art beneath the city

Somewhere beneath the streets of New York City, 100 artists, including 8 Australians, are working on something secret. The Underbelly Project is a gallery that exists outside of the art world, far beneath the world of critics, dealers and even the general public. It is a trove of urban art on an enormous scale, entombed in one of the city’s many abandoned subway stations, in a location known only to the artists and a few select journalists who have been given a guided tour.

The Underbelly Project is a protest against the commercialisation of street art. One of the co-organisers of the project, a New York street artist who goes by the working pseudonym Workhorse, says that once upon a time, ‘street art was something you did because you didn’t fit in anywhere else. But for the last few years urban art was getting ridiculous. Banksy pieces that were selling for $600 one year were suddenly selling for $100,000 a few years later. It was commercialism at its worst.’

So by creating a spectacular gallery space that nobody can see, the artists are striving to bring street art back to its underground, anarchic roots. ‘The Underbelly was our way of feeling like we were an island again,’ Workhorse says. ‘We finally had a space in the world that collectors couldn’t contaminate. A space that couldn’t be bought.’

And the fact that it’s all completely illegal is even better. According to descriptions by The Age, the underground space contains a series of tunnels lined by platforms and track-beds, and the artists work in dark, dusty walls as the roar of trains echo all around them. Sometimes, working in the middle of the night, they end up trapped in there, as they train line gets shut down and they hear workers hammering. At all times, they have to keep their voices to a whisper.

If they were caught, they would be arrested for trespassing, and possibly more serious charges, even (somewhat inexplicably) relating to terrorism. But that danger and rebellion seems to be all a part of the authenticity and integrity of street art that the project participants are striving for.

Still, to prove that the project existed, to build up that rebellious street cred, they had to show a few newspapers what was happening.  There’s no point if it was a complete secret- they needed to tell the world that they had a secret. So we can see some of the photographs taken by The Age here. Whatever you think of the philosophy behind the project- whether it’s inspiring and refreshing or just kind of pretentious- some of the graphics are really cool.