Art in the Streets!

  Sharon and I went to the Art in the Streets exhibit at the Geffen on Monday.  It was free courtesy of Banksy (thanks!), and we squeaked in on the last day.  It was an awesome experience.  There was almost too much art to take in; it makes me wish I had gone sooner, so that I could have gone more than once.  I knew that it would feature graffiti (obvi), but I didn't really appreciate great a scope that could have, and also how many other forms of expression could qualify as street art.

   My idea of "what is art" was totally challenged.  Art can be anything, and it can be made anywhere.  It doesn't have to be something beautiful and pristine on a wall painted by a dead guy 200 years ago, it can be something tangible and raw right here, now.  The bags from the gift shop said, "you can touch things".  We didn't buy anything, but I almost would've just to get one of those bags.  Of course, this is ironic since we got in trouble three times for touching the art.  One time Sharon was spoken sharply to for standing too near the wall. 

That's right.  She wasn't even touching it.  She was just having her photo made.  So much for that "you can touch" thing.

   One of my favorite portions was a section of lost pet posters collected from Beverly Hills.  The artist, whose names escapes me, said he was moved by them because they were an unpretentious, unselfconscious expression of someone's raw emotion, condensed into an image and some text.  That really hit me, because I have been there, papering the neighborhood with "Have you seen me?" fliers, my heart on my sleeve, worrying about my cat.  No photo, sorry. 

       Another artist said of her photography that she was moved to take pictures because what if it would never be like this again.  I love that.  There were clips of graffiti films from all over the world-my favorite being a German film where a crew painted an entire subway car in the 5 minutes it was stopped.  There were instruments set up that anyone could be a musician.

   I am not doing justice to this exhibit.  Here are the rest of my photos-I'll let them speak for themselves.



Plenty to look at waiting to get in





Banksy stencil on a wooden door.  I love the collage aspect of his work.

Strange hall of mirrors.  I certainly know what it's like to look in the mirror and feel crazy though.

There were a lot of awesome murals.  I don't know why I didn't take pictures of all my favorite stuff though... 

This kid personifies punk rock for me, he really brought those photos to life.  I stole his picture.

Anything can be made into art

More Banksy!

Ironically I got in trouble right before this. 

Awesome light installation by artist Swoon.  It was housed in a sort of tent, so that the walls of the room were part of the piece.  I felt like my brain clicked into place when I realized that.  Again, art challenging my ideas of how it should be viewed or what it is.

Later in Echo Park I was much more aware of the street art all around me.  I dig this cityscape.

Tempted to try stenciling...