The Mission School (sometimes called "New Folk" or "Urban Rustic") is an

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defi ...

of the 1990s and 2000s, centered in the Mission District, San Francisco, California.

History and characteristics

This movement is generally considered to have emerged in the early 1990s around a core group of artists who attended (or were associated with) San Francisco Art Institute. The term "Mission School", however, was not coined until 2002, in a '' San Francisco Bay Guardian'' article by Glen Helfand.Helfand, Glen
"The Mission school"
'' San Francisco Bay Guardian'', October 28, 2002. The Mission School is closely aligned with the larger lowbrow art movement, and can be considered to be a regional expression of that movement. Artists of the Mission School take their inspiration from the urban, bohemian, "street" culture of the Mission District and are strongly influenced by

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

and

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

art,

comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

and

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of imag ...

art, and folk art forms such as sign painting and hobo art.Modigliani, Leah
"Marketing the Mission: Commodifying San Francisco’s Art, the 'Mission School', and the Problem of Regionalism"
''Stretcher.org'', September 17, 2004. These artists are also noted for use of non-traditional artistic materials, such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, scrapboard, and found objects."The New 'Mission School'"
(panel), '' Commonwealth Club of California'', June 4, 2003. (link to

RealAudio RealAudio, or also spelled as Real Audio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fi ...

file) Gallery work by these artists is often displayed using the "cluster method", in which a number of individual works (sometimes by different artists) are clustered closely together on a gallery wall, rather than the traditional gallery display method of widely separating individual works.

Street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

has always been an important part of the Mission School aesthetic. Several Mission School artists crossed over into San Francisco's burgeoning graffiti art scene of the 1990s, notably

Barry McGee Barry McGee (born 1966) is an American contemporary artist. He is a well known graffiti artist, and a pioneer of the Mission School art movement. McGee is known by his monikers: Twist, Ray Fong, Bernon Vernon, and P.Kin. Life and education Barry ...

(who wrote under the name "Twist"), Ruby Neri (a.k.a. " Reminisce"), Dan "Plasma" Rauch, and Margaret Kilgallen (a.k.a. "Meta").

Artists

Artists considered to be part of the Mission School (past or present) have included:Reader responses to "Marketing the Mission"
Dan Plasma ''Stretcher.org'', January 17, 2005. *

* Margaret Kilgallen * Chris Johanson * Alicia McCarthy * Ruby Neri * Rigo 23 * Clare Rojas * Thomas Campbell * Scott Williams * Bill Daniel The profiles of these artists were raised by the inclusion of the work of Barry McGee in the 2001

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

and the works of Chris Johanson and Margaret Kilgallen in the 2002

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...

New Mission School

In 2003, not long after the term "Mission School" was coined, a panel at the Commonwealth Club of California named several emerging San Francisco artists as constituting a "New Mission School". These artists included Andrew Schoultz, Dave Warnke, Sirron Norris, Neonski, Ricardo, Damon Soule, Misk, and NoMe, though many of these artists do not embrace the "Mission School" label.

Criticism

The term ''Mission School'' has been criticized for being too geographically specific (many artists outside of San Francisco share this aesthetic, while others living in the Mission District do not), while at the same time being a vague catch-all, with many artists who are referred to as ''Mission School'' having a hard time seeing how they are part of this "school".Noble, Aaron. "The So Called Mission School" in ''Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo'', Jacoby, Annice, ed. NY: Abrams, 2009.

Galleries and other venues

Galleries, museums, and sites closely associated with the Mission School include: *

Adobe Books Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ea ...

* Southern Exposure Gallery * New Langton Arts * Yerba Buena Center for the Arts * Deitch Projects * Luggage Store Gallery *

Jack Hanley Gallery Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

References

External links

"ENERGY THAT IS ALL AROUND" exhibition
San Francisco Art Institute * Jackson, Stephanie Lee
"Stories – Opinions"
2001-2005. Includes biographical and anecdotal sketches of Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, and Alicia McCarthy
"Spray Can Writers Erupt"
by Timothy W Drescher, ''Shaping San Francisco Digital Library''. * Bonetti, David
"The young at art"
''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corpora ...

'', June 18, 1997. * Smith, Roberta
"Art in Review: 'Widely Unknown'"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', December 14, 2001. * Drescher, Timothy W
"Clarion Alley and Post-modernism"
''Shaping San Francisco Digital Library''. * Rapoport, Lynn

''San Francisco Bay Guardian'', October 23, 2002. * Pollack, Barbara
"The New Visionaries"
''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...

'', December 2003. * Chennault, Sam
"Graffiti to Gallery"
''

SF Weekly ''SF Weekly'' was a free alternative weekly newspaper founded in the 1970s in San Francisco, California. It was distributed every Thursday, and was published by the San Francisco Print Media Company. The paper has won national journalism awards ...

'', September 1, 2004.
transit gallery
- gallery of Mission street art
Fecal Face Dot Com
– Bay Area arts website focusing on the current generation of Mission School artists {{Authority control Contemporary art movements Culture of San Francisco Artists from California Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area American muralists Mission District, San Francisco Graffiti in the United States