Its like the difference between seeing an animal in its natural environment, and seeing it in the zoo.
This picture really seems to capture the difference between the flavor of graffiti on the street compared to graffiti in a museum.
The tag on the window on the right by Merch captures the essence of graffiti. It has great style and is prominently placed, albeit illegally, on a store front window. The illicit nature of the tag gives it a kind of 'outlaw' cool vibe.
While, to the left are some graffiti styled letter cut outs saying Free-Dom. The lettering looks kind of whack and the whole way it comes together is awkward. Clearly, its not the best graffiti out there, but that's the point. The stuff inside is never the best stuff out there.
But even if viewing an animal in the zoo is not nearly as impressive as seeing the same animal in the wild, it is still a cool thing to experience. And even if the street art from each of the artists featured in MOCA's exhibit is not in its natural environment, it is still a very cool thing to see.
