Wednesday, June 29, 2011

SoCal Recap: MOCA - Art in the Streets

While I was in SoCal, I took advantage to driving up to the MOCA in LA to check out their "Art in the Streets" exhibit:


Very promising:


They had pretty much all the big names in street art, including, KAWS:


Though I have to confess it's not the easiest or most organic to curate street art within the walls of a museum.  I remember living in New York when REVS/COST was all over and it's a little odd to see a piece in a museum, like it's an artifact that's been dug up and preserved for historical purposes. 


I also cringed a little at this set-up (this was actually an animated piece where the arm moved side-to-side as the guy is "tagging" the wall):


I'm a little on the fence on this piece by Mark Gonzales:


Of course, my favorite and where I spent the most time was in the small section featuring Banksy.  Not only is his art well-executed (he works with stencils!) but the satiric and political wit is spot on:




I also liked Andre's Love Grafitti in the bathroom stalls:


My other favorite section was short skate films by Spike Jonze.  It was over 30 minutes of shorts but each one absolutely entertaining.

If you  have a chance to see this exhibit before it leaves on August 8, I highly recommend it.  Get there early and it is completely enjoyable in a few hours.

2 comments:

Blah said...
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Pound said...

love banksy! have you ever seen the (i think) brazillian street art called muto? google it and it's done somewhere in s. america. it's pretty frakking amazing considering it moves around and was done in the span of weeks.