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Graffiti artist, or as he prefers to be called, graffiti “writer,” Gear has more than just tagging on his mind. Since the early 1980s, his work has evolved into a complicated visual language that incorporates myriad
Most recently, Gear’s work has been driven
audiences and conceptual readings of
by concern for “a world where technology
graffiti itself. Whereas most street artists in
makes us slaves.”3 Meditating upon the
this vein tend to talk about their work as
emergence of a generation in which an
“bombs” in the environments in which they
alarming amount of human interaction is
are dropped, Gear asserts, “I do bugs. It’s
mediated by machines—television, cell
about being a carrier of viruses.”1
phones, multiple-player video games, the Internet, and instant messaging—his work
Recently the thought-viruses that he has sought to spread in the Kansas City area relate to his concerns about suburban sprawl and isolation, technology and fear. In his 2002 Balance and Flow exhibition at the
has taken on a distinctly dystopian feel even as he is clearly invested in the notion that his unruly, truly public medium might have the power to interrupt these channels.
Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom, Gear
—Maria Elena Buszek
analyzed and responded to the gallery’s
1. Elisabeth Kirsch, “Spray-Can Statements” (unidentified clipping, artist’s archives, n.d.). 2. Gina Kaufmann, “Really Old School: Graffiti artists take over the retirement home,” The Pitch, December 12–18, 2002. 3. Gear, artist statement, May 15, 2006.
seemingly idyllic Overland Park setting with the wall piece Evolve: a gigantic, multiheaded insect meant to suggest the monstrous “evolution” of the nation’s suburbs. Anticipating the gallery audience’s likely prejudices toward graffiti itself, let alone the message of the piece, the artist stated, “People in the suburbs might look at me and say graffiti is wrong … it’s a menace to society. And I’d say back to them, cutting down forests and putting up houses is wrong … it’s a menace to society. … What you’re doing is what I’m doing.”2
Untitled, 2004 spray paint 120 x 180 inches Courtesy of the artist
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