Street Art

The early summer haze known in Los Angeles as June gloom was just starting to dissipate when I picked up my friend to go check out the exhibit at MOCA.   Museums in LA remind me of ghost towns, wind and tumbleweed whistling through large open spaces, so I was shocked to see so many people milling about the galleries.  Clearly, the many articles written about this ground breaking display heralding graffiti artists had an impact on residents.  Jeffrey Deitch, the museum's new director, stated,

“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.  I don’t think that there’s some separate category — real contemporary art versus street art."

For this reason I enjoyed and appreciated the exhibit although street art has a greater impact on me when it is in its natural habit and not haphazardly displayed in a brightly light, sanitized, white walled museum.