Street Roots • April 21-27, 2017
News
G ATS, from page 4
S.Q.: Street art and murals have always
abandoned buildings, on trains, in public
restrooms and on dumpsters. I probably
have some well-off fans, but they will never
know the true scope or context of my work.
When you’re houseless, you don’t own a
wall, let alone art to hang on it. Most people
in that situation don’t browse Instagram for
entertainment or feel socially comfortable
hanging out in galleries. A mural to
someone in this situation will have infinitely
more meaning than someone purchasing a
painting to decorate their house.
I paint houseless shelters to give the
building soul. Oftentimes they feel
institutional. Your environment has a huge
effect on your psyche. If your room looks
like a jail, you’re going to act like you’re in
jail. If your room feels like a home, you’re
going to take pride in it.
Also, when you’re low, you don’t want to
be bombarded with over-positivity that
comes off as insincere. I just wanted to
make the place look cool without it feeling
preachy. The last thing you want is to feel
like you’re being judged when you ask for
help. Seeing something familiar when you
walk into a space makes you feel like you’re
in the right place.
S.Q.: //¿zw? you ever been houseless?
Gats: Yes, but my struggles were not
comparable to the hardships many other
people have gone through.
S.Q.: I recently saw a project where Bay
Area artists cut down billboards and used the
material to make homeless shelters. W hat’s the
statement being made here? Why are these
shelters telling us to eat more burgers?
Gats: I used to paint over billboards a lot.
It’s the thing to do in Southern California as
it’s such a car-based culture. In the late
2000s, the billboards switched from wheat
pasting paper to stretched vinyl. After a
while, cutting down the billboards became
more fun than painting them, as we
genuinely hated being advertised to. One
time, Optimist and I cut our names in giant
stencil lettering out of a billboard.
While in Mexico we noticed people
played a significant role in political
movements - especially antifascist movements.
How do you see the role o f political art in the
current political climate?
Gats: People may argue that the internet
meme has replaced the political poster, but
political graffiti still plays an important role.
It establishes a presence in real life. You feel
comfortable or uncomfortable in a space
depending on what the graffiti says on the
wall. It shows who controls the streets, and
the streets are real. With social media
algorithms showing you only your own
opinion, graffiti is a way to pop that bubble.
S.Q.: You’ve been vocal in the past about
P H O T O B Y JOE G L O D E
Gats’ m ural at Janus Youth Services.
re-using vinyl billboards to tarp their roofs
off in small squatter villages. I think the
evolution of billboards into tents came
naturally, but PEMEX was definitely the
first to act on it and make it happen. We
usually collect tents and tarps and various
other things to give out around Christmas
time in Oakland, so the billboard vinyl killed
two birds with one stone.
economic displacement in the Bay Area.
W hat’s the relationship between gentrification
and street art? Can artists help us reclaim
public space?
Gats: It’s a way to vocalize our
objections. You can kick us out of the
building, but you can’t stop us from painting
the walls. You can use art to push public
opinion towards rent control and other
policies. In a more direct, anti-bureaucratic
way, they can shut down the galleries, but
they can’t shut down the streets.
S.Q.: You do a lot o f international travel,
S.Q.: In “A rt As Experience” (1932), the
including to places like the Philippines. What
do you do there? Is your art well received?
philosopher and democratic reformer John
Dewey argued that modern capitalism had
essentially siphoned all art away from the
production process, and effectively abolished
art and esthetic experience from everyday life.
Do you think public art can push back on this,
or is some larger economic revolution needed?
Gats: I try to paint with local artists
where ever I go. Graffiti culture and norms
are not universal, so it’s good to respect
what they have going on. Through those
friendships, I learn a lot about other
cultures and other possibilities of organizing
society.
The artwork is well received by most.
People are always wary when you start and
then excited by the time it’s done.
S.Q.: What are the biggest misconceptions
people have about street art?
Gats: They group everything together.
There is a difference between putting up a
sticker, free-handing a huge character with
spray paint or painting a legal mural. Not
that these things don’t cross over.
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Gats: We need a cultural shift to demand
*art in ev ery d ay life. Jo h n D ew ey w as
concerned that capitalism
compartmentalized artwork into museums
and away from people’s daily experience.
However, a good portion of artwork is
donated to museums by wealthy individuals.
While these are most likely capitalists, it’s a
social act. Ego may be a big motivator, but
the donors usually do not profit monetarily
from this act, rather socially. If we create
pressure and demand for public art, these
same people might fund larger public works
Page 5
... possibly motivated by ego or the desire to
give back, but effective just the same.
That’s just an idea, but we don’t have to
wait around for funding. Art will happen if
we have to smash the pavement up and
stack rocks. There are no limits to our
creativity and our hunger for genuine
experience. What is revolution if not the
product of human creativity?
S.Q.: I understand that you once had an
art exhibit where you gave away free vegan
burritos. Can you explain this? Are we under-
appreciating the aesthetic o f the burrito?
Gats: Well, I suppose you could blame
the movement from tacos to the burrito on
capitalist production as workers needed a
to-go food that they could eat all day. If
anything, we are losing the esthetics of the
taco. The pride in the handmade tortilla and
the experience of sitting at a taco cart and
chatting up the cook. That wasn’t my
thought process with the free burrito
installation though.
Sometimes art and graffiti get overly
serious, and you forget to have fun. For
some reason, it just popped into my head
that a newsstand full of burritos would make
everyone very happy. Something about an
everyday object that already says, “Free -
Take One,” but then is full of something
unexpected that you love just plastered a
grin on my face. Can you imagine a world
where everything operated like that?
At the time, I had $100 to my name. I
walked in to the taqueria and asked, “How
many burritos can I get for $100.” It was the
best moment of my life. I felt like I was
carrying a newborn child home. I didn’t
have a dollar for food, housing or gas to get
home, but I had faith that if I bought
everyone a burrito, things would somehow
work out.
S.Q.: Any advice for readers who are
beginning artists, or other people struggling?
Gats: Think of something you really wish
existed in the world, and then make it.
Ignore anyone who tries to tear you down
for doing something different. Eat beans and
rice until you have a little money set aside
for emergencies.
Did you serve in the
Armed Forces
and are experiencing
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