Graffiti and street art show to take over MOCA's Geffen Contemporary in 2011

Anyone wondering what Jeffrey Deitch's next step will be as the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art now has an answer. In two words: street art.

Local artists and gallery owners have been whispering about the possibility, and this week Deitch confirmed his plans for a 2011 show. "We're going to send out the press release in a few weeks," he says. "Right now we're trying to iron out sponsorship. It's going to be the first major museum survey of the history of graffiti and street art presented in the United States."

The show is called "Art in the Streets," not to be confused with "Born in the Streets," recently staged by the Cartier Foundation in Paris. Deitch says the MOCA endeavor will be bigger, broader and more historical in sweep. "A show at this level has never been done anywhere."

The choice of subject is no surprise to anyone who knows Deitch. Since the 1970s, he has supported New York artists like Lee Quinones, Futura, Fab 5 Freddy, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. More recently, Deitch Projects, his former gallery, showed the work of California anti-heroes Barry McGee and Shepard Fairey.

The MOCA show will cover the 1970s through the present, including international street-art stars such as Banksy from London and Space Invader from Paris. ("Banksy is very excited about the show,” says Deitch. How does he know, considering Banksy's notoriously elusive nature? "We communicate through his assistant Holly.")

But also expect a substantial focus on Los Angeles: the legacy of cholo graffiti in the 1970s, the

influence of New York Wild Style graffiti starting in the '80s and skateboarding-fueled art of the '90s.

"About 25 artists will be invited to do major installations or murals," says MOCA's director. “But in terms of all the artists represented there will be more than 100." One installation already confirmed: Mister Cartoon's Ice Cream Truck, shown above, the work of an L.A. graffiti artist now famous for creating tattoos for the famous (think Eminem and Beyoncé).

To organize the exhibition, Deitch is working with two L.A.-based curators: Aaron Rose of "Beautiful Losers" renown and graffiti guru Roger Gastman. Fred Brathwaite, better known as Fab 5 Freddy, is serving as a curatorial advisor from New York.

Rose says he’s excited to see MOCA take street art seriously. “Because there’s a criminal edge or outlaw vibe, it doesn’t get the same respect that art coming out of academia gets," he says. "But you can’t deny the cultural importance it has had in art, music and fashion of the last 20 years.”

He thinks the exhibition has huge crossover potential to reach new museumgoers in the city's Latino and African American communities, and teenagers across the map. "I don’t think MOCA has done anything on this scale," Rose says. "The sheer number of kids who will come to this museum will be mind-blowing.”

The show is slated to open at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary in April 2011. "I decided I had to do this in my first season at MOCA," Deitch says. "I didn't want to waste time opening up the museum to a larger audience."

-- Jori Finkel

www.twitter.com/jorifinkel

Image: Mister Cartoon's Ice Cream Truck, 2004, photo by Eriberto Oriol.

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Comments

[jim jimmy]

dumb

[DanM]

Cool stuff. Will definetly be checking this out

[Peter]

Please consider reaching out to LA muralists El Mac and Retna if you haven't already done so. They are doing some of the most beautiful work seen in quite some time.

[Elegabalus]

Rumor has it there will be a counterfeit Prada shop and bootleg DVDs for sale in the gift shop...cheap!

[why]

original. *sarcasm*

[Chris]

Can't wait!

[Evolution]

We Fear What We Don't Understand.
That's why you feel that you need to make fun of it.
Fear.

[Fitzgerald]

Awesome..This will be amazing...

[jig]

Graffiti is and will always remain an outlaw genre of art, eyesore to some and great to others. As long as they are still sending people to jail for tagging then it is irresponsible to encourage kids to do it.
Didn't the city of L.A. just spend lots of money painting over a large tag near downtown? So now they like graffiti and they want to do a museum show? i would encourage anyone and everyone to tag the museum walls both inside and outside during the show with the most permanent oil based mediums available.

Last time I checked in LA., there were people going to jail for graffiti and so who decides which "artist" gets to be in a museum or who gets to be in jail?

Banksy art is disgusting and boring. Not great art at all. Even in the graffiti genre, it's average boring stuff. Over rated crap is really what it is.
Try pulling some Haring or Basquiat graffiti here and see how far it gets you.

[THE ENEMY]

Cool??? Remember that rhymes with fool. Hmmm, from the looks of the misinformation(70's Fab 5, Haring, Basquait, etc who had nothing to do with the 70's and being represented by said party) and other jibberish in tow sounds like another fiasco the likes of Born In The Streets and yet another opportunity for minions of kids to be misguided misinformed and misled all at the expense of this culture.

But being that nine in nine of the folks putting these shows together never lived it I guess it is to be expected!!! Congratulations!!!

Graffiti Guru??? Thats sounds really stupid..Pooh!!! The art doesnt get respect becaiuse most of the people in it haave a blind sense of respect for it and or dont care much about what it really is about historically or physically.

And when so called artists come to NYC throwing up tired a** "art" on gigantic walls in the shape of scribbles in red spray as opposed to making a real effort to espress and represent a more intense angle of the artfor...what can one expect in the catagory of "respect"?? Thats the trash angle of it..

[THE ENEMY]

Arrrrrrrrgh!!! I hate type errors, but I think whoever reads it will get the point. Like it or not, it is what it is. The facts!!

[Ed]

Bravo Jeffrey!!! The artists of our urban landscape have crazy talent. Cab, Chaz, Craola, Defer, Heaven, Hyde, Kofie, Kopye, Mac, Magallanes, ManOne, Mear, Prime, Relic, Retna, Revok, Saber, Siner, Skept, Slick, Vyal.
Way too many to mention. If there is one cat that epitomises the determination and passion of the LA writer; it is TEMPT ONE.

[Oryz]

Because apparently the only way to get Latinos and Blacks into the museum is by focusing on "outlaw art"? Although I'm not exactly sure if it can still be considered outlaw art if half the kids are doing it.

What about featuring more artists of color that don't fit into a stereotype? That may be a tad more groundbreaking, Mr. Deitch.

[LEO F]

BRILLIANT........................

[Hairy Carrion]

I'm so over graffiti, pop surrealism, low brow in general. Can we stop playing it safe with stuff and get back to some interesting ART?

[street eye]

I really hope you use some older, native Angeleno, street art legends like Robbie Conal and Skullphone, but don't overlook more recent ones like Shark Toof and Restitution Press. These cats crushed LA and continue to resuscitate the street art scene in Los Angeles. The bell ringers will be great to see, but let's get some real street locals in the mix. Thank you Jeffrey.

[Bud Itos]

Another joke of an exhibit by the joke of a director. His first exhibit was a flop, this one will be, too.

[C.H.]

I can't wait to see it, but this is a "safe" exhibit by Jeffery Deitch after SD did the exact same thing to huge crowds earlier this year. Just another example of mainstream curators being several years out of touch from what "contemporary" art really is.

[CHOR BOOGIE]

CHOR BOOGIE ..APEX ..NEON.. VULCAN.. PHASE 2 .. RIFF.. DOME...AHHHH AND A COUPLE OTHERS .. BUT HONESTLY... THATS ALL YOULL NEED...

[Megan]

Sorry, ABQ beat you to it

http://516arts.org/flyers_brochures/2010/516ARTS.StreetArtsGuide.pdf