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Street Art at MOCA
How Jeffrey Deitch convinced an outlaw art movement to show itself for the landmark retrospective “Art in the Streets”
Click here forL.A. Weekly's exclusive MOCA "Art in the Streets" roll call.
ART IN THE STREETS, THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY AT MOCA, PHOTOS BY GREGORY BOJORQUEZ, COURTESY OF MOCA
Stelios, from Cyprus
ART IN THE STREETS, THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY AT MOCA, PHOTOS BY GREGORY BOJORQUEZ, COURTESY OF MOCA
ROA, from Belgium
Like many people, Jeffrey Deitch came to Los Angeles with a dream.
Yes, the troubled Museum of Contemporary Art appointed him its director to help stave off financial ruin. And yes, Deitch had cutting-edge ideas on how to bring new audiences into the institution.
But one idea in particular had been brewing for more than a decade: a groundbreaking exhibition of street art, the most ambitious show of its kind ever mounted in the United States.
For the show’s elaborate opening act, he commissioned a young, exciting international talent to make the entire north wall of MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary his canvas. It was a bold move — and it was where the reality of street art began to collide with Deitch’s dream exhibition.
Enter the Italian muralist Blu, who created a mural of coffins draped in dollar bills in December. Unsanctioned by the museum and started in his absence, Deitch found it insensitive to the surrounding Little Tokyo neighborhood and the nearby veterans’ memorial, and ordered it painted over.
As Deitch explained in a recent interview with L.A. Weekly, “Blu’s idea when he is invited to do a wall is an opportunity to create a challenging, troublesome situation, not thinking that he’s one of 100-plus people in a joint effort — the point being to come together to make this a bigger thing for everybody, not to do something that undermines the whole project.”
Destruction of the mural brought a thunderstorm of protest from some fans of street art. Others understood that if you choose to do art paid for by an institution, you have to play nice.
This now-familiar saga was only one of many headaches Deitch endured in creating “Art in the Streets,” which opens April 17. Deitch knew the show would be revolutionary, but corralling art world agitators who have little museum experience, few records of their past projects and a general disregard for authority is a tall order for anyone.
The street artists and their fans have had their own anxieties about MOCA treading on their hallowed ground. Whenever a public institution attempts to define a cultural shift, it could very well become an instant cliché.
But when a major museum director offers to shine a light on an outsider movement that’s been waiting to take its deserved place in art history, it’s hard to reject the invitation, especially when he includes street-savvy co-curators Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose. And while the Blu controversy caused biters to question whether Deitch is fit to shepherd the country’s first major street-art and graffiti retrospective, he is the only man who could have made it happen.
Despite his accomplishments in the art world, Deitch is an outsider to museums, much like the talent featured in “Art in the Streets.” Before his controversial appointment as head of MOCA, in January 2010, the workaholic art dealer and his influential New York gallery, Deitch Projects, helped shape the futures of such contemporary art juggernauts as Barry McGee, Kehinde Wiley and Chris Johanson.
Deitch understands not only art as art but art as business. He’s a Harvard MBA who wears handmade suits yet still has the street skills to blend easily with the artists he champions. He has counted Basquiat, Haring, Scharf and Schnabel as friends.
Saturday nights on Lower Manhattan’s Wooster Street probably are quieter without his raging opening-night parties. But New York’s loss is L.A.’s gain. It’s no surprise that after he arrived in Los Angeles, Deitch wanted to stage something of a dream show that makes use of his resources and draws upon his new city’s high-caliber underground talent. To paraphrase Dr. Dre: You are about to witness the strength of street knowledge.
“One of the goals of this show is to place the best of these artists coming out of street culture into the context of contemporary art history,” Deitch explains passionately in the solitude of the MOCA reading room, where, appropriately, Warhol books are strewn about. “I don’t think that there’s some separate category — real contemporary art versus street art. ... [I want] to look at this art in a similar way as a museum looks at new abstract painting. You look for the people that are original, the innovators who have exemplary technique.”
Since the 1960s, the appeal of street art and graffiti has been the way it’s wrenched creativity away from academia and carved out a place for itself and its audience. A visual phenomenon that made its way from the subway cars of New York City to the freight yards of south Texas, this crafted conversation wasn’t judged by any existing criteria, and it appeared whether or not anyone else cared for the subject matter.
Many times, like their audience, these artists weren’t schooled in proper protocol. The work had a language of its own. It was appropriate to hang a painting over the freeway just because someone could get it there.
36 comments
I wonder how you were able to post a comment without using the coroorate whores who made every little thing you use daily, you punk poser. If you like art then look and admire, if you dont than say so...life is not about hating corporations all the time. Pick your battles man, we all need a nickle to live on.
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BLU Why is it not in this exhibition?The art of the street would there be limits to freedom of expression?The art market would he hard to integrate the work of producing meaning, beyond the agreed upon?
The episode in December 2010 at MOCA is quickly evacuated, I think …http://next.liberation.fr/cult...
I’ll go see the work of BLU in the streets, keep your tools speculation museumFor more news, soon: http://ecritique-revue.over-bl...
A +Sabine
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[incorrect event name listed dept.] APRIL IS JAZZ APPRECIATION MONTH!
Thurs. Apr. 28th - Special TRIPLE signature "Companion Events" Jammin Foundation & Linda Morgan, Ms. SmoothAhead Jazz Presents: HONORING -6PM CHARLES OWENS "Sensei Maestro" & DOLORES PETERSEN - A.Pro-Advocate Rep.
SHOWCASE: And OPEN MIC / JAM: "Welcome Home" And JAM w/ D'z "Lady & Gentlemen" In-House Live Jazz Trio "redoubtable jazz vets" Karen HERNANDEZ & Tony DUMAS · Ralph PENLAND
7PM SHOWCASE: feat. "Woodwindist" FUASI ABDUL-KHALIQ visiting from Germany, "Special" Guest Co-Host JEFFREY WINSTON - Jazz Historian, Philantropist, writer8PM (sign-up 7:30PM) OPEN MIC / JAM: "heavy surprise guests" "stellar assortment of top-flight jazz musicians" Guest Co-Host "Young Lion" RANDAL FISHER - Intern/s DOLORES PETERSEN Presents: @ HSB&G 6122-6124 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
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"If you choose to do art paid for by an institution, you have to play nice."
That pretty much sums up why there's a Nike skateramp, but no Blu anti-war mural at the MOCA show. Exit through the gift shop, indeed.
[unlisted dept.] SHOWCASE: And OPEN MIC / JAM: Thurs. Apr. 21st, 7:00pm And 8:00pm (sign-up 7:30pm) "Companion Events" (entertainment/music - instrumentalists/vocalists)SHOWCASE: Fundraiser - SOCIETY OF SINGERS - Deborah ASH, Synthia HARDY, Cara Lee PENDLEBURY, Polly PODEWELL, Sherwood SLEDGE, Chris SMITH "Sing SOS And JAM..."OPEN MIC / JAM: D'z "Lady & Gentlemen" In-House Live Jazz Trio "Master" accompanist/improv-musicians Karen HERNANDEZ - Music Director/p & Tony DUMAS - b • Ralph PENLAND - d, (multi-genre - Blues, Jazz, Latin, Pop...) DOLORES PETERSEN Presents: @ HSB&G 6122-6124 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
[completely related listing dept.] APRIL IS JAZZ APPRECIATION MONTH! SHOWCASE: And OPEN MIC / JAM: Thurs. Apr. 21st, 7:00pm And 8:00pm (sign-up 7:30pm) "Companion Events" (entertainment/music - instrumentalists/vocalists)SHOWCASE: Fundraiser - SOCIETY OF SINGERS - Deborah ASH, Synthia HARDY, Cara Lee PENDLEBURY, Polly PODEWELL, Sherwood SLEDGE, Chris SMITH "Sing SOS And JAM..."OPEN MIC / JAM: D'z "Lady & Gentlemen" In-House Live Jazz Trio "Master" accompanist/improv-musicians Karen HERNANDEZ - Music Director/p & Tony DUMAS - b • Ralph PENLAND - d, (multi-genre - Blues, Jazz, Latin, Pop...) DOLORES PETERSEN Presents: @ HSB&G 6122-6124 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH1111...Outlaws?..........HAHAHAHAHAHAH......more like corporate faggots ...
This is right up L.A's whitewashed alley. Fucking street artists? More like commercial prostitutes...
Revok expressed "disdain" for indoor shows...But this one's cool...Different...it's cool... This hack, like the rest of his cronies with their redundant hit ups. Grey village grey walls..same shit over and over...
Lets talk Slick..handed his ass by HEX in 91"...this BITER is a joke....his plagerism and straight up intellectual property theft is as bad as..
Scene 1 OBEY (downloading internet image)
...it's an experiment in redundancy...did you buy a shirt..."
BANKSY (doing online banking)
...no, but these sheep will buy anything...lets sell them an "aerosoul outlaw"...in stores now!!!
Regurgitated images screaming no talent. Screaming capitalism...
Lets hope to cash whores that SEEN is somewhere to be found.
this is completely incoherent. evidence that people who are up on this stuff tend to be well, idiots.
I am so excited to travel from the east coast to west coast to see this show! I as a artist working with street art want to know more about the history of the exciting work I see on the streets. Congrats on your institution for supporting this great art movement and putting in the spotlight. Joycehillstudio.com
Play Deitch for a day by 'approving' or 'disapproving' the street art of LA for yourself. Learn how at http://moca-latte.org and get a free batch of stickers.
Really...you are the exact sort of ignorant trend whore that this exhibit is geared to.
Graffiti is on the street for the public to see
Only difference is you douche bags that want it painted over when its on your wall.
Send up a shout for Tony Silver's 1982 "breakthrough" documentary, Style Wars, regarded as the best hip hop film ever made. The film will be screened in the Art in the Streets in its entirety as well as favorite scenes.
White washing over BLU's mural was not simply an act of artistic censorship it was an act of political censorship. If BLU had created a pro-war mural there would have been no white washing and no controversy. By meekly accepting the destruction of BLU's work, the LA art community is endorsing the notion that anti-war art must ride in the back of the bus if it is allowed to ride at all.
It wasn't about being pro or anti-war, the reason it was buffed was out of respect for the residents in the neighborhood. Across the way from the mural is the "Go for Broke" monument which commemorates the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, they were Nisei - American-born sons of Japanese immigrants who fought during WWII. Simply put, it was a poor choice in judgement on Blu's part. He didn't bother to research where he was painting.
Did Deitch hold a community meeting and ask anyone if they were offended? How about the fact that MOCA sits on the very spot where Japanese were shipped off to internment camps? How about THAT for censorship? I am positive that blu knew exactly what he was doing, that wall looks directly at the VA where many of the vets there would most likely have agreed with blu's statement and Dept. of Homeland Security where people are deported from - but hey, you can become a US citizen if you join the military!
“We are working with brands that are already a huge part of this world,” Rose adds. “It is a very organic fit. They are companies who have invested heavily in street culture for years.”
Corporate marketing parasites.
This weak show rides on the tail of San Diego and others. It's hardly a first.
http://www.mcasd.org/exhibitio...
Street art is / can be radical explicitly because it stays in the street, defying what's public / private and sanctioned.
Once it moves into a museum / mausoleum, sanitized for quick grab sales in the MOCA gift shop ("Art in the Streets" mouse pads! key chains! ski masks!), it's immediately neutered.
[listing dept.] "April is JAZZ Appreciation Month"
SHOWCASE: And OPEN MIC / JAM: Thurs. Apr. 14th, 7:00pm And 8:00pm (sign-up 7:30pm) "Companion Events" (multi-genre, vocalists/instrumentalists)SHOWCASE: Pro-Vocalist - SHARON STANLEY "She's Bold & Beautiful" And JAMs...OPEN MIC / JAM: D'z "Lady & Gentlemen" In-House Live Jazz Trio - "Master" accompanist/improv-musiciansKaren HERNANDEZ - Music Director/piano & Tony DUMAS - bass • Ralph PENLAND - drums DOLORES PETERSEN Presents: @ HSB&G 6122-6124 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
How can Deitch characterize BLU's mural as "undermining the whole show" when he approved the design? It makes no sense. Deitch lost his balls or got a call but I guarantee no one else doing art in that show saw that mural as "undermining" anything. Liar and coward.
What a bunch of bullshit. If you are commissioned to do a mural you have to "play nice"? Street art has never been about playing nice. How about we call Deitch's decision to white out Blu's mural what it was? CENSORSHIP.
Just want to mention that in October 2010 the National Gallery of Australia put on a large scale show of Australian street art, especially focusing on the explosion of stencil art and wheatpasting that occurred around 2004-2006. The exhibit has just closed in Canberra, and is currently showing in Brisbane, and opens in Melbourne later in 2011.
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