The Brooklyn Museum has canceled plans to mount a controversial exhibition of graffiti art, citing financial constraints. The show, “Art in the Streets,” is currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, where it has drawn large crowds but has also attracted criticism for prompting an increase in graffiti in the surrounding neighborhood…….

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Walking in to this I have to say I was pretty nervous. I really had no plan on what I was going to paint other than I needed to paint a piece that represented what I was working on currently. I envisioned this fuzzy White Piece swirling around in the back of my head. When I arrived to check out the space the wall seemed even more challenging considering the size. Of course Revok was already ahead laying out his mural. First he created grid across the space. This gave him some structure to build his cluster of letters. Revok basically built his piece as he went. As long as I can remember he has been free-styling every piece he paints. It is very interesting to watch him paint. Revok spends quite a bit of time on the computer building complex logos and letters using Illustrator program. His approach to painting walls is like as if he was possessed by Illustrator, it’s like watching a human printer. His idea behind his piece was to include a few bold statements and names of other artists or friends who aren’t with us anymore. The more Revok layered the letters, the more it turned into this big complex puzzle piece, giving the viewer an opportunity to piece together the hidden names. He didn’t want to be selfish by focusing on his name solely. Rime came in and filled in some of the negative spaces with his looney style characters. Joe’s personality can sometimes remind me of a punched out cars sales men with the precise hand of a heart surgeon. If you look closely at Rimes lines you’ll see there is no wasted strokes. He paints his lines with one clean shot each time.

I on the other hand, usually only focus on the letter structures of my name. To me when you freestyle a piece you stumble onto a path of discovery. I find I feel limited when I paint from a sketch. Free-styling allows you an opportunity to whip a letter differently or discover new connections. My name to me is like capturing movement and flow using the essence of the letters characteristics. Saber isn’t my name as my identity but a mantra to tap into a free flow of abstraction. As a kid I was obsessed with Robotech, Transformers and Gothic churches, I guess it eventually evolved into an energized moving liquid glass battleship. That actually sounds kind of crazy but that’s what’s so intriguing about Wildstyle. Once you dive down into the puzzle, little secrets reveal themselves. You also have to put yourself under the mindset that you are going to paint your best piece, as if you were going to burn the wall to the ground. That level of confidence definitely comes in handy under pressure, especially in a situation like painting on the museum walls.

Risky is one of the founders and trailblazers of Los Angeles style and a world wide representative of Graffiti Art. He is an originator of founded styles and has painted more pieces than anyone. He was painting full color burners on the freeways when people were catching up on Calicovision. Painting next to Risky is intimating because his energy is huge on the wall. Risky chose to break up the mural space in an interesting way by taking on the alphabet. A to Z is always more daunting then you anticipate. 24 individual stylized letters is no easy task, of course Risky makes it look easy. I can tell you he didn’t sleep for days. These two guys were pulling all niters back to back. Abel came to lend a hand a painted the L. That guy is the one of the cleanest painters ever. Risky finished his mural off with a beautiful, white and blue chrome piece right in the center that seemed to tie everything together nicely.

Cartoon is another great painter to watch. He chunked outs his mural with spray paint and later goes in and airbrushes an entire detailed scene. Cartoon also freestyles his murals.  He kept adding little details to his painting until it turned into little groups of Los Angeles inspired street life narratives. Cartoons skill level lends him the ability to airbrush beautiful classic, candied low riders to jumping on a tall ladder and pulling long hours painting murals. He has proven himself to be the best at what he does, anywhere.

On of my best friend Push had the task of collaborating with Lee, Futura on the large mural in the parking lot. He worked on the massive geometric color patterns, a trademark for him. His strain of Graffiti is one of my favorites. His path has led him so far out of the letter structure base, it morphed into a simplistic geo-pattern style. The beauty of his style is the more simplistic it becomes the more he manages to hide letters in these patterns. He obsesses over his color pallets like a composer with notes. I would definitely characterize Push as obsessive-compulsive, this is what makes his art so unique.

When I paint a large wall I usually try to whip out a base structure with the roller. With some practice you can actually whip around some nice calligraphy lines with the roller on an extension pole. It just really, really sucks when you blast out the base structure and it doesn’t fit. Talk about the frustrating task of painting it all back over again. I really have to be in a good flow or other wise I end up fighting it the whole time and a day gets wasted. This is the challenge of free-styling your piece; you can end up painting yourself into a corner. Because everything in the show was screaming color, I went with the no color look to give my space a sense of calm. I love working in the grey tones pallet. At the bottom of the “R” leg, I painted layered piled on tags ripping out from underneath the white buff as a subtle gesture to the movement itself. The layered tags were names of friends and people who have influenced me or friends who are not with us. People at the museum asked what the title was and the first thing that popped in my head was “Sacred Trash”. I chose this title because it represented the conflicting ideas, Graffiti as sacred, or Graffiti as something disposable and malicious. That Graffiti is something that is reviled and hated by the authorities. Some would claim this a virus designed to deplete property values spawning higher crime rates. Exaggerated stories describing hoards of taggers participating in the urban plight like hungry locusts. Unfortunately, the reality is some of the current recycled press would attest to that point of view including some  right wing think tanks. Some of the artists in the show have been targeted by news organizations and the Authority to perpetuate the idea that this museum show is bad for society. My best friend Revok is now locked away serving 180 days with an outrages $320,000 bail amount yet isn’t charged with any crime. Houses and business have been harassed and raided by armed task forces looking for these “criminal art assailants” and then the story hits front page. Going in to this show I knew some of the powers that be would be furious over a museum institution giving us any credit, let alone open their doors to us. My personal mission was to paint the best piece I could and let the artwork speak for itself.

The last image in this blog is a portrait of Revok and I taking a quick break from painting standing outside the museum early in the morning. Both of us were taking in the crisp fresh air thinking of the long road we’ve been on together. In the back of my mind I wanted to celebrate in the moment for making it there together. What kept me from celebrating was the sick feeling I had twisting in my stomach. It’s a humbling feeling. We knew the authorities would make someone an example for this show. We knew there was a dark cloud hovering. I just want people to understand that there is a price to pay. That debt comes in many forms and my best friend paid with his freedom. The piece Revok painted is more valuable then museum walls itself. It represents one artist struggle against a Leviathan. His life’s path has been altered and that piece is left behind for the museum and public to enjoy. Revok is what gives this show its legitimacy. He is the artist who is locked away in a maze of dangerous halls. His real crime? Being an artist who is misunderstood. If certain people want to criticize the “legitimacy” of  “Art In The Streets” as a valid museum show then they need to reflect on Revok’s artistic contributions to the movement. For those who write us off as malicious vandals, they should pause and ask themselves what they are willing to sacrifice for what they believe in. Before they can pass judgment they would have to walk in our shoes for a block.

To me art is something that is always Sacred. Especially in an art movement that was spawned from a young spirit where you are blinded from corrupt ideas and have no understanding of consequences. In essence it begins pure. The passion is the drive. This passion to create art is Sacred. It leads that young person on a creative path steering them away from societies little boxes. Is this a safe path for everybody? I would say no. Along this path are difficult lessons learned and tragedies. But through the entire journey a dialogue between the creative spirit and the world as we know begins. Contemporary Graffiti movement has opened up a new strain of art and ideas. If I am a criminal, then I willingly chose to be so for the sake of the idea.

Graffiti is something that is Sacred, something that I love. Something that connects me to so many people. Either way, everyone is watching…… #FREEREVOK

Photography By Noah Banks

The ongoing whitewashing of street art adds to the Los Angeles’ growing reputation as an intolerant mural curator, an unfortunate tag for a city once known as the mural capitol of the world.

One could make a case that it is an 80-year tradition that continued this week.

It dates back to 1932, when David Alfaro Siqueiros unveiled “Tropical America” at El Pueblo, a masterpiece that was quickly painted over by the order of Olvera Street founder Christine Sterling.

Forward to Friday, when a graffiti abatement crew was busy recovering a mural they painted over just days before, under their orders passed down by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. The street art style work is located at Fairfax and Rosemead, hosted by nearby Known Gallery, and features a background by Renta, highlighted with graffiti style signatures by artists Saber, Os Gemeos, Revok, Norm and Rime. The eradication was preempted by Casey Zoltan from Known, the gallery that first commissioned the piece over a year ago…………………

READ MORE HERE>>>

I rolled over my to my bro SABER’s studio to hang a few hours. Had a chill time catching up talking about the old days and he schooled me on the art game. Here are 2 videos of us talking about whats going on with his art and upcoming shows. Also you have to hear the part about him breeding Black Widow Spiders. It’s kind of cool. ……..

-Pep Williams

Click On PEP’S SITE For The Interview

Yesterday I started getting texts and emails from people congratulating me on a mention in a recent Jeffery Deitch interview. Of course I brushed it off as some random mention or whatever, not yet having read the article I went on with my day as usual. When I went to eat breakfast and I still was receiving congrats, Meghan whipped out her phone and we read the article.  I wasn’t prepared for the significance of the mention and when we got to the juicy part about myself I almost threw up my breakfast and held back some humble tears. A sense of nervous excitement hit me like a brick square in my chest. To be mentioned in the article by a man who has the potential to change the perspective on Los Angeles art, was overwhelming. I believe with the name “Saber” comes the importance of representing the genre as a whole, and I cant stop thinking about those who are not with us anymore, as well as the sacrifices we take to continue the Graffiti/Street art movement.

Check Out The Article Below………….

There’s no denying Jeffrey Deitch has a good eye. From being the representative of the Estate of Keith Haring to discovering Swoon, Deitch and his gallery have played an integral role in NYC contemporary art since its inception in 1996. Now that Deitch has moved on as Director of the MoCA in Los Angeles, he reflects on his time in NYC.

Looking back at my gallery during the past fifteen years, I’ve become increasingly aware of how it operated as a private ICA. Most of our programming was not commercial—for instance, the recent Josh Smith show of forty-seven paintings made directly on the wall, which you can’t sell. And, in fact, Deitch Projects was not originally intended to be a gallery.

It was inspired by Art & Project in Amsterdam, with the concept being that I would only invite artists who had never shown in New York and who would not just hang new paintings or photographs but instead wanted to create a project for the space. I would provide artists with up to twenty-five thousand dollars in production or travel money and living stipend; if we sold the work, the twenty-five thousand dollars would be reimbursed and we would split the remaining proceeds. If we didn’t sell it, we could be very relaxed. The artist didn’t have to worry. I would just keep an equivalent amount of work for my own collection to cover the investment and production. And so when you add my personal collection to the conversation, it’s almost like I’ve been running my own private museum and using the art market to fund it. If it became more interesting for me to think about actually directing a real public museum, it was because the gallery was already gradually moving in that direction.

A very important part of my excitement now comes from the museum’s potential as a platform for engaging a broader public. As you can tell from my programs at Deitch Projects, I’m as interested as anyone in esoteric, art-about-art-type artwork. But an experience that really changed my whole orientation began with a conversation with Annie Philbin, who, when she was the director of the Drawing Center, around the corner from the gallery, told me about the opening of her Barry McGee show. At six o’clock she went to unlock the front door, expecting the usual fifteen or twenty early comers, and she was amazed to see the entire street filled with kids, a lot carrying skateboards. I was inspired and, after visiting him in Saint Louis, finally persuaded him to do a show with me. Sure enough, there were a few thousand people in the street the evening of the opening. It turned out that Barry had brought some friends along to “get the word out,” tagging the neighborhood.

This really opened my eyes. Certainly, when we opened in 1996, the art world was already opening up, no longer focusing just on East Coast America and western Europe; artists from countries formerly on the margins of the international art world were beginning to appear, and there was a wider view in terms of gender and ethnicity. But this was a whole new audience for visual art, with an entire countercultural communication system of tags on doorways and stickers on mailboxes. It was an audience of people who didn’t differentiate much between stimulating visual art and a new Quentin Tarantino film or a band like Animal Collective. It was an audience that had a much more intuitive grasp of visual culture than people had when that term was first used decades ago. Now, I’m not saying that this new situation is better than the rarefied art community centered around New York. That’s my foundation; I’ve written on Picasso for this magazine. What I am observing, however, is that visual culture has changed. As a gallery director and soon a museum director, I am adapting to this new audience and the artists who come out of it.

An institution like the Museum of Contemporary Art has to balance between its core art community and a larger one, but this is not about reconceiving the institution. It’s about acknowledging—and this is something Roberta Smith wrote about recently in the New York Times—that museum programming has become very narrow. Many contemporary institutions have tended toward academicism, boxing themselves into a post-Conceptual installation genre that looks only in on itself—with directors and curators, however well meaning, limiting themselves to a set vocabulary of what is acceptable as contemporary art. And this approach has had an impact even on the contemporary museum’s mandate to present the history of art during the past forty or fifty years, particularly when it comes to understanding how different media have been interconnected during that time.

You see, the definitive exhibitions of this period have not yet been done—and certainly not about New York or Los Angeles in the 1980s. Consider how William Burroughs was such a tremendous influence in downtown New York culture. Musicians knew him. Artists knew him. Through him we can see how the cut-up aesthetic pervaded the downtown scene, whether in its novels, poetry, nonfiction, rock music, theater, or visual art. This is not just a story about pop and vanguard coming together. It’s a particular aesthetic that courses through various media, both rarefied and pop, in which one sees a struggle to return to the representational gesture after hard-core Conceptualism and Minimalism. People didn’t want to cancel out these things, but they did seek ways to get out of that corner and into more emotional, figurative expression.

For a museum like MoCA, then, there is a very serious professional audience and there is this big untapped crossover public, which you could see a few years ago at the opening of Takashi Murakami’s “SuperFlat”—for which the crowd was way beyond anything you would get for a similar museum opening in New York. So during my first year, there will be programs embracing the Los Angeles artist community. For instance, in the fall there is “The Artist Museum,” featuring Los Angeles art from 1980 to the present, drawn principally from MoCA’s own collection, and later there will be an exhibition of work by Dennis Hopper, a seminal figure in Los Angeles who was a key member of the Ferus Gallery scene and was in dialogue with artists such as Andy Warhol. (In fact, Hopper offers a remarkable example for contemporary artists, showing how you don’t need to tie yourself to one medium or even to one sphere: With Easy Rider [1969], he was among the first to introduce the 1960s artistic vanguard—given the film’s connections to the work of Bruce Conner—to a wider public, totally changing culture in the process.) And then the other big upcoming show is called “Art in the Streets”—the first ambitious exhibition by a major US museum about graffiti and art inspired by street culture. Here again, a lot of the material comes from LA, where we see a big subculture with a lot of skate and street-brand shops. This show is going to connect with that culture, dealing with artists like Saber, who comes out of the graffiti tradition and its logos and silk screens. This will certainly bring a new audience to the museum.

In thinking about these shows, I’m not just a progeny of Warhol. I’m a child of 1960s idealism, where we really believed that art and a progressive attitude toward life could change consciousness. For me, Keith Haring is a great example of an artist whose work liberated people, who inspired people to liberate themselves sexually, who inspired other people to be more tolerant of people with sexual difference, and who was also warning us about subversive forces in the military, government, business—entities we needed to keep fighting against. True, the work became popular, and it eventually became valuable, but I think it kept this edge. You might lose it a little bit when you see a radiant baby on a teacup, but even then we have to recognize that this was a way to be democratic in art’s distribution. Everybody could have it. And I haven’t given up on that. For me, art will never be something just for a rarefied elite; it’s not just about understanding the philosophy around how an Abstract Expressionist composes a picture on canvas. It’s also about the idea that people can look at a work of art, or listen to a band, and their consciousness can be affected. They’re not going to live the same way, just making progress in their careers, making more money, or gaining at the expense of other people.

I believe in art as a progressive social force. This brings me back to the challenge of building a community around the museum today. Can this happen? In truth, I think it is already changing. Take the Museum of Modern Art in New York: I used to go there every single Friday night during the ’80s—it was how I developed my connoisseurship knowledge—and it was crowded, but it wasn’t that crowded. You could walk right in. You never had a line to check your coat. Now see what it’s like? You’ve got these great crowds on the weekends. The museum obviously has a different function in the city from what it did before. And it has developed programs to engage this public in a way it hadn’t before. The Pipilotti Rist show in the atrium was a great example of that, and more recently there was the Marina Abramović show. I think the Tino Sehgal show at the Guggenheim Museum is another really interesting example of engaging the audience and building a community.

Of course, there is another aspect to building a community that is incredibly important. A couple years ago, when I was on an Artforum panel at the New School in New York, we talked about how the marketplace—the auction houses and galleries—had overtaken the role of the museum in the process of deciding what’s important and valuable in art. So part of my motivation for going into the museum at this historical moment is to reestablish a kind of equilibrium. But this means having to find new ways to gather financial support for museums. In the United States, an institution can’t exist without philanthropists and patrons, so on one hand, the museum needs to create a platform for patrons so it’s exciting for them—so that board meetings aren’t boring but are instead something people look forward to.

On the other hand, museums, unless they have some very, very generous patrons—which they can’t count on—have to open other revenue sources. They have to be more creative and savvy in working with business interests to create different, steady models. One of the things I hope to do is to reinvent the museum shop. Now, I know there are some minefields here—even now, people cite the motorcycle show at the Guggenheim [in 1998] as something that went over the line—but we are looking at a rapidly changing landscape where many advertisers don’t want conventional print or television ads. They want to connect with the community in a more interesting way, and there is subsequently great potential for museums to work with sponsors, for partnerships with luxury and consumer brands. Again, I say there are minefields. But it’s basically creative management—the combination of creative and management community-building experience you would apply to running a music venue or movie studio.

This might seem somewhat unusual now, but over time I do think more people will be drawn into museum management from creative-management backgrounds. It’s all about the development of a community around the museum and making people feel themselves to be truly part of the institution, whether the professionals—the collectors, the art historians—or the larger audience. And to me, this isn’t about getting people in the door to pay fifteen dollars. It’s part of an idealistic mission. Art enhances people’s lives. I believe there is great reward in presenting art that will stimulate people and maybe even change their consciousness.

—As told to Tim Griffin

Thanks to Juxtapoz contributor Trina Calderon for the heads up on this.

Here are some photos I took recently of some real nasty looking spiders.

The second one is an scorpion impostor (Solfugids, not technically spiders but belong to an order of arachnids known for their speed and their large, biting fangs). I think it’s a camel spider or a sun spider.

I found this site called Spiderzrule that has more info on these guys, and loads more images.

Me vs. a can of corn beef hash…..

The Dr. had to turn my shit inside out in order to stich it up. Unfortunetly I didn’t have my camera there.

Catch Saber talking about his involvement in wanting to advance Health Care Reform.

DON’T MISS THIS!!!!

STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT IF YOU AGREE!!!

Nice To Have A Mention In Playboy…… Here’s the whole article. I’ve added the shots of the LA River piece, before and after the buff.

The main point of these was to create some accessible art. I want anyone who wants to become a collector to be able to afford something.  From the carving to the printing and then the hand touching, I like being able to do everything in studio. I printed them on mini pieces of archival paper card stock. They’re in small editions and are priced between $15-$30.

SABERONE.COM SHOP