Art review: 'Department of Neighborhood Services'

ALL THE PRETTY COLORS: Barry McGee’s Untitled, 2014, is one of the works in the three-person exhibit, “Department of Neighborhood Services,” on view this month.
Claire Iltis

“Department of Neighborhood Services” is a three-person exhibition that brings together Philadelphians Isaac Tin Wei Lin and Dan Murphy with San Franciscan Barry McGee. The trio is united through a love of graffiti, and the resulting show is as fun as the tongue-in-cheek title would lead you to believe. 

Lin showcased his work during a solo exhibition at the Asian Arts Initiative from June through October of last year, and his work has been shown broadly in Philadelphia, in venues as prestigious as the Print Center and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He has a signature calligraphic sort of mark-making that looks almost like a foreign language, as well as an array of distinctive cartoonish characters that include a cat face. 

Lin’s use of neon colors and visually buzzing combinations bring to mind the colorscape of the ’80s along with the Paper Rad installations from the early 2000s. In the press release for “Department,” the Fleisher/Ollman gallery likened Lin’s dense patterns (the surfaces are absolutely covered, with lettering often unidentifiable) to the invasive species of kudzu vine, a plant native to Southeast Asia whose introduction to the U.S. is having some serious environmental consequences. Asian Arts Initiative likened the same marks to “dazzle camouflage.”

Perhaps most well-known for his work on local photo magazine Megawords with partner Anthony Smyrski, Dan Murphy is a hoarder of graffiti, cycling and skateboard culture. His Ephemera Box collaborations with Lin bring to mind the altar-like ensembles Murphy showed during his “Certain Things” exhibition at Fleisher/Ollman in 2011. In this exhibition, his photo collages break down the streets into patches of color reminiscent of racing stripes.  

Of the three artists, McGee has the most subdued color palette. His work seems less optimistic, highlighting the downsides of urban living and the debris of poverty. Sections of prints seem faded and dirty, and in this corrosion, you see a love for these used objects. 

“Department” has style to spare. It’s easy to mistake the bright colors, fun shapes and recurrent forms with a lack of substance, but the works on display simultaneously broadcast a sense of freedom, a glorification urban debris and — perhaps most notably in the works of McGee and photo-collages of Murphy — a sort of pessimism about class disparity. 

Graffiti is about art mixed with life, and the pieces displayed inside Fleisher/Ollman express that. “Department of Neighborhood Services” delivers a measure of optimism in the face of the reality of the urban city and all the baggage that comes with it. 

“Department of Neighborhood Services,” through June 7, free. Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, 1216 Arch St., 5A, fleisher-ollmangallery.com.