THE NEW MASTERS OF GRAFFITI
by Caroline Ryder
As crowds flock to LA for the biggest-ever retrospective of street art and graffiti, we showcase the artists most likely to follow in the footsteps of Banksy and Shepard Fairey.
The rise of the leading pop-art movement of our time has been somewhat improbable. From the clanging, dirty New York subways that were its first canvases to white-walled galleries in London, New York, or Tokyo, graffiti has entranced teenagers and art collectors alike. Now the movement’s birthplace is finally recognizing its most wide-reaching visual-art phenomenon with the first major museum exhibition to pay homage to the artists (or vandals, depending on your point of view) whose canvases are the urban streetscape.
“Art In The Streets”, which opened last month at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, honors graffiti – and its hip young sibling, street art – with an exhibition spanning 30,000 square feet and featuring 50 artists, a number and size unprecedented in the movement’s history.