Chabot College Embraces the Urban

The Street Art Show

For this exhibit, I sought to create a show that corresponded more closely to the urban atmosphere of the East Bay. Although “street art” is not taught in the campus art department, students are more than familiar with the genre.

After a call for entries, Chabot College students enrolled in this course established the criteria for selecting the participating artists and then juried the entries. Some artists submitted traditional two-dimensional works, but others proposed painting whole walls. Accordingly, we  built the false walls upon which many of our invited artists would create their work. The individual walls needed to be moved outside for each artist, since aerosol paint would produce  toxic fumes. Although prep and installation required much labor, and a substantial investment of time, the final exhibit had a nice vibe.

You can see below Chris Moon at work. He collaborated, so to speak, with Not My Government (who produced the posters Chris used), and created a politically powerful installation that coincided with the Occupy protests. Students, faculty, and staff were very receptive to the work, although it was somewhat controversial.