Remember way back in April, when we heard about the Brooklyn Museum's plans to host "Art In The Streets," a graffiti and street art-themed exhibition? The one that got the Daily News all riled up about "giving the destruction of other people's property a hallowed place in high-art halls?" Well, looks like we won't be seeing works from Fab 5 Freddy and Swoon in the Museum's hallowed halls, after all—the Museum has canceled the exhibition.
"This is an exhibition about which we were tremendously enthusiastic, and which would follow appropriately in the path of our Basquiat and graffiti exhibitions in 2005 and 2006, respectively. It is with regret, therefore, that the cancellation became necessary due to the current financial climate. As with most arts organizations throughout the country, we have had to make several difficult choices since the beginning of the economic downturn three years ago," said Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman in a press release.
LA Weekly spoke to someone "intimately familiar" with the show, currently on display at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art, who said that "It could be a combination that the Museum is afraid of the show and the negative press it could bring them," before asking, "Why would New York not want this show? I don't believe that someone would not pay for this exhibit."
In LA, the show was linked to a spike in graffiti-related arrests. A Brooklyn Museum spokesperson told us crime concerns had "absolutely nothing" to do with the cancellation, saying "It's a huge, sprawling show that would be very expensive to transport here and install. We had hoped that we would be able to secure funding but it turned out to not be possible. It's unfortunate, because we were all very keen on this show."
