Outta Sight Exhibition Featuring Street Artists Opens at South Broadway Cultural Center

Outta Sight is a group exhibition highlighting “street artists” who historically use the street, walls, and trains as their canvas, and are not typically exhibited in museum or gallery spaces. These artists are influential to our society and culture because they are a voice for their marginalized communities, according to show curators Augustine Romero, Joshua Barreras, and Rebecca Gomez. Outta Sight opens at South Broadway Cultural Center on Thursday, July 20 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m.

The name of the show is a double entendre as the street art created by these artists is literally “out of sight" despite its appearance in public spaces, it is quite often hidden from view in what is considered formal exhibition spaces. Street art has yet to be situated within a formal art historical cannon and is often considered “other” and “outsider” art even though the style has evolved from the streets into different incarnations from traditional style writing to stickers to canvases.

Outta Sight's group of predominantly New Mexican artists emerged out of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and during this era, the street art community's need to create became paramount as an almost “safe” outlet. Coming from some of the most marginalized populations, these artists had limited resources and oftentimes utilize tools that are given, found, or stolen.

During this time, some of the most unique and fleeting art was created under a duress of trying to maintain basic survival, let alone having extra money for art supplies and is a proclamation to their existence within a system that oppresses and exploits. This exhibit features new works by these artists who bring beauty to drab, ugly, inhospitable, and inaccessible places creating art that is truly Outta Sight.

Outta Sight, on view through August 26, is free to the public. South Broadway Cultural Center hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.