week 10: jen rohrs: modern art

I was talking to my friend who goes to art school at NYU and she was telling me about how one of the galleries that while studying modern art with her class, she went to a gallery that was doing an exhibition on urban street art.  Essentially this means that the gallery owner went out and found people to spray paint posters advertising clubs and flyers on the street.  I understand that it takes a certain amount of creativity to think of that as art, and that spray paint is actually a lot harder to use than it looks (once i had to spray paint a chest of drawers when I redecorated my room and it did not turn out very well), but I also don't exactly see how that "skill" can compare to the sculpting of the classical artists or the introduction of a light source into Giotto's Virgin and Child Enthroned. I searched for articles about this new kind of art and found a couple, such as this one from ARTnews, but after reading it and looking at some of the pictures i still feel like any kindergardener could pick up a poster off the street and throw some paint over it.  I feel like when future generations look back at this kind of art and compare it with ancient art they may be mildly disappointed at the differences in skill. The one good thing I can find with this street art is that it is accessible to everyone, and everyone can be the artist.  I cannot form the perfect proportions of the human body our of solid marble, but I'm fairly certain i can pick up advertisements off the street posts.