Press Release
Myles Carter
Paintings 1989 – 2010
October 21st – November 27th, 2010
Skoto Gallery is pleased to present Paintings: 1989-2010 by the American artist Myles Carter. This will be his first solo exhibition in New York. The reception is Thursday, October 21st, 6-8pm. The artist will be present.This exhibition spans nearly two decades, including seminal work from his Mail Bag series that were executed during his stay in France in the 1980s, and a selection of recent work that synthesize calligraphic gestures with a fluid compositional organization. His work is dense with visual overload, and reflects an awareness of a vast array of both formal and inherited traditions spawned by graffiti’s social intervention that flowered spectacularly on the streets and subways of New York City during the 1970s and 1980s. Myles Carter’s paintings evince vitality, high energy and dramatic impact because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style that focuses less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas. He is aware of the relative value of word and image in his work and employs a rich vocabulary of signs and symbols that speak boldly and clearly to a universal audience.Much has been said and written about the compromises that graffiti artists like Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat among others had to make in order to gain entrance into the rarefied world of high art, and their work became spotlighted in downtown galleries, in the media, and thereafter throughout the world. Like other cultural developments that evolved from the underside of New York City during the 1970s and 1980s, graffiti art was a relevant meditation in words and pictures, on the meaning of identity, property, and city life. It offered the society an intensely visual account of artistic ferment on the streets of a troubled and changing city, and a provocative defense of a generation that questioned the bounds of authority over aesthetics and as Lowery Sims has observed in her catalogue essay for this exhibition Myles Carter’s affiliations with various “crews” in the city during this period provided him with both social and artistic cohort, and along with his contemporaries that include the UGA (United Graffiti Artists), TF 5 (The Fabulous 5) and Fab 5 Freddy, Rammelzee and Lady Pink and the like – held the line of authenticity and the true spirit of the graffiti .Myles Carter was born 1965 in New York City and grew up in Manhattan’s Upper West side,in an environment that nurtured creativity – his father Ron is a renowned jazz bassist and his mother was a longtime trustee of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Using the pseudonym “Metro”, in the late 1970s and 1980s, he was associated with “crews” such as RTW – Rolling Thunder Writers- noted for experimentation with unusual brands of paint and getting distinctive results.His move to Paris in the late 1980s – while still in his early 20s – helped broaden his perspectives on art, deepen his consciousness and make the transition from spray-can to the brush. Over the years, he has developed a style that is deeply rooted in a conceptual framework that embodies the aesthetics, ideals and social structures. He has participated in several exhibitions in the US and abroad. His work is in several collections around the world.A catalogue with an essay by Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator, Museum of Arts and Design, New York will be available.
Stroking it with Myles Carter: From Graffiti back to Gesture
There are several rules which you should be aware of which apply to the order of stroke sections of the Kanji Lessons – The rules which apply-are-rules of drawing a stroke, and the rules of stroke order. Only when these rules are adhered to can authentic style[be] accomplished.In the larger history of the interchange between the designated East and “West”, the 1940’s and the 1950’s was a particularly fertile episode when Asian calligraphic systems had an important impact on abstract art in the United States Within this phenomenon there were a variety of manifestations. In its more fluid rendition, calligraphy veered toward the biomorphism of Surrealism which gave way to the fractal splatterings of American Jackson Pollack, Europeans such as Hans Hartung, Michel Tapi’s, Henri Michaux and George Mathieu. Cast in a series of curt cuneiforms, it then synthesized narrative and abstraction in its essence, as exemplified in the work of Americans Mark Tobey, Franz Kline and Norman Lewis, and European Pierre Soulage. Within this variety of interpretations, calligraphy set out new alphabets – both indefinable and extremely individuated – which transported us back to the seminal experimentations that resultedin written languages.That calligraphic gesture then found a new energy in the graffiti movement of the 1970s and 80s. The spray can replaced the brush or the paint stick as the mode of delivery of the mark on a given surface, and the stroke, the gesture was relocated from the studio to the street. There it became a means for individuals to emerge from the powerlessness, the anonymity and conformity of the everyman, the man on the street. That urban calligraphy had its own rules about respect for other “tags” and the relative value of the word and the image. The social and class implications of graffiti at first vilified its practitioners and discredited its credibility. But its vitality and energy would not be long suppressed and its artists and language forged an uneasy but ultimately useful alliance with the art establishment on both sides of the Atlantic: urban declarations were domesticated as paintings on canvas to be exhibited in white-cubed galleries.Myles Carter’s paintings demonstrate his own voyage from the streets and back. Carter grew up in an artistic household where his father Ron was a noted jazz bassist and his mother Janet – a longtime trustee of the Studio Museum in Harlem – collected and served as an agent for a generation of black artists (including her son). He gained notoriety in the 1980’s under his tag “Metro”. His affiliations with different “crews” provided him with a social and artistic cohort. Moving to Paris in his early 20s, he found a context that more readily sanctioned public marking and taking advantage of that graffiti association he moved into murals. Along the way he encountered fellow expatriate taggers and interacted with various Parisian groups. It was at this moment that he found his own style.From the population of graffiti artist who did letters and characters Carter gravitated to “freestyle” or abstract graffiti where he found his own niche. At the same time he exchanged the spray can for the brush. “A brushstroke is so powerful,” he recently observed to this writer. The result is a series of paintings where the imagist and calligraphic exist in vital dialogue. “They demonstrate what Cecile Whiting alludes to as “the meaning of gesture” and its claim to authenticity, individuality and tragedy. As a consequence that individual brushstroke, notes Whiting, embodies “the transformative power and personal vision of the individual artist.” In Carter’s paintings therefore, hints of narrative and text interlope on over-all renderings of individual cuneiform gestures, while the occasional logo-treatment exists in a liminal space somewhere between branding and art-ing – la Allah Mathematics and the Wu-Tang Clan. We can see glimpses of the work of Norman Lewis in particular who could eke out a complete emotional and narrative import from his calligraphic or hieroglyphic imagery that reached its fullest development in the 1960s. Carter himself has the inspiration of illusionist M. C. Escher, Afro-Cuban pointillist Nelson Nelson and Noah Jemison, who has himself, fused biomorphism with image. This exhibition allows us to consider the interconnections between street and gallery that the Graffiti art movement created. Despite the art veneer thrown over graffiti at the time, even a case of a Keith Haring or a Jean Michel Basquiat, even they felt the need to establish their street “creds” to imbue their domesticated product with an aura of authenticity. But it was Myles Carter and his cotemporaries who included the UGA (United Graffiti Artists), TF 5 (The Fabulous 5) and Fab 5 Freddy, Rammelzee, Lady Pink and the like – who held the line of authenticity and the true spirit of the graffiti with a capitol G movement. That this exhibition occurs as graffiti returns to the street in the outdoor exhibit space known as 5 Pointz: Institute of Higher Burnin’ in Long Island City, and has been cited as a appropriated element re-emerging in studio art is ample validation for the consistency of Myles Carter’s vision. Lowery Stokes SimsCurator, Museum of Arts and Design May, 2010. While he has tried to minimize association with graffiti because of the way that stereotype came to represent a generation of urban youth. Joyo 96, All About Brush Strokes, www.Joyo96/Rules. html.Frances Morris. Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism, 1945-44 [exh. cat.], essays by Sara Wilson,David Mellor and Vincent Gille. (London: Tate Gallery, 1993), 46.Cecile Whiting, A Taste for Pop: Pop Art, Gender, and Consumer Culture (Cambridge, UK, New York City: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 125.Ibid, 124. See http://5ptz.com/graff/ and http://www.examiner.com/x-36955-Long-Island-Graffiti-Examiner~y2010m1d23Long-Island-graffiti-rooted-in-New-York-City.See http://c-monster.net/blog1/2008/06/20/its-all-about-appropriation-street-art-and-graffiti-in-studio-art/.
Myles Carter
My Brother, The Man
The works of Myles Carter say much about his origins: where he came from and how he processed what he saw in the world that we came from. This was the New York City of the 70s and 80s, a vastly different world than the one you see today. His use of color, his placement of shapes and lines remind me of our emerging from the famed 1-train tunnel of the New York City subway system circa 1979, after a night of painting. The combination of his bright, fantastic colors and shapes call to mind the surreal effects we would experience upon finishing a four-hour work on a train car the effects of the paint, the rush from getting in and out safely from the train yard. I recall many a night crawling out of one of those tunnels, absolutely and inadvertently affected by the paint, but quite consciously affected by the cheeba, digging on the whole “trespassing rush,” and watching all the beautiful colors, shapes, and lines dancing all around. This is what first comes to mind when asked about the artwork of Myles Carter. Myles was one of the youngest of the RTW crew. His sharp mind works fast, and that is one of the first things that struck me about him when we first met. I was a bit older and had attended the same junior high school, I. S. 44, as his older brother Ron Carter, Jr. One day my friend, Jaime Affoumado (aka RUST-1 RTW, aka “Puppethead” -a NYC skateboard legend) brought this kid over to my house on West 82nd Street, this kid who would end up being like a little brother to me. At the time, my crib was almost a writers’ bench of sorts. Graffiti writers from all five boroughs used to just drop by. It was on the ground floor, so everybody would just knock on the window. This kid immediately picked up a blackbook and started drawing. I was very impressed by his work and by his spirit. Seeing his work today, I still picture the same young kid-animated, full of energy, spilling it all out onto paper and canvas – his spirit, his soul.Myles Carter and I had lost track of one another for almost twenty years and recently found one another again. Now he is a man, but he will always be my brother, The Man. It is awesome to discover that he never put down the brushes/cans/pens. His works flow with images which spark all those memories of our old New York, our Upper West Side; the people, places, and things which had made up that world are evident to me in his works. Myles Carter paints it the only way that I am able to remember it – ethereal, colorful, and intense. I can say this with absolute certainty: he is still the incredible, spirited talent who used to sit in my room doing his thing – rocking the blackbooks – and I hope he will be rocking the world with his art for a long time to come. Charles Harmon, aka BILROCK-161Artist/Writer, Founder and President of RTW
I Question Art Graffiti Art has always been a perplexing idea to my mind’s eye. I’ve always loved the FUNK of it all but always questioned its intention. Are these works just quick, thoughtless statements and were these artists just scribbling for the sake of rebellious, peer-to-peer, Hip-Hop culture Most Graffiti Tag Artists have been able to do some amazing things, given that their craft has always been practiced in that quick hit-and-run style, bringing color and vibrancy on a moving canvas to counter the drabness of modern inner-city life worldwide. Getting it done quickly before the train-yard watchmen came by and their canvases went rolling down the tracks these were the basic forces and situations that constrained them. Now, take those same skills and put them to work in a studio, and a whole new world of creative avenues opens up. The questions just become a little more sophisticated.The work of Myles Carter moves me to believe that even I can understand the truth behind the collective strokes of both Street Art and Fine Art. This artist succeeds in affecting my untrained eye to the point where I can perceive the fused rhythms between Jazz and Native Tongue. I like the way I feel after a few takes of his work: there’s some pleasure, some pain, some ups, some downs, some colorful statements that readily serve as a bright backdrop to whatever my thoughts may be at any given time. Got questions? Myles Carter brings answers!!! Clip PaynePiano player for Parliament/Funkadelik
The Kid in the Tweed Hat I’m a drummer and former graffiti writer. I started writing graffiti in the mid 70’s. My style is considered old school. I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a rich cultural environment in those days. Many jazz legends lived in this part of town. Max Roach and Elvin Jones lived in the same building on 104th and Central Park West. It wasn’t unusual to see old Sonny Greer or Clarke Terry walking down Broadway. This part of town was also home turf of the Soul Artists, founded by Ali (Marc Edmunds) and Futura 2000. They were a large group which got their name from mu’sician/poet/philosopher Sun RA. Many of Sun RA’s band members would stay at the Edmunds home when in New York. So the Solar Myth Arkestra and the Soul Artists mingled.It was in this environment that I met Myles Carter. My family had an apartment on 103rd and West End Ave. We lived on the 10th floor. My mother used to let me practice drums in the apartment, to the horror and dismay of our neighbors. A lot of other young musicians used to come and hang out. Sterling Campbell, a drummer friend of mine, showed up one day with this little smart-alec kid in a tweed hat. He immediately went to my drums and started ripping off these these Tony Wiliams licks, with this mischievous look on his face. But he wasn’t on a mission to ace m on the drums. Sterling informed me that he wanted to meet the best graffiti writer in NYC . Well, Myles had come to the right place. I was an apprentice to Michael Edmunds, Ali’s younger brother.Myles and I started go on tagging missions, I needed to see if he had the heart to do this.. I knew at once that he had talent. I then introduced him to graffiti great, Mackie. I also brought him to a party one night at Ali’s house. It was there that Myles was able to meet the crime de la créme of graffiti painters. This was when Ali had become a political activist and decided to capitalize on graffiti in order to further his cause. Ali managed to unite many of the major graffiti crews into one giant capital venture. It was Ali who started the whole graff-on-canvas. People like Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring became regular attendees at the Soul Artist meetings.It was also the time around 1980, that I’d come to the realization that my painting talent was limited. I was way more into music, and Myles was probably my harshest critic. “That sounds like a bunch of nonsense, Ben was one of his admonishments when we were kids. But we shared that honesty. I told him a long time ago, You’ve got the goods, go on ahead and don’t give up” What Myles has achieved is beyond anything I could have imagined. Like a good chef, he blends the ingredients so subtly that you can’t tell what he’s using. There is no hint of ‘street art’ in his painting except when he wants you to see it. But it is apparent that his work has layers of intensity, and that I can account for only one chapter in his journey. Benjamin Orick Drummer, NYC Member, Soull Artists of Zoo York
