LA MOCA's been bombed — not literally, calm down the art is okay... bombed is a euphemism for street writers and artists gettin all up in there and blastin the *!#&* out of it... with spray paint — But this time it's legal and there's nothing the graffiti patrols with their bottomless vats of beige paint can do about it! So far the hoodlums in question haven't hurt anything but I'm sure they're being closely monitored. And the MOCA has, in my humble opinion, never looked better!
Is there anyone that really thinks the wall pictured above would look better beige... really? Thank god the art world is finally standing up to the bureaucrats and given these artists the credit and the venue they so badly deserve!
'Art In The Streets' opened on April 17th, the first ever major exhibition of all the biggest artists in the street art movement, past and present.
The exhibition will be at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in LA until August 8th. From there it'll be moved to The Brooklyn Museum where it will be on display March 30 - July 8, 2012.
Kenny Scharf painting at Art in The Streets. Photo by Gregory Bojorquez
Here's an awesome sneak preview of them setting up the show last month by Martha Cooper, a great photographer that has been documenting the movement since it's beginnings in the late 70's.
And here's a direct link to Curve, MOCA's newsblog (All photos I've added here are courtesy of Curve). Some great info about the show and some absolutely amazing pictures of the opening and lots of pics and vids of the artists at work setting up their displays. I'll be posting my own take on the show when I get there. Can not wait!
As would be expected local police are reporting an increase in unauthorized tagging in the area. Culture Monster talked to MOCA director Jeffrey Dietch who said, "some of the young taggers who are anarchic.... It's a language of youth culture, and we can't stop it. It goes with the territory."
Deitch also told L.A. Weekly that the museum was helping with "tagging clean up" in the area.
And of course as with any sub-culture art/music movement going mainstream you've got your purists and cynics, some calling the show 'Street Art in a Museum'. While I do see their basic concern, that street art is by nature anti-establishment and in losing it's context and in turn anarchic nature, does it run the risk of now being co-opted by the very establishment it sought to rebel against? Listen to Johnny Cash talk about Nashville and The Grand Ole Opry. It's a very old struggle and a very old argument but none the less poignant for it's age.
True: The best way to silence an outsider is to bring them inside where it's comfortable and safe. Once they're in the inner circle they're usually more reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them. Yes, sometimes this kills an artists true inner voice, sometimes it makes their voice stronger. My answer in regard to street art going mainstream: Only time will tell. Enjoy it while you still can.
With Banksy's new movie release, to name only one major event in the movement recently, street art is enjoying a meteoric rise in mainstream popularity and thus, sadly, as to be expected, is starting to alienate it's core audience as it picks up a more mainstream following.
Nick Lempert of the Justseeds collective made some very good points in an op-ed piece on artinfo.com recently. Jeffrey Deitch, the new director of the MOCA commissioned Italian street artist Blu, to do a mural on the side of The Geffen Building as part of the Art In The Streets exhibit.
Blu painted the above mural of coffins draped in dollar bills instead of American flags. Deitch asked Blu to change it because of the risk of controversy (no complaints ever actually came in) and upsetting the neighboring community (Japanese-Americans mainly and veterans at a nearby VA hospital). Blu refused and Deitch beiged the thing over.
Quite a bit has been written about the controversy but I think Henry Chalfant's (photographer/documentarian of the graffiti movement) statement to Hyperallergic sums it up best: "MOCA couldn't have left the mural there as an affront to the community who considered it sacred ground, and who, in no way, were the deserving targets for the mural's powerful message. With street art, context is all-important. I would have loved to see the mural in front of the offices of Halliburton-KBR or on Wall Street, for America's war profiteers to see."
Blu responded in a very thoughful and thought provoking email in the Hyperallergic article as well. He is a brilliant artist and it makes me so sad to see this piece destroyed. As Chalfant also states, it really is a tragedy to lose such a brilliant piece of work and the word censorship, as much as it makes Deitch and MOCA, and many of us cringe, might be fitting but it's also a reality and it's the central issue around this art form as a whole and one of the things that makes it so compelling. What is rebellion if it doesn't occasionally offend? and what is the human race without rebellion? Capitalism can not function well without controlling rebellion. It makes me think about this stuff. I think we need to think about this stuff. Blu's work makes us think. Deitch's decision to remove it makes me think, too.
Whatever your feelings about the show, censorship and about street art itself, you should try to take it in if you have the chance. It is arguably one of the biggest art events of our times. Me, I'm going to try to make the LA show before August but maybe it'll be Brooklyn in the spring? Who knows but I'm not missing this for the world.
