Yes, year-end lists. Not even street art is exempt. But hey, 2011 was a banner year for the Los Angeles street art and graffiti communities, as they enjoyed plenty of worldwide attention. LA Weekly put together the ten L.A.-related street art and graffiti stories that we think were most remarkable in 2011.

Read more: LA Weekly

THE UNDERBELLY SHOW
Private View 30th November or by appointment
General Opening 2nd December 8-10 pm
Open to the public 2nd December – 5th December
South Beach Miami

8 November- After a full year underground, The Underbelly Project is resurfacing this December in Miami during Art Basel. Presented in its own pop up gallery from 1 December – 5 December, the show will feature original artwork from many of the 103 international artists that participated in the hidden subway project. This exhibition will highlight the essence of the abandoned New York City station known as the Underbelly.
Workhorse has stated: “The New York Underbelly was an important chapter for us, but the story hadn’t been comprehensively told. The Underbelly Miami show gives us a chance to present the broad scope of documentation – Videos, photos, time-lapses and first hand accounts. The project is about more than just artwork. This show gives us a chance to show the people and the environment behind the artwork“

PAC has stated: “While the experience each artist had in their expedition underground can never be captured, it is my hope that this show will highlight some of the trials and tribulations associated with urban art taking place in the remote corners of our cities. Too often the practice of making art in unconventional venues remains shrouded in mystery and I hope this exhibition will shine a faint light on those artists who risk their safety to find alternative ways to create and be a part of the cities they live in.”

Included in the show are street, graffiti and fine artists alike. The full line-up of artists include: Faile, Dabs & Myla, TrustoCorp, Aiko, Rone, Revok, Ron English, Jeff Soto, Mark Jenkins, Anthony Lister, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, M-City, Kid Zoom, Eric Haze, Saber, Meggs, Jim & Tina Darling, The London Police, Sheone, Skewville, Jeff Stark, Jordan Seiler, Jason Eppink and I AM, Dan Witz, Specter, Ripo, MoMo, Remi/Rough, Stormie Mills, Swoon, Know Hope, Skullphone, L’Atlas, Roa, Surge, Gaia, Michael De Feo, Joe Iurato, Love Me, Adam 5100, and Chris Stain.

Fashioned to simulate the rawness of the abandoned station four stories beneath the bustle of New York City, the exhibit will attempt to capture the experience of artists’ that were invited leave their creative mark four stories beneath the city streets. The show will feature video footage of artists at work, still documentation, as well as recorded sounds heard in the tunnel.

Exclusively at The Underbelly Show, the unreleased We Own the Night: The Art of The Underbelly Project book, will be available as a limited edition collectors boxed set before the public release in February. This boxed set will include a hard cover book along with 9 unreleased photos packaged in a hand crafted oak box engraved with the names of each artist that contributed to the project. Before the general viewing there will also be a book signing featuring many of the aforementioned artists.

The gallery will be located at 2200 Collins Avenue, South Beach in Miami, FL.

The Underbelly Project

In 2009 PAC and Workhorse started a project in an abandoned subway station in New York City. Over the course of a year and a half they invited over 100 contemporary artists to leave their creative mark inside the station. Working illegally, the project worked towards documenting a cross section of contemporary art, free of the commercial restrictions of the traditional gallery environment. Once the project had come to and end, the entrance was sealed trapping the art inside and creating an ephemeral time capsule. The project received praise internationally, including a front-page article from The New York Times.

THE UNDERBELLY PROJECT

REVOK / TRIUMPH & TRAGEDY / VICIOUS GALLERY / DEC. 3RD from WWW.REVOK1.COM on Vimeo.

Shot And Edited By NOAH BANKS

Statement from the Artist:

9.19.2011

End Mural Moratorium. Art Is Not A Crime…

The reason I hired five jet planes to sky write over City Hall and downtown Los Angeles is to bring awareness to how ridiculous a moratorium on public art is.

The city states that all public murals are signage, effectively banning art from the walls of Los Angeles. And it is removed at the taxpayers’ expense. Money is given to private graffiti removal companies, who have broken onto private property to paint murals beige. The owners of small businesses where murals have been painted have been harassed and threatened with fines if they do not remove the artwork. Police officers raid homes and places of work, intimidating artists and building owners. During this time of economic crisis, “mural signs” are an easy target for the city to extract money. This moratorium is a clear violation of the first amendment right to free speech and enforcement for these unreasonable laws is a complete waste of taxpayer funds.

To put things in perspective I recently visited the beautiful set of murals inside the Terminal Annex Building on Alameda. This mural was painted in 1941-44 and was funded by the “Works Progress Administration” (WPA). Murals are just a part of the legacy of a national program that put the country to work during the Great Depression.

Fast-forward to the Great Recession, taxpayer money is now used to obliterate all traces of the artwork my generation have created. I believe this is city-funded censorship pushed by lawmakers with personal vendettas. Potential jail time is more probable for us than the opportunity of creating an artistic legacy for the next generation. In a city that used to proudly call itself the “Mural Capitol Of The World,” the officials who enforce this ban should be ashamed to call themselves “Angelinos.”

Art Is Not A Crime… End Mural Moratorium.

- SABER

Tell Mayor Villagaigosa and the L.A. City Attorney’s office to end the mural moratorium now:

Long War on Public Art in Los Angeles County

Click on the links below for more information:

* Mural Ordinance Update to the Cultural Affairs Commission

Heal the Bay House (Santa Monica – 2011) photo: saberone.com

* The ‘Heal The Bay House’ was created to by Risk and Retna raise awareness for Coastal Cleanup day.  RESTORE AND PROTECT THE WORLDS OCEANS is written in complex lettering on bands of color representing sky, pollution and water. A spokesperson for Heal the Bay called it “a powerful and beautiful way of reminding people of the value of the ocean,” but not everyone agreed. The day the artwork was unveiled, the city ordered an immediate take down and demanded a $5000 a day fine. Saber was on the scene to describe the cops initial response. While many in the upscale community wanted it to stay up longer, public pressure succeeded in keeping the artwork up through Costal Cleanup day.

* Despite the ban on murals, the Art District of downtown Los Angeles remains a “Haven for ‘Street’ Murals”

Fairfax Avenue Mural by Renta, Rime, Revok, Norm, Os Gemeos, Saber. Photo by Melrose and Fairfax

* One week before the opening of MoCA blockbuster exhibition Art in the Streets, a private contractor working for the city of Los Angeles broke into fenced private property to buff a mural by several artists featured in the upcoming controversial show. The building owner and surrounding community were furious and stopped the whitewash halfway across the mural. The contractor was forced to come back the next day remove the dull beige paint.

* A North Hollywood woman on a fixed income commissioned a 75 ft. mural  to brighten the alley next to her home, but Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety inspectors concluded that a single word included in the fanciful swirls and other spray-painted designs turned the piece into an illegal “sign.” Facing mounting fees and unable to pay $10,000 for a permit, she was forced to have it painted over. One of the young men who painted it over said “Instead of this, the city ought to be fixing potholes. Let the art survive.”

* The owner of the Studio City Car Wash had an artist paint The Great Wall of Studio City but the 64-foot-long mural is threatened with a $1,000-a-day fine for violating city codes.

* City council panel’s take on the ‘mural vs. commercial sign’ debate in June of 2010

* Private residents commissioned the artist, Phil Lumbang to paint this cheerful mural on the front wall of their home, but the city’s Building & Safety Department found the mural violated the city’s restrictions on outdoor advertisements and they were told they must paint over the illegal mural. A commenter said “I live just up the street from this house and I miss the mural every time I pass by.”

* Despite protests, as of 2009 murals continue to be outlawed.

Photo: knowngallery.com

* The SABER piece in the LA River, with reputation for being the largest graffiti piece had drawn admirers from around the world for 12 years before it was buffed by the Army Corps of Engineers and city sub-contractors.

* In 2007, the graffiti gallery Crewest, along with help from the activist group Friends of the L.A. River (FoLAR) organized “Meeting of Styles: LA.” The event brought together over 100 graffiti artists to spray paint a 10,000 square foot section of the L.A. River at the Arroyo Seco Confluence in Highland Park. Despite the fact that the organizers secured all necessary permits for the mural project, and that the event was fully licensed by the county; supervisor Gloria Molina objected to the work after the fact and introduced an emergency measure to the County Board of Supervisors that forced the mural to be whitewashed from the flood walls. A spokeswoman for Molina called the legal graffiti murals a “public nuisance and a potential safety hazard,” and justified Molina’s decision to introduce the mural’s removal by saying the county was “trying to save lives.”

* It wasn’t always like this, back in the 1970’s more than 400 mural productions were supported through the Citywide Murals Program under the Department of Recreation and Parks before the program was disbanded. The non-profit SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) was founded in the spirit of work like The Great Wall of Los Angeles.

A view of “America Tropical,” partly whitewashed. (Credit: PBS)

* Of course, this sort of thing has a long history in Los Angeles. In 1932, David Alfaro Siqueiros painted America Tropical in a rooftop beer garden on Olvera Street. The mural’s centerpiece featured a crucified Indian, hovered over by an imperial American eagle. The part of the offending mural that could be seen from the street was covered almost immediately; the rest was whitewashed within a year.

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SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Obey, The Seventh Letter, Upper Playground, Juxtapoz Magazine , Willie T, and the amazing people at Worldwide Sky Advertising

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Radio Interviews With Saber On The Project And Petition:

KCRW Which Way, L.A.? Interview

KPCC Patt Morrison Interview

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A superhero among the spray-can set and one of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department’s most wanted vandals, the artist known as Revok, aka Jason Williams, has had quite an eventful year. On the heels of his work for MOCA’s “Art in the Streets” show, Revok captured headlines after his most recent arrest (for missing a court appearance) April 21 at LAX. His subsequent bail was set at a record high for vandalism, $320,000, and he was sentenced to six months in jail for unpaid property restitution of $3,700. He served 44 days, yet hasn’t painted an illegal mural or committed art crime in Los Angeles for years……  READ MORE

By Shelley Leopold

REVOK1.COM

KNOWNGALLERY.COM

Here we come to the end of the Art In the Streets show at Museum Of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. Over two hundred thousand people came to see the show. I would say the show was a huge success!  Over ten years ago I can remember scratching my name on the toilet seats in the museum restroom hoping that someone would notice my name. Now I can say I painted a huge mural on the museum walls with many of my friends working besides me.  Thank You to the people at MOCA for allowing us this opportunity to share our art work with the people…. This may be the end of “Art In The Streets” but its only the beginning for art in the street.

Art Work Rebels In The MOCA

“Outside In” Trailer

As Their Work Gains Notice, These Painters Suffer For Their Art

The Devil Wears A Pink Suit: A Response To “Radical Graffiti Chic”

Citing Finances, The Brooklyn Museum Cancels Plans For Graffiti Exhibit

PERSEVERANCE from WWW.REVOK1.COM on Vimeo.

KNOWN GALLERY

More Amazing Shots HERE

I’ve been following Delta career’s for years. I think he’s one of the most amazing graffiti artists alive. He’s in the fore front of pushing this art form to the next level. Haven’t had the opportunity to paint with him yet, but hopefully our paths will cross at some point.

Only Time Will Tell from Vans The Omega on Vimeo.

Revok tells the story of the wall:

“I just finished a wall in LA with Rime, Askew and Deus from Auckland, Vans from Australia, Score from Berlin, Dabs & Myla, and Witnes…

“Instead of the typical bullshit, everyone decided on the phrase ‘Only time will tell’ with the wall being divided into four sections, with each section representing a change of season… Using that as a starting point, everybody built on that and went in their own direction, some of us getting dumber and more retarded than others.

“The assignment went as follows… VANS/ RIME/WITNES; Winter, with VANS on letter detail painting the phrase ‘ONLY’.

“DABS/MYLA/SCORE; Spring, With SCORE on letter detail painting ‘TIME’.

“REVOK/RIME; Summer, REVOK on letter/background detail painting ‘WILL’

“ASKEW/DEUS; Fall, ASKEW on letter detail painting ‘TELL’.

“I’m pretty proud of the outcome, as I’m sure so is everyone else involved… There are a lot of stupid little details and jokes throughout the wall we all had a lot of laughs coming up with both intentionally and by accident.

“A big thanks to ASKEW for shooting the final shot and putting in the labor stiching it all together.” -Revok.

Here’s Rime’s account of the “stupid little details”;

Dysfunctional points of interest:

* Coked up Charlie Bronson Yeti saying “AAAAARRRGGGHHHH” to a timid young chick.
* Santa says yes to 4LOKO.
* Jesus turning tranny was unintentional. The legs were on the wall first. Intended to come randomly from behind the “Will” piece. Later I sketched up Jesus chillin’ at the beach. Revok said I sketched it too small and too far over to the left. I ended up buffing the first Jesus sketch out and painted it larger and more to the right. It took us a good two hours before we connected the possibility that the legs could be Jesus’s. Tired and late as fuck we laughed about it and embraced the idea… Fuckin’ Tranny Jesus!”

Music Credits:
Jesus I was evil by Darcy Clay
The Flame by Black Keys
Numb by Portishead

On Tuesday night, Hollywood’s historic Egyptian Theatre unveiled the documentary, Outside In: The Story of Art in the Streets, created in the Levi’s Film Workshop and directed by the talented Alex Stapleton. Shown in front of a packed theater, the film takes a closer look at MOCA’s groundbreaking Art in the Streets exhibit (covered) while focusing on a number of artists including Saber, Risk, Shepard Fairey, Mister Cartoon and Revok just to name a few……..

By Carlos Gonzalez

MORE WORDS AND MANY MORE IMAGES HERE

“Outside In” Trailer HERE