Billboard sized wheatpaste on San Pablo… almost didn’t catch it because the color scheme matched the real billboard above.
Although quite damaged now, you can see the original installation on Endless Canvas, as well as an interesting historical recap of International Workers’ Day (May 1st) – the inspiration behind this piece.
Each of the figures appears to be a separate cut-out, as are the individual letters. This baby must have taken some time!
I took a quick jaunt to LA this week; the trip just happened to coincide with the opening of a much ballyhooed exhibit at MOCA – what was to be “a groundbreaking exhibition of street art, the most ambitious show of its kind ever mounted in the United States.” So of course, I went!
My girlfriend and I went to the members-only opening Saturday night amidst a buzz of press and paparazzi – the line for them nearly as long as the line for new members, both of which were dwarfed by the queue for existing members with invitations. As we all waited to get in to the Geffen Contemporary (a 40,000 square foot former police car warehouse in Little Tokyo renovated by the noted California architect Frank O. Gehry, and one of three museums housed under the umbrella of MOCA), the first piece of the exhibit, itself a whirlwind of controversy, loomed large above the crowd.
You can read all about it in the LA Weekly’s “Street Art at MOCA” by Shelley Leopold, but I will summarize… the director of MOCA, Jeffrey Deitch, was tasked with the challenge of boosting new membership to the flailing museum. One idea he had was to showcase the cutting edge world of street art, and to open the show with a bang, he commissioned the Italian muralist Blu to make the entire north wall of the Geffen Contemporary his canvas. Unfortunately, what Blu chose to paint (controversial imagery of coffins draped with money) was deemed inappropriate and was later painted over by Lee Quinones along with “a handpicked contingency of dudes”, producing a native American tribute titled We the People. I actually didn’t even see this mural as it was on the backside of the building.
photo right by LindsayT on Flickr
Instead our introduction to the show was the piece below… a tribute to the innovative graffiti artist BLADE. Here’s an interesting blogpost by the artist commissioned to do the piece… (Blade Tribute at the MOCA).
The show was quite good, although I definitely had problems with several of the installations that attempted to replicate street environments inside the museum. One in particular was a movie-set-like construction of a back alleyway, dimly lit, strewn with trash, complete with a live character hobo huddling in the corner. I don’t know if this was the actual artist having a bit of fun, or just another out of work LA actor taking any gig he could get, but either way… it was just too damn contrived.
The show comprised over 50 artists’ works over the last few decades (including early visionaries like Jean-Michel Basquiat & Keith Haring to more contemporaries like Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos, and even Banksy), and focused on “key cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Sao Paulo, where a unique visual language or attitude has evolved.” You can see a complete list of artists here.
I didn’t take that many pictures because there was so much art to try and take in, it was a little overwhelming, but here are a few…
ROA
Stelios
Me shooting everyone shooting Shepard Fairey
The Os Gemeos installation was huge and included instruments for the crowd to play - I played the drums! (but not as well as this 10 year old boy)
Os Gemeos
Paper installation by Swoon
If you can get down to Los Angeles in the next few months, this show will be up through August 8th.
This is a little piece of street art I found in downtown Oakland a few weeks ago… actually framed and mounted (epoxied?) to a corner trash receptacle.
I love this on so many levels… the fact that the artist actually framed it as a piece of fine art; the symbolism conveying greed, and unthinking robotic behavior; and of course, the title, which is sadly sooo true.
I *think* (notice I did not say “assume,” for which I was lambasted last time) it’s by the same artist who does the Nite Owl stickers, one of which I featured ages ago on a pole outside my West Oakland loft (Put on a Happy Face). Note the same owl stencil in the lower left and a modified version on the jacket pocket.
It looks like the artist signed the piece in the upper right hand corner, but I’m too square to be able to read it. Anyone?
I can’t help but cringe when conservative Republicans chant the disparaging mantra of “Class Warfare” whenever talk of raising tax rates on the rich is proposed. The disparity between the rich and poor, not to mention the middle class who are far closer to the poor than the rich, has been growing for decades, and most Americans aren’t even aware of it. (Americans Underestimate U.S. Wealth Inequality)
The current distribution of U.S. wealth is about 85% to the top 10 percent of people, with the bottom 40-50 percent of the nation holding virtually no wealth at all.
CEO salaries as a percentage of worker salaries have exponentially increased over the last several decades, while average workers’ incomes have actually declined, once adjusted for inflation. (15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America).
And while millions of Americans saw their life savings evaporate (or at least shrink substantially) in the wake of the recent banking crisis, Wall Street executives made out with multi-million dollar bonus packages.
Yeah, they f&*ked us alright…
Well, I was gearing up to move on from the whole street art thing I’ve been doing for the past week or so, but then I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop. I know it came out like a year ago, but lamely I had yet to see it…
All I can say was it was fascinating. Both from the perspective of traveling along with the likes of Shephard Fairey, Banksy, and others during their nighttime escapades… the sheer scale of which, at times, are mind-boggling. But also following the invention of Mr. Brainwash and his ability to completely infiltrate the conventional art scene with a little PR and a lot of hype, ultimately duping collectors into paying sh*t-tons of money for his seemingly inane pieces of rehashed pop-street-“art,” if you can call it that. I can’t figure out if the guy’s an idiot or a genius. But this article in the Economist (Con or can do) poses that his real success may lie in ability as a performance artist above all else…
In any case, right after watching the movie, I came across these large wheatpastes by three different artists…
I love this sleepy owl! The scale of it is quite impressive… I’m assuming it was a smaller sketch that was blown up during reproduction. The girl below seems to be the same artist.
Here’s a new one by Get Up I hadn’t seen yet… It’s hard to tell from these pics but this one is larger than life… maybe 10 ft tall?
The one below looks to be a hand-drawn original and includes the words (and image) “Get on the Good Foot”. Makes me wonder if this artist has any relation to the KALX DJ The Good Foot who starts off every set list with James Brown’s “Get on the Good Foot.” Good stuff…
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