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Juxtapoz contributing writer Owen Taylor wrote the introduction to Mac and Retna’s show catalog for Vaigos y Reinas, which will be revealed tonight. Owen sent us a sneak preview of this insightful piece, which is definitely worth a read.

Vaigos y Rainas Catalog Introduction:

In the big city life, graffiti becomes an everyday occurrence, a visual frequency buzzing in the peripheral vision. Its layered patchwork of scribes and off-color buff marks are there amongst the billboards, the strip malls filled with donut shops, and the goddamned traffic. You adjust and it fades out, becoming a part of the landscape in our fair and illustrious City of Angels.

Most graff writers start out as a means of experimenting with the personal freedoms that come in the early stages of teen independence. Scrawling a name on a cafeteria table, the back of a bus seat, the Trapper-Keeper of a best friend. The thrill of escaping into a persona of their own making.

Every once in a while, they descend into a personal renaissance, and emerge with a devoted sense of self, seeking deep into the void to coax out all its beauty with tireless dedication amid the ceaseless tumult of the day to day grind we so laughingly call “life” in this new American century.

Enter The Mac and Retna. Two sides of the same coin.

In each other they have found a co-conspirator with which to stand trial in front of enormous blank walls for all the world to judge.

Behold, Vagos y Reinas, a debutante ball of sorts for these two veteran graffiti magnates. In this, their first exclusive gallery show, the two have chosen to debut a pair of large collaborations on canvas, along with several new solo pieces created solely for the show, and select older works to offer as retrospective.

In the two showcase collaborative efforts, they offer a dual testament to modern day America which define the show’s title, translated as “Vagrants and Queens”. With the piece “Gracias a la Vida”, they exhibit their reverence for the feminine with an exalted depiction of a goddess in cosmic transcendence. In it, Retna has taken color and made it a digital read-out, a kaleidoscopic morse code message from across the sea of his vision. His brushes are swashbuckling tricksters, beckoning The Mac’s exacting Bushido aerosol arcs to come out and play, drawing forth the romantic iconography that is all too apparent in the flawless photorealism that has been The Mac’s unequaled calling card.
Conversely, the piece “El Veterano”, diametrically opposes the other in perfect compliment, with his sallow cheeks, hollow eyes, and vato chic expressing an image of tired death when contrasted with the sumptuous offerings of the woman next to him.  Both pieces offer a glimpse into what it is like to grow up in their respective cities in the southwest United States, Phoenix and Los Angeles, with both respect for the cultures that bred them and their need to rise above it.

Inside The Mac is a drive to perfection that is rarely seen. He stridently believes in beauty, and works endlessly to make each one of his works evoke an emotive response in the viewer. In his piece “Persephone” Mac has painstakingly seduced the youthful desires and recklessness of Demeter’s daughter sans pomegranate. He wants you to be in love with the grace and serenity that he sees, whether in a subtle gesture or a careless glance. It’s a supple proposition, a question. Can you see it?

In his own right, Retna has blazed forth with the practiced hands of a master typographer. In his stunning installation “Sonido Callejero”, he shows that he is not merely content to calligraphically stylize letters. He is a man who wants to sculpt his own alphabet, placing a bit of himself into the message he wishes to convey with more than just words. His skillful blend of stroke and line is coupled with symbology from hieroglyphics to East L.A. cholo. He studies the ancients in an attempt to bridge the tales of Imhotep with those of Dondi White, doing so with grace and precision.

Here then, are two pistols forged by different smiths, trod of different paths, yet aimed at the same vanishing point on the horizon, coming to rest on the curvaceous hips of the gunslinger that is divine purpose as she journeys alone into the amber smog of the future.

We should be so lucky to see these tales of glory unfold before our eyes with such unrelenting beauty.

-Owen Taylor
Oct. 18, 2009 in the Cascade Mountains of Washington