook worked at Southern Exposure as a curator, created murals in Mission District alleys and elsewhere around the city, and still painted at the railroad tracks. “There was a really diverse way of understanding what it meant to be an artist,” he says. “(You) didn’t have to just be a writer, didn’t have to just do portraits, didn’t have to just be in the nonprofit system. That, I think, is part of how I got to manifest in the complexity that I am now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928962\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928962\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A portion of Brett Cook’s ‘Reflection & Action,’ at YBCA. \u003ccite>(Eric Arnold/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Voices of the people\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Intentionally, Cook’s portraits at YBCA aren’t overly photorealistic, which would perhaps conceal the human essence of the subjects, the seeming imperfections which reveal character and intangible qualities. Instead, though his portraits utilize photos as starting points, the finished images contain vibrant color palettes imbued with dynamic energy that become windows into the souls of the people Cook paints. The Young Ghosts – all of them joyful and filled with vitality – will be remembered as they were on their best days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This empathetic connection with his subjects stretches back at least three decades. One of Cook’s first major installations, Homelessness, was completed in 1993 on the exterior of YBCA while the center was under construction. By all accounts, that project – photos of which are included in the current exhibition – was a turning point for the artist. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recalls applying for the project (“at the time, no one was doing construction walls”) and being accepted, along with Michael Rios and Barry McGee. In those years, SoMA “was really an extension of the Tenderloin at that time,” he says, with working-class and immigrant families alongside unhoused people, who in the public’s perception were an eyesore but not yet an epidemic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928963\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928963\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93.jpg 1086w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A portion of ‘Homelessness,’ from the YBCA construction wall site.\u003cbr>Spray enamel on wood, Third\u003cbr>and Howard Streets, San Francisco, 1992. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Initially, for the project, Cook “was just going to do portraits with statistics about homelessness, or being unhoused — we didn’t even use that term then. And then somewhere in the process, I got this idea to actually interview the people and use their voices, their quotes. And really, that was the beginning of my 30-year practice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After graduating from college, Cook moved to New York City in the late ’90s – a vibrant time for the city, with all kinds of cultural immersion opportunities. Headquartered in a live-work loft that he used as a studio, as well as to throw memorable all-night parties, he eased into the NYC art world and was embraced by the city’s hip-hop community. He took part in the first hip-hop exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and later exhibited in Europe with Sanford Biggars in another hip-hop-themed exhibition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While his art eschews hip-hop cliches, incorporating hip-hop’s social and cultural sensibilities lent Cook agency. “Doing a project in hip-hop in Brooklyn in 1999, it was an investigation for me to realize like, yeah, really, hip-hop is me,” Cook says. “It’s my culture. It comes from me, from being a Black American exposed to the kind of aesthetic cues and the postmodernist sensibility of what it was and really the expression of my voice at that time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928964\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928964\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-1020x677.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-1536x1019.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_.jpg 1810w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A public project with photos from the 6th Street photography workshop and the Luggage Store. Spray enamel on wood, San Francisco, 1993. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cook’s approach may not sound like the revolutionary counternarrative that it is. “In the history of Western art,” he explains, “the model almost never has a voice. …When you see Gauguin paint those naked ladies in Polynesia, even when you see someone doing a character on a wall somewhere, it’s usually through the filter of the artist (that) you’re hearing about that person. What started for me 30 years ago, and now has kind of evolved, is recognizing that actually, this is an opportunity to magnify this person’s voice, both literally and using quotations from interviews with them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Examples of this technique inform nearly every aspect of \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em>. Some of Cook’s subjects are well-known, with a degree of familiarity, celebrity, or at least expertise in their fields. But the majority are unsung figures like Oakland muralist Melanie Cervantes, grounded in community sensibilities and/or a personal aesthetic, who will be unfamiliar to many viewers. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928968\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928968\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook with his portrait of Oakland poet and Cultural Affairs Manager Robert Bedoya at YBCA in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Eric Arnold)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Encountering Cook’s portrait of Roberto Bedoya, the viewer is led to contrast the portrait with its source photo, but also to balance the visual image with quotes about belonging, equity, and culture as important societal values. Awareness of Bedoya’s long history as a progressive Chicano-Latino poet, cultural policy advocate, and current Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland aren’t prerequisites for allowing his words and likeness to resonate. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I think about the conventions of the way people are trained to come into a museum or come into a gallery, there’s not the expectation that they’re supposed to do anything other than consume these passive objects,” he says. His work, however, has been informed “by the crucible of the Bay Area, of having a social justice sensibility, for so much of my life that it wasn’t just enough to make an object.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928958\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-800x435.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"435\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928958\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-800x435.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-1020x555.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-768x418.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook’s portrait of Little Bobby Hutton, accompanied by the 10th point of the Black Panthers’ Ten-Point Program, as part of a 2012 Oakland Museum of California installation in collaboration with Life is Living/Reflections of Healing. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Art as a healing force\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Healing urban communities of deep-rooted trauma has been a recurring theme of Cook’s work long before “The Black (W)hole.” \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em> includes a series of portraits done while Cook was living in Harlem in the late ’90 and 2000s that show everyday denizens of the New York neighborhood, which first appeared as public art installations intended to foster an authentic sense of community. Cook’s “Reflections of Healing” series from the 2010s immortalized local legends like former Black Panthers Lil Bobby Hutton — depicted as an angel, with wings — and Joan Tarika Lewis. This series was displayed during the annual Life Is Living festival in West Oakland’s DeFremery Park, which Cook assisted in curating, and has appeared on the exterior wall of the Oakland Museum of California, facing traffic on Lake Merritt Boulevard. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing trauma remains a common theme in hip-hop as well, whether expressed through R.I.P. T-shirts, mural memorials, rapped eulogies, or turf dance tributes. Urban dwellers often have to maintain positivity in less-than-ideal living and environmental conditions, address social, cultural and economic inequity in positive ways, and claim identity separate from being othered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928957\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928957\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An installation view of ‘Reflection & Action’ at YBCA. \u003ccite>(Charlie Villyard/YBCA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But while hip-hop has leaned in on social, economic and environmental conditions as causes for trauma and PTSD, considerably less emphasis has been placed on finding ways to heal. Cook doesn’t necessarily have all the answers. But he believes members of urban communities who can relate to the struggle do; they may just not know it yet. This is where the “Action” in \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em> comes in. Cook’s art is not intended to elicit passive participation. It’s a call for an intentional response; to find answers by looking at static-seeming fields like policymaking with creative eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook explains how, a few years ago, he was involved in a collaborative project with SF State and the Health Equity Institute, “looking at public housing in San Francisco and what art and healing existed there, with the idea to support funding and programs through the development of these public housing projects, to give people more access to those things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience cemented a core belief in Cook’s work, and the way art interacts with the world. “I don’t think it’s just about developers,” he says. “It’s policymakers, it’s politicians, it’s educators. Within all of these different sectors, there is the possibility to be more creative with the way that we work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Reflection & Action’ runs through June 11, 2023, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. \u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/event/brett-cook-liz-lerman-reflection-and-action/\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>One of the highlights of \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em>, Brett Cook’s career-spanning exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (with choreographer Liz Leman) seeks to make poignant, emotionally-resonant art out of unthinkable tragedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Black (W)hole” is an installation of six “Young Ghosts” — people of color from Oakland, all killed before their 32nd birthdays. Cook fashioned ancestor altars for the six subjects – Alex Goodwin Jr., Sahleem Tindle, Sultan Bey, Vernon Eddins Jr., Victor McElhaney, and Yasmeen Vaughan – using oil paint, mirrored plexiglass, wood, dye-infused metal prints, artificial flowers, and string lights. The choice of a mirrored surface is especially appropriate, as viewers can gaze deeply into the portal-like portraits and see their own reflections. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The portraits, adorned with photographs of their subjects from various stages of their brief lives, effectively serve as bridges to the spirit world, and reminders that urban youth of today often face greater trauma than their parents once did. These six Black lives mattered. Honoring their lives is an opportunity to lift up community health by naming them and acknowledging their existence. Some of us knew these six young people. Many of us know people just like them, who were taken too soon. While grief is unavoidable in these situations, there is solace to be found in Cook’s art, which celebrates these unfortunate martyrs while issuing a subliminal call to end the violence on our streets that kills our youth. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928966\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-1020x801.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"503\" class=\"size-large wp-image-13928966\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-1020x801.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-800x628.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-768x603.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor-1536x1206.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.victor.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook’s portrait of Victor McElhaney, as part of the ‘The Black (W)hole.’ \u003ccite>(Eric Arnold)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That the installation serves its intended function was confirmed by a recent visit to the YBCA gallery, where Lynette McElhaney, Victor’s mother and a former Oakland city councilmember, was observed communing with her son’s portrait. McElhaney’s suffering has been the most public of all the Young Ghosts’ mothers; it’s entirely ironic that the founder of Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention was later personally impacted by violence. She will never be the same again. But on this Thursday afternoon, in a nearly-empty gallery, she appears to be having a therapeutic experience, staring into Victor’s portrait and thinking unspoken words. The installation won’t bring her son back. But it allows her to interact with his image in a deeply spiritual way. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook’s artistic practice over the past 30-something years has frequently attained these elevated levels of poignance. His journey of creative expression began with a cultural identification with hip-hop, and an attraction to graffiti. Cook went from being a tagger to a piecer, and then a muralist, portraitist and multimedia creator, mastering each step along the way. His art has been intertwined with his work in education, which has added pedagogy, often of a radical nature, to his toolkit. And though he’s exhibited in Europe, completed projects in Mexico, and been part of an avant-garde New York loft scene during the late ’90s and early 2000s, much of his formative years as an artist-educator were shaped by his time in the Bay Area of the early ’80s through mid-’90s. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I started painting on walls, there was no hip-hop section at the record store,” Cook remembers, though hip-hop was already an extension of his cultural existence. “I was a popper. I was a writer. I wrote rhymes. And because I could draw good, I started painting on walls. I was painting in San Diego before Beat Street, before Sprite commercials with beats in them. And so there wasn’t even that traditional apprenticeship program, to kind of scaffold what I thought graffiti or hip-hop was supposed to be. It was really just a cultural expression of myself.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928965\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-800x530.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928965\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Crayon.jpg 1089w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘The Crayon,’ spray enamel on masonry (non-permissional\u003cbr>work), Psycho City, Market and Franklin Streets, San Francisco, 1988. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Coming of age in hip-hop\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cook arrived in the Bay Area as a young UC Berkeley undergrad in 1986 – a time when local hip-hop and the graffiti subculture were both in formative stages. During the late ’80s, “there were comic book stores all over Telegraph (Avenue in Berkeley), and people were tagging all around. You could tell what a writer looked like, and you’re still stealing caps from spray fixative shops, from the art stores. For me, that was the burgeoning of the golden age of graffiti here in the Bay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cook studied art classes as an undergrad. But he also got an education in Hip-Hop Community 101. His neighbor in the UC Berkeley dorms was Ben “Beni B” Nickleberry – a hip-hop DJ who would mix records on turntables in his dorm room, whose KALX-FM show featured some of the earliest appearances by Digital Underground, and who would go on to become a founding member of the Bay Area Hip-Hop Coalition and the force behind indie hip-hop label ABB Records. Cook also soon met Dave “Davey D” Cook (no relation), who would go from KALX DJ to KMEL on-air personality to KPFA public affairs host and San Francisco State professor. Cook the art student also played on the lacrosse team with Michael O’Connor, who would later become a nightlife impresario, known for legendary venues Mr. Fives, the Justice League, and the New Parish. He remembers zipping on a scooter with O’Connor to catch shows at Wolfgang’s nightclub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all just there as part of the same cultural tokens, all these people that became pillars of hip-hop evolution,” Cook says. “That was just part of our social network, you know, we need to call it hip-hop. (But) we were just like, yeah, that’s our folks.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928969\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.self_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"745\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13928969\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.self_.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.self_-160x199.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Self,’ spray enamel on masonry,\u003cbr>non-permissional public work, Fruitvale tracks, Oakland, 1998.\u003cbr>The text reads: ‘The wall is my canvas, the canvas is my message, the message is my theory, the theory is my life.’ \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back then, aerosol art was regarded as “a pejorative medium,” Cook says. When he started studying painting at UC Berkeley, his art teachers “would not look at this as a legitimate medium. And I understood that as racist. It was almost part of this chip on my shoulder that I had as a young practitioner.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Diego, Cook recalls associating hip-hop with Black and brown inner-city communities, and thinking that was what defined hip-hop. The Bay’s multiculturalism threw him for a loop, before becoming part of his milieu. Another compelling aspect was the Bay’s focus on social justice and activism, and the influence of both institutional and non-profit spaces. In addition to hip-hop culture and graffiti style being embraced locally, he says, “this is a place with a mural tradition. This is a place with a public art tradition. There were all these other kind of engines that gave it energy in a unique way.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late ’80s, he says, the Bay stood out from other regions. “Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco were all mural-making centers at that time,” Cook says, but “spray paint was not really embraced the same way it was here.” While New York also had an established mural tradition, and was obviously a major center of hip-hop culture, Cook notes street artists there felt more pressured to go the commercial route. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928959\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928959\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.headshot.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the ’90s, Cook threw himself into street art, most of it non-permitted, sometimes collaborating with another artist named Aaron Wade, sometimes piecing on his own. In addition to graffiti’s continued development, all kinds of other public work flourished at the time, in what Cook refers to as “a high-water mark of public art expression.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Institutional support came first from community-oriented nonprofits and cultural centers, and later spread to museums and academic institutions. Early on, he says, the Luggage Store and Mural Resource Center supported emerging artists, as did Precita Eyes, which named Cook “Best New Muralist” for his spray-paint creations in 1993. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In the mid-’90s, Cook became part of the first wave of Bay Area aerosol artists to exhibit at larger, well-respected institutional spaces, along with Barry “Twist” McGee. Those years were especially vibrant: Cook worked at Southern Exposure as a curator, created murals in Mission District alleys and elsewhere around the city, and still painted at the railroad tracks. “There was a really diverse way of understanding what it meant to be an artist,” he says. “(You) didn’t have to just be a writer, didn’t have to just do portraits, didn’t have to just be in the nonprofit system. That, I think, is part of how I got to manifest in the complexity that I am now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928962\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928962\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.youngghosts.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A portion of Brett Cook’s ‘Reflection & Action,’ at YBCA. \u003ccite>(Eric Arnold/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Voices of the people\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Intentionally, Cook’s portraits at YBCA aren’t overly photorealistic, which would perhaps conceal the human essence of the subjects, the seeming imperfections which reveal character and intangible qualities. Instead, though his portraits utilize photos as starting points, the finished images contain vibrant color palettes imbued with dynamic energy that become windows into the souls of the people Cook paints. The Young Ghosts – all of them joyful and filled with vitality – will be remembered as they were on their best days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This empathetic connection with his subjects stretches back at least three decades. One of Cook’s first major installations, Homelessness, was completed in 1993 on the exterior of YBCA while the center was under construction. By all accounts, that project – photos of which are included in the current exhibition – was a turning point for the artist. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recalls applying for the project (“at the time, no one was doing construction walls”) and being accepted, along with Michael Rios and Barry McGee. In those years, SoMA “was really an extension of the Tenderloin at that time,” he says, with working-class and immigrant families alongside unhoused people, who in the public’s perception were an eyesore but not yet an epidemic. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928963\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928963\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.YBCA_93.jpg 1086w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A portion of ‘Homelessness,’ from the YBCA construction wall site.\u003cbr>Spray enamel on wood, Third\u003cbr>and Howard Streets, San Francisco, 1992. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Initially, for the project, Cook “was just going to do portraits with statistics about homelessness, or being unhoused — we didn’t even use that term then. And then somewhere in the process, I got this idea to actually interview the people and use their voices, their quotes. And really, that was the beginning of my 30-year practice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After graduating from college, Cook moved to New York City in the late ’90s – a vibrant time for the city, with all kinds of cultural immersion opportunities. Headquartered in a live-work loft that he used as a studio, as well as to throw memorable all-night parties, he eased into the NYC art world and was embraced by the city’s hip-hop community. He took part in the first hip-hop exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and later exhibited in Europe with Sanford Biggars in another hip-hop-themed exhibition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While his art eschews hip-hop cliches, incorporating hip-hop’s social and cultural sensibilities lent Cook agency. “Doing a project in hip-hop in Brooklyn in 1999, it was an investigation for me to realize like, yeah, really, hip-hop is me,” Cook says. “It’s my culture. It comes from me, from being a Black American exposed to the kind of aesthetic cues and the postmodernist sensibility of what it was and really the expression of my voice at that time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928964\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928964\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-1020x677.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_-1536x1019.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Poor_.jpg 1810w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A public project with photos from the 6th Street photography workshop and the Luggage Store. Spray enamel on wood, San Francisco, 1993. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cook’s approach may not sound like the revolutionary counternarrative that it is. “In the history of Western art,” he explains, “the model almost never has a voice. …When you see Gauguin paint those naked ladies in Polynesia, even when you see someone doing a character on a wall somewhere, it’s usually through the filter of the artist (that) you’re hearing about that person. What started for me 30 years ago, and now has kind of evolved, is recognizing that actually, this is an opportunity to magnify this person’s voice, both literally and using quotations from interviews with them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Examples of this technique inform nearly every aspect of \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em>. Some of Cook’s subjects are well-known, with a degree of familiarity, celebrity, or at least expertise in their fields. But the majority are unsung figures like Oakland muralist Melanie Cervantes, grounded in community sensibilities and/or a personal aesthetic, who will be unfamiliar to many viewers. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928968\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928968\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Bedoya.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook with his portrait of Oakland poet and Cultural Affairs Manager Robert Bedoya at YBCA in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Eric Arnold)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Encountering Cook’s portrait of Roberto Bedoya, the viewer is led to contrast the portrait with its source photo, but also to balance the visual image with quotes about belonging, equity, and culture as important societal values. Awareness of Bedoya’s long history as a progressive Chicano-Latino poet, cultural policy advocate, and current Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland aren’t prerequisites for allowing his words and likeness to resonate. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I think about the conventions of the way people are trained to come into a museum or come into a gallery, there’s not the expectation that they’re supposed to do anything other than consume these passive objects,” he says. His work, however, has been informed “by the crucible of the Bay Area, of having a social justice sensibility, for so much of my life that it wasn’t just enough to make an object.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928958\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-800x435.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"435\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928958\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-800x435.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-1020x555.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby-768x418.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.LilBobby.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Cook’s portrait of Little Bobby Hutton, accompanied by the 10th point of the Black Panthers’ Ten-Point Program, as part of a 2012 Oakland Museum of California installation in collaboration with Life is Living/Reflections of Healing. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Brett Cook)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Art as a healing force\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Healing urban communities of deep-rooted trauma has been a recurring theme of Cook’s work long before “The Black (W)hole.” \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em> includes a series of portraits done while Cook was living in Harlem in the late ’90 and 2000s that show everyday denizens of the New York neighborhood, which first appeared as public art installations intended to foster an authentic sense of community. Cook’s “Reflections of Healing” series from the 2010s immortalized local legends like former Black Panthers Lil Bobby Hutton — depicted as an angel, with wings — and Joan Tarika Lewis. This series was displayed during the annual Life Is Living festival in West Oakland’s DeFremery Park, which Cook assisted in curating, and has appeared on the exterior wall of the Oakland Museum of California, facing traffic on Lake Merritt Boulevard. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing trauma remains a common theme in hip-hop as well, whether expressed through R.I.P. T-shirts, mural memorials, rapped eulogies, or turf dance tributes. Urban dwellers often have to maintain positivity in less-than-ideal living and environmental conditions, address social, cultural and economic inequity in positive ways, and claim identity separate from being othered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13928957\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13928957\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/BR.Overhead.YBCA_.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An installation view of ‘Reflection & Action’ at YBCA. \u003ccite>(Charlie Villyard/YBCA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But while hip-hop has leaned in on social, economic and environmental conditions as causes for trauma and PTSD, considerably less emphasis has been placed on finding ways to heal. Cook doesn’t necessarily have all the answers. But he believes members of urban communities who can relate to the struggle do; they may just not know it yet. This is where the “Action” in \u003cem>Reflection & Action\u003c/em> comes in. Cook’s art is not intended to elicit passive participation. It’s a call for an intentional response; to find answers by looking at static-seeming fields like policymaking with creative eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook explains how, a few years ago, he was involved in a collaborative project with SF State and the Health Equity Institute, “looking at public housing in San Francisco and what art and healing existed there, with the idea to support funding and programs through the development of these public housing projects, to give people more access to those things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience cemented a core belief in Cook’s work, and the way art interacts with the world. “I don’t think it’s just about developers,” he says. “It’s policymakers, it’s politicians, it’s educators. Within all of these different sectors, there is the possibility to be more creative with the way that we work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Reflection & Action’ runs through June 11, 2023, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. \u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/event/brett-cook-liz-lerman-reflection-and-action/\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"order": 9
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
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"meta": {
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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