While the word “graffiti” may carry a negative connotation, many artists in Chicago have elevated graffiti to a broadly accepted form of art in a number
of areas that residents and tourists go out of their way to visit.
Logan Park, Pilsen, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village’s Vertical Gallery, Wabash Arts Corridor and West Loop’s Hubbard Tunnel are among the most popular, with each area of graffi ti boasting a different theme. The Wabash Arts Corridor originated from a public art project, while the artwork indigenous to Pilsen is rooted in the subject of the effects of gentrification in Chicago neighborhoods. In Wicker Park, many murals represent hip-hop culture.
Chicago is home to a number of popular street artists who have left their mark on the city. According to UrbanMatter, Max Sansing, an artist raised on Chicago’s South Side, created “New Frontiers, Same Old Nine” on a 79th Street building in the South Shore last year. Fellow South Side artist Kayla Mahaff ey’s “Joined as One” mural can be found at the same South Shore location.
Chicagoan “KOZMO” Lopez has painted her signature “burger flowers” in Little Village and Back of the Yards, while Lauren Asta, who moved from Califor-
nia to Chicago in 2016, launched the first of her distinctive murals in the Fulton Market District.
A spokesperson for the Museum of Contemporary Art said the late Virgil Abloh “did much to further the graffiti medium as a source of artistic expression due to his influence as a designer.”
In 2019, Abloh’s “Figures of Speech” was featured at the MCA. DePaul Art Museum, interim manager Laura Carolyn cites the “Stockyard Institute: 25 Years of Art and Radical Pedagogy” exhibit as a source of knowledge for the evolution of graffi ti as an artform, “reinvigorating spaces in the city that benefit from such art.” According to Carolyn, the exponential growth of graffiti murals is historically based and recognized by education systems for teaching purposes. The exhibit runs through February 2022.
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