Max Sansing and Chicago Street Art (Part 1)
[originally posted 2/26/10]
Ben Majoy
I’m staring out the window of the Wellington brown line L stop right now, specifically at a giant, desolate brick wall. Its emptiness is astonishing, such amazing real estate for a street artist.
For a city this size, with an above ground public train system and a rich history of sub cultural expressionism (The Blues, characters like Kanye West, and hmmm… the Squids), I can’t understand why these brick walls aren’t more interesting. After spending time in Berlin this past summer, I appreciate how inspiring a city becomes when street art is part of the urban landscape. The fact that Chicago is lacking this genuinely worries me.
I wanted to know why Chicago’s street art scene was so shockingly lackluster, so I sought out ex-graffiti writer turned fine artist, Max Sansing. Max has been responsible for some of the more interesting murals around south side Chicago and once upon a time, was probably responsible for some of the graffiti that you gawked at, staring out the window of the red line. According to Max, this “once upon a time”, revolved heavily around the Hyde Park hip-hop scene, once a beacon for street artists in the same way that Kreuzberg in Berlin is now. I went down to Max’s stomping grounds on 79th Street in Avalon Park to talk about Chicago graffiti and street art. It was the kind of conversation you might hear two calloused old men have over a game of chess and a few glasses of scotch. He was so damn interesting that I wanted to share some of the highlights.
Ben – Part of the reason that I wanted to talk to you about this stuff is because I don’t see a lot of graffiti around Chicago where I think other big cities around the world would have plastered their walls by now. What was the scene like in the nineties when you were growing up? Was there more of it?
Max – Man, I was fortunate to come up at the time I did. When I was in high school back around ‘95, the hip-hop scene in Hyde Park was huge! The real black hip-hop scene was like in its golden era man. You had tons of kids who were doing graffiti, break dancing, mc’ing, and dj’ing. All these different Hyde park graffiti crews and would go up to the point right off of the lake front and show their sketch books and stuff. It gave me a chance to get out the neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in Avalon Park. It was pretty much the typical hood feel. It was a decent middle class neighborhood, but it was right off of 79th street. I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve gotten popped off over there. I got a chance to get out of there through the hip-hop scene. I guess that’s something that hits with the graffiti thing. Hip-hop culture in Chicago has always been competing with the gang culture for what the youth wanted to get into. When I was growing up in Chicago in the early 90’s the gang scene was huge. If I didn’t know people, and I didn’t get out of the neighborhood, I would have been into some bullshit. That’s why I thank god for the hip hop scene, for opening up my mind.
Max – Man, I was fortunate to come up at the time I did. When I was in high school back around ‘95, the hip-hop scene in Hyde Park was huge! The real black hip-hop scene was like in its golden era man. You had tons of kids who were doing graffiti, break dancing, mc’ing, and dj’ing. All these different Hyde park graffiti crews and would go up to the point right off of the lake front and show their sketch books and stuff. It gave me a chance to get out the neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in Avalon Park. It was pretty much the typical hood feel. It was a decent middle class neighborhood, but it was right off of 79th street. I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve gotten popped off over there. I got a chance to get out of there through the hip-hop scene. I guess that’s something that hits with the graffiti thing. Hip-hop culture in Chicago has always been competing with the gang culture for what the youth wanted to get into. When I was growing up in Chicago in the early 90’s the gang scene was huge. If I didn’t know people, and I didn’t get out of the neighborhood, I would have been into some bullshit. That’s why I thank god for the hip hop scene, for opening up my mind.
Do you think the scarcity of kids doing graffiti has anything to do with the fact that it’s so illegal? That may sound like a ridiculous question but…
I mean people are doing illegal shit all the fucking time, especially if they don’t have any cash dude. Here’s the thing. It’s not glamorous. If you go out and you see a dude sitting in a big ass truck with rims and or shit, he probably got it from rapping and selling drugs. When you’re a shorty who ain’t got shit, and you want to be accepted because you’re going through high school angst, the gang stuff is really appealing man. Then, on top of that, the only type of music you have on the radio is gangster stuff like Lil’ Wayne and Gucci man. It’s like the perfect storm. The ill thing with graffiti as a youth interest is that it’s an art form, so its going to lead them into something with different cultures as opposed to the whole dope boy (drug dealing) thing which is just going to lead you into bullshit.
That makes sense man. You get a lot more payout from being a gangster than you do from being an artist. I guess if you’re going to choose between one illegal act or another, you’re going to choose the one that takes less time and effort.
Exactly dog. They’re not going to be trying to get their styles better. They aren’t going to learn to get can control. I invested a lot of time into the shit I know now through graffiti. I’ve got tons of books like this (shows me his sketch book). Each one was like two or three years of dedication – years of getting my craft together. Going out there, painting walls, learning from other graffiti writers. Spray cans aren’t an easy thing to use.
See, I think that if graffiti is ever going to be a part of Chicago, like it is in places like New York, Paris, or Berlin, I think that these kids need to see it done. They need to know that the time and effort pays off in big ways. If kids see your or other artist’s graf work around the city, you might get some more young Hyde Park style graffiti enthusiasts. It might make this city a lot more visually exciting.
See that’s the thing that my buddy and me are on right now. We keep beating the drum and doing these murals. It’s going to do something. Just these two past years, we’ve had these protégés. I was texting this dude the other day, these high school kids who are just like coming up looking at our shit. They told me that there’s a lot of kids out there that want to know about the hip hop scene from back in the day because it’s become kind of like a myth now. They want to find out who came out of that scene and who’s doing what now. I think that’s interesting. I think it’s a small glimmer of interest in the whole thing.
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