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Seattle isn’t really known as a hotbed of true-school graffiti or street-styled art. There’s plenty of geeky murals and half-assed throw-ups, but this town isn’t exactly in the limelight when it comes to the urban art vibe. That said, a show like “Beyond Fresh,” curated by Cut Kulture for last year’s Bumbershoot, might come as a surprise. The show featured work by artists like Parskid, Peekaboo Monster and Christoph, among dozens of others, and all but a few were Northwest area residents. Most importantly, everyone had ample skills on display.
“We really wanted to represent artists here in Seattle,” says Damion Hayes, one of Cut Kulture’s collective members along with George Estrada and Jayne Singer. “There’s a lot of great cats here that are doing this type of work.”
The only problem is that the exposure they get isn’t nearly as great as the quality of work they produce. “Most of the shows on the ‘street’ or ‘urban’ tip are in people’s lofts or places like that,” says Hayes, “And it never really gets the proper representation or space.”
Cut Kulture is almost single-handedly pushing Seattle’s graffiti art scene into the public eye. While many of the artists featured in “Beyond Fresh” have done work nationally and received recognition elsewhere, the show itself was a milestone. It showed what the area is capable of producing.
Now the push is to infiltrate more of the traditional art world and help the artists develop a pedigree, as Hayes puts it. “A lot of artists show to their peers and no one really has a lot of money.” Cut Kulture, he says, wants to help bring the art to the collectors and open things up. “People are going to have to start taking it seriously because it’s kind of overtaking contemporary art.”
The style is everywhere—from music and video games to modern art exhibits around the world—and Cut Kulture are really the only ones on the Seattle scene that are making things happen. Despite the fact that Seattle, as a city, is actively antagonistic towards the form—due to restrictive laws that were passed in the '90s—the talent is here.
“I moved here from Atlanta,” explains Hayes, “And there you have all these yards where you see a lot of raw talent develop, but Seattle doesn’t have anything like that… Seattle is pretty open though. Things aren’t as set as far as the social order goes. If you have interesting ideas and spend the time, you can get results.”
With group shows expected, a book project in the not-too-distant future and a strategy to design and market artists’ print folios, Cut Kulture plans to facilitate the rise of street culture in contemporary art to where it should be in Seattle.
For more info go to cutkulture.com.
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