Moca Art in the streets

So this is a little old, i did a search didnt see anything on this topic.The following was taken from the moca website.

This was from april 17 august 8 2011 and brought a lot of attention to L.A. and the graffiti scene there and abroad.

The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Art in the Streets, the first major U.S. museum exhibition of the history of graffiti and street art. The exhibition will trace the development of graffiti and street art from the 1970s to the global movement it has become today, concentrating on key cities where a unique visual language or attitude has evolved. Following MOCA’s presentation, the exhibition will travel to the Brooklyn Museum, where it will be on view March 30–July 8, 2012. Art in the Streets will showcase installations by 50 of the most dynamic artists from the graffiti and street art community, including Fab 5 Freddy (New York), Lee Quiñones (New York), Futura (New York), Margaret Kilgallen (San Francisco), Swoon (New York), Shepard Fairey (Los Angeles), Os Gemeos (São Paulo), and JR (Paris). MOCA’s exhibition will emphasize Los Angeles’s role in the evolution of graffiti and street art, with special sections dedicated to cholo graffiti and Dogtown skateboard culture. The exhibition will feature projects by influential local artists such as Craig R. Stecyk III, Chaz Bojórquez, Mister Cartoon, RETNA, SABER, REVOK, and RISK.

This is how things started, by a few L.A. legends lending their hand with MOCA's permission to a little hand styles. This got a few peoples attention cause its bright and traditionally not art.


Then this event happened, there is an ever growing argument in the world of graffiti aka street art. That once its taken out of the streets its rawness i suppose or essence maybe is lost. It stops being graffiti and turns commercial.

If you open a magazine and really look at ads today they are heavily influenced by graffiti. So on one hand its accepted by society and on the other its not.
Also since about 2007 i think L.A. has been inforcing a public mural moratorium the city jas in place per city hall since 2007.Long story short, the moratorium’s not official but effectually bars any new murals from going up in L.A. unless they have permission from the city council. And the city council is basicly not giving them out for graffiti type murals. So alot of artist in L.A. are a little upset to say the least, which is why this was done imo, to remind MOCA and those involved with the project that graffiti can and will stay "Pure"

The following video was done during the day by the front enterance of the museum.
www.youtube.com...
www.youtube.com...



Now with this being done it put officals in a tight bind, what to do. they started getting pressure to shut the show down. They could buff the tagg and possibly anger the artist about to be featured in the museum and im sure leaving it up untouched was outta the question also.

So they asked a few more premier artist to possibly paint over it. A few refused, namely OS GEMOS graffiti artist from brazil whos recent works on canvas has sold for a couple hundred thousand.

An example of their art is






But they finally found someone willing to paint over it but no one wanted to use their tag names outta respect for Katsu the guy that did they tag in the 1st place. So they settled on replicating a subway car done in New York during the 80's

This is the original

And now what they did to cover it up. The hired Rime MSK to finish it up....

The graffiti artist Rime was asked last minute to paint a large Blade piece on the side of the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA. It looks as though they had Rime paint over the large Katsu fire extinguisher tag.
Never in my 20 yrs. Of writing graffiti, did I expect to get called in at the last minute, to paint a BLADE piece on the side of a museum… go figure?-RIME
And the finished product...




this what he had to say per his blog:

While finishing the “Bring Beef Lose Teef” production up in San Francisco, I got a call from Roger Gastman asking if I would be able to paint a BLADE tribute on the side of the MOCA museum and have it done within a day and a half. This whole project was a last minute decision to cover up the half ass buff job the museum put over the internet sensationalized

I wondered if KATSU had not done the tag, would they still have done a tribute for BLADE? If so I felt they should have planned it better. With the deadline so tight I had doubts on anyone doing a proper job for one of the most innovative writers in graffiti history.

After some back an forth agreeing on terms, I jumped in the car on Tuesday afternoon, driving 6 hours straight and arriving at 11pm that night. Knowing I had roughly 34 hours to complete the job before Thursdays press conference, I decided to do everything with fat caps and with an updated treatment. FREEDOM was the one who took on the task of designing the layout of the BLADE wall. He arranged BLADE’s characters from past trains across the top of a remodeled version of BLADE’s 1980 wholecar…

The hope was to save on time in getting the proportions right. Using projectors has been something that I have frowned on and even thought of as cheating. Mid way through this process I took over and loosely sketched in the missing areas. I did not want to depend too heavily on the first sketch and had plans to make changes in the painting process. On my trips up and down on the lift, I used the FREEDOM sketch and a copy of BLADE’s train in SUBWAY ART as a reference. I reworked the shapes of each letter, giving the piece an updated look. I particularly enjoyed reworking the “A” and “D”. The first painting session lasted from 12am Wednesday up until 8:30 am. The only reason I stopped is because the lift I was using ran out of gas. In that time I managed to finish off the letters and the bottom half of the wall (CON painted in the lower cityscape)…

After a few hours rest and some around the town B.Sing, I returned to the wall and started painting again around 6:30 pm. The goal was to paint straight until done. All I had to do was paint 6 giant characters! While painting the characters I added in some “Joe isms”, giving some more exaggerated looks, hands, patterns, and even decided to turn BLADE’s “party time” character into a drippy slice of pizza. I stopped looking at the references about 1/3 through and just relied on whatever I thought worked. By 9am the next morning, everyone started to arrive for the press conference. I was just about done when the rental company came down to take back their lifts. Freaking around after the all-nighter, I decided to add in some fish and a COMET throw up in the lower right corner.

edit on 21-9-2011 by InshaAllah because: (no reason given)

edit on 21-9-2011 by InshaAllah because: (no reason given)

But thats not all with all this going on Revok a major artist that contributed big peices to this event was arrested on his way back from texas to l.a. for the show.

From 12ozprophet.com:

According to the City of Los Angeles, the same city hosting a retrospect on graffiti and street art at MoCA that had just been celebrating Revok and many of his peers, has just decided that graffiti actually merits a higher bail than crimes ranging from rape, to child molestation and even assaulting a partially paralyzed grandmother in front of her granddaughters. Yes folks, the cost of graffiti is costing Revok exactly 3.2 times that of beating down someones grandmother in front of her family now that his bail has been set at $320,000 after he was arrested at LAX airport leaving the city. Now that we see where the LAPD has focused its priorities, perhaps Revok should make a career out of beating down elderly Los Angelinos cause clearly graffiti is gonna cost you.

All this because he failed to pat restitution to L.A. from previous arrest from years ago. An example of him and his work.





He has been sentenced to six months in jail according to CBS Los Angeles. Apparently he violated his probation by not paying restitution to his victims. No doubt this is being seen as a victory for the prosecution, but it does make me curious as to what the tax payer cost will be to warehouse Revok for six months? Amazing how California feels all that investigation, prosecution and jail costs for writing on walls is justified considering the state can’t even pay themselves

So things die down the show does great, goes without a hitch. A example of the show inside.
www.youtube.com...

AND THIS ONE:
www.youtube.com...



So right around when things are dying down for moca i guy wanted to hire a few artist from the show to bring attention to his cause.

In 2008, a deco-style fortress built in the '50s and originally belonging to a prominent family in Santa Monica fell into foreclosure in the middle of an extensive renovation. Until three months ago it stood vacant, an eerie house on a bluff with a homeless woman squatting the top floor. The terraced gardens in back had overgrown and were infested with rats. The neighbors on this otherwise upscale block wondered and complained. Then came Adam Corlin, with a cause, a dare, and an endless supply of tarps. Corlin, a successful builder and a fourth generation Santa Monica resident, had his eye on this property, and when the price dropped to 50 percent of its original asking price, he jumped at the opportunity to own it. But this was no ordinary flip -- Corlin had some time in his hacienda rehab schedule and wanted to raise awareness for his favorite charity, Heal the Bay, the environmental group working to restore Santa Monica Bay. In speaking to the organization, he knew it had to be different than the usual donation or doing volunteer work. He had a blank house in Santa Monica, he had resources to do something big, and he had just met a graf artist appropriately named Ris

And the link:blogs.laweekly.com...
LA CITY ATTORNEY CARMEN TRUTANICH VS. ART




-Now the city is threatening to fine the property owner 5,000$ a day until the mural is removed because 2 graffiti artist’s are responsible for the mural.

WOW

So in conclusion recently a member of MSK revok's crew hired 6-7 airplanes to fly around L.A. and city hall to leave the city council a little message.
vimeo.com...

from revok's blog

​”I own the sky!” exclaimed L.A. graf king Saber as his latest project started to unfold at noon today — not on an elusive downtown wall, but in the skies above City Hall. Saber’s latest artwork is a sky written protest against the public mural moratorium in place per city hall since 2007. Long story short, the moratorium’s not official. As an artist, you just won’t be issued a permit. Even with permission from a property owner, one can be arrested and the owner fined and also jailed. In the legal protest, executed by six hired skywriting jets and lasting about 45 minutes, the first two passes were call-outs to other LA artists and crews — Revok, Tempt, MSK, LTS, Risky, Ayer and Dream were some. Then down to business: “Art is not a crime. End mural moratorium: twitter at end mural moratorium”

Statement