“Make Art”: An Interview With Savior El Mundo
In my first Weaving the Streets installment, I described how my interest in street art was born as a child in Mexico, and I focused on the artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya and her installation “We are More” in New York City. I am very excited about this second article because I was lucky enough to interview a street artist myself and learn about street art in NYC and the community of street artists first-hand. For this article, I will be featuring Savior El Mundo, a street artist, but also a dancer, curator, and more, who shared with me his own journey as an artist born and raised in New York City. Below is my interview with the artist, followed by some reflections on what I learned through this encounter.
Savior El Mundo posing next to his piece of art at the Queens Beer Garden paying tribute to “50 Years of Hip Hop.” Image via his Instagram @saviorelmundo.
Introduction
My name is Savior El Mundo, a.k.a. Make Art. That is my street art name. I’m from New York City, born and raised in Harlem. My story is just too much to tell, so I’ll skip a lot of stuff. I was a professional dancer, into making film, street art, and graffiti because that’s the outlet we have as kids in New York City, and it was our therapy.
The way I got into street art was I wanted to put “make art,” and “make art” simply. I wanted to put it all over the streets ‘cause to me, I want people to make art and never stop making art. You can be an actor, a writer, or any of the arts. I’m going to remind you to make art, and sometimes I’ll write ‘stop b*tching and make art’ cause a lot of people like b*tching and saying ‘well, people don’t like my art, nobody…I can’t be an actor, I can’t…’. No, you can be anything in your life if you put your mind to it, so that’s why I started to write stop ‘b*tching and make art,’ too.
But that’s actually why I did street art as political…It makes you think, and that’s what street art is about. Real street artists, we go out there into the streets and make you think. Like you’ll see our image of something I did, but inside, that image is going to make you think: ‘Why did he do that?’ ‘why did he write that?’ and all of that stuff, you know what I’m saying?
What are the recurring themes in your work?
‘Make art’ is one of them, but I [also] use Frida Kahlo [with] ‘make art’ on her, with my signature. I do my own style of Frida cause Frida was a revolutionary; she was a leader, and I wanted to support more women street artists or women in their need like that, so that’s one of them. I have pop art and street art, I do 3D letters, and I do anything that makes you stand out on the streets. To make you think and then from street art becoming a muralist, becoming…
I’m actually a curator myself, too. I tell a lot of artists, you do all of this for twenty-something years; what’s next? I teach how to learn how to be a curator, how to be an artist, and how to be a businessperson. ‘Cause a lot of people asked me, how did you become an artist?’ So, this sh*t didn’t come in my lap, you had to earn it, you had to go to galleries, you had to socialize with people, say, ‘Hey, my name is Savior, what’s your name?’ ‘Here’s my art.’ You never know who is going to accept you, who is going to like your art and put you in a gallery. I teach a lot of artists that anything is possible.
Frida Kahlo street art by Savior ElMundo in NYC. Image via Instagram @saviorelmundo.
What do you think about galleries vs. public art?
So, you got two types of galleries. Vanity galleries are the ones that are like, ‘Hey, you are a great artist; we love your work,’ and then you are happy, but then ‘You got to pay a thousand dollars so we can make you a book, so you can be in our gallery.’ No, that’s bullsh*t because a real gallery that appreciates your art takes a percentage of your art, and that’s it.
There are a lot of galleries where you pay money, and those are the ones that take money from artists that are starving artists. A real gallerist will say, ‘Hey, we love your work; let’s work together; we’ll take a percentage of your work and will help you promote it. So that’s why a gallerist back then didn’t give a f*ck about us, so what did we do? Okay, the gallery is the streets.
So we started doing the whole streets in New York City, LA, whatever, and people will see our images, and then Instagram came about and started taking pictures, and then our names started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So next time, I don't need you. Gallery, I make my own gallery. Rent my own pop-up. So I've told a lot of artists to get their own pop-up. Become your own character.
You know, I'm saying start getting people to follow you. But the reason why they follow me is because I've been doing this for so many years. I won't stop doing art in the streets. Even if I'm making money out of art now. You know what? I'm still in the streets. I'm still doing what I'm doing because I tell people never to forget where they come from.
What is the role social media has had in street art? How has it changed how street art was done before?
I didn't know what Instagram was going to be. I didn’t know photographers or people like yourself would take pictures of my art and post them. We created street art photography, and we've made you guys photographers. That's what art is about; it’s for everybody. The reason why we do it is because the streets without art are boring.
The f*cking galleries are boring. It's like not the same white wine bullsh*t people, and they hang out, and they don't buy sh*t. You know what I mean? I have made more money in the streets than in a gallery because people would take pictures and then tell me, ‘I love your work. Do you want to do a commission and paint it on a canvas?’ ‘Sure’, I say, and that’s how we connected with our audience and built our clientele of art collectors as street artists.
How would you describe the street art community in New York City?
We are family. Of course, we all have egos, but mostly we're all tight. We're all family. We all support each other's art shows that we do ourselves. And then those people's photographers come, media comes, you know, they follow us, they know now who the f*ck we are. They know who we are.
Sticker of “MAKE ART” made by Savior ElMundo pasted on trash can in NYC. Photo by Valeria Obregon.
Tell us about your events.
I have curated two shows called Mixed Media Street. For the second show, I’ve put together all the top street artists that put sh*t on the street. Everybody that worked on the street for 20 years has earned and made money out of art and everything. I want to bring those names and, you know, they're gonna bring you their pieces. That's our show. It included between 30 to 40 artists.
What are your favorite materials and techniques when creating art?
I'm a mixed media artist, meaning, like, I love the texture. I love 3D. That's what I do. I just love 3D stuff. I like to get paper and play together and just rip it again and put some street art in it. Like the next show I'm doing for myself, it's gonna be frames and antique frames. So I'm gonna put antique frames in the middle of the canvas, not outside, but in the middle. So when you see it, it looks like Renaissance mixed with street art. You're gonna be like, wow, this sh*t looks antique. But it's street art.
How is your creative process when you're going to start a new piece?
If I do a show, I know the theme. But if it's a one-man show, it’s different. I think of the vision — like the last show I did for myself was called the 3D Letters show. Everything was 3D. They were 20 pieces of different art with letters coming out of the canvas. One phrase was ‘Black Lives Matter.’ I did Supreme, Adidas, Nike, I did everything about the ‘80s because I'm from that New York ‘80s breakdancing Rock Steady Crew, all that sh*t. Yeah, so that's it, man.
It's like everything that I've done I think about, like, just like to be different. It's like I look at everybody, and their work is great, but then I'm like, he did that already. Nope, he did that already. You can't copy other artists you want to beat if you could get influence. But always be different. That's what makes you a great artist. You gotta learn how to market your art.
I tell artists, listen, I had a lady one time who wanted to buy my piece. This rich lady was like, ‘I love the artwork.’ But why should I buy your piece? I told them my story of who I was when I was young. How I became an artist because I got more stars for myself for being homeless and going through sh*t in life. And it's not about the art. You know what they buy? They buy you and your story. And when they hear your story, then it is your art. You could be the greatest Picasso, but they don't give a f*ck about me like, why should I buy you? Are you worth something? Who are you? Very important.
Reflections on the interview
The conversation with Savior changed my view of what street art is. Before, I used to think of street art only as a medium to send a message to get a reaction from viewers to either make them reflect, change their mind, or take action.
But my conversation with Savior made me see street art as a full-time job. It opened my eyes to seeing street art as a possibility for people who want to be artists but don’t want to conform to the rules and fees of galleries and museums. By putting their art on the street, they are making their name and gaining a reputation, the same way other artists would by following a conventional path. It made me reflect on how artists following both paths could end up in the same place of making a living by selling commissioned art to people who really like their work.
My conversation with Savior El Mundo also showed me how sometimes there is no choice between the two paths of a museum or the streets. Museums still, to this day, don’t hold enough spaces for black, Latinx, women, trans, and queer artists, giving these artists no choice but to take their art somewhere else. Thanks to social media, people don’t need these galleries anymore, and one can actually become a full-time artist without ever having had a formal exhibition — which I think is amazing.
I invite you, the reader, to reflect on what makes art museum-worthy, and if it actually has to do with the piece of art itself or with all the formalities behind negotiations. Also, if you consider yourself an art admirer and perhaps an art collector, think and reflect on the art you buy and where you buy it from. A lot of street artists live on the income made from commissioned art, so it is a possibility if you see a design you like in the streets to take it home while giving all the profit to the one who made it.
If you want to see more of Savior El Mundo's work, you can find it on Instagram.
In my third and last installment, I will be writing about an Italian artist whose work came to my attention during my semester abroad in Southern Italy but who also has art in New York City.
