2011

HuffPost Arts and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) hosted a presentation and panel discussion presented by Brooklyn Street Art founders Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo this past Saturday at the Ahmanson Auditorium with 150 guests. Five days after the closing of the record breaking “Art in the Streets” show at LA MOCA, which was seen by over 200,000 visitors, BSA charted some new ground going forward in the ever evolving graffiti and street art movement.

Panelists having a lively discussion at “Street Art Stories” hosted by HuffPost Arts and LA MOCA at Ahmanson Auditorium at MOCA Grand in downtown Los Angeles. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

The panelists, who included HuffPost Arts Editor Kimberly Brooks and Street Art phenom Shepard Fairey, watched a presentation by Harrington and Rojo about a new storytelling direction that artists are bringing to the streets of New York and other cities around the world. With examples of relative newcomers not seen by many in the audience, they pointed to precursors from the last 40 years to this storytelling practice and questioned how its sudden growth may be evolving what we have been calling “Street Art” for the last decade.

Steven P. Harrington talks about community murals and memorial walls to illustrate antecedents to the new movement of storytellers who engage passersby on a greater level than in the recent past.  Shown is a community mural by New York’s Tats Cru shot by and © of Martha Cooper.  (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

After a conversation with panelists Brooks, Fairey, Marsea Goldberg, Ken Harman, and Ethel Seno that covered topics like the paucity of females in the street art scene, the influence of the Internet on “getting up”, and the significance of personal engagement in the work of many of today’s new street artists, Harrington and Rojo opened the discussion up the auditorium. Here topics ranged from LA’s evolving approach to Street Art to include public and permanent art, the influence of money on street artists, and how a show like “Art in the Streets” effectively influences the next generations’ perception of street art.

The packed event was interesting enough to bring many audience members down to the stage after the show to continue the conversation and meet the panelists and LA MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch, who took great interest in the presentation, talked with a number of people before taking off. Fairey, with his wife Amanda at his side and a healing black eye from his recent trip to Copenhagen (see his account for HuffPost Arts here) gamely took on questions from many and posed for pictures after the event and at the reception which HuffPost hosted afterward.

During the presentation, Brooklyn Street Art talked about the use of Street Art as a way of addressing a variety of social and political issues, including this example of Shepard Fairey and the topic of peace. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

BSA co-founder and Director of Photography Jaime Rojo introduces the panelists. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

(photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

(photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Brooklyn Street Art Co-founders Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington converse with esteemed panelists at “Street Art Stories”, hosted by HuffPost Arts and LA MOCA.

Contemporary American Painter and the Founding Arts Editor of the Huffington Post, Kimberly Brooks next to street artist Shepard Fairey at “Street Art Stories” Panel at LA MOCA. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

(photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Shepard Fairey, Marsea Goldberg, Ken Harman, and Ethel Seno. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Marsea Goldberg, Director of New Image Art Gallery in West Hollywood, who since 1994 has launched or mobilized the careers of artists such as Shepard Fairey, Ed Templeton, Neckface, Faile, the Date Farmers, Judith Supine, and Bäst just to name a few. Next to Ms. Goldberg is Ken Harman, Managing Online Editor at Hi-Fructose Magazine, the owner and curator at Spoke Art Gallery in San Francisco, and the creator and editor of the the “Art of Obama” website. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Ethel Seno, Curatorial Coordinator for the MOCA exhibition “Art in the Streets” at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and the Editor of the book “Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art” published by Taschen. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Shepard Fairey at “Street Art Stories” Panel at LA MOCA. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

(photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Street art photographer Jaime Rojo of Brooklyn Street Art. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Edward Goldman, LA art critic, Huffpost blogger, and host of KCRW’s “Art Talk” for 20 years, poses a question on the effect of a big museum show like “Art in the Streets” on the new generation of would be street artists. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Seno and Harman (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

The Ahmanson Auditorium for “Street Art Stories” at LA MOCA (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Thank you to Kimberly Brooks and our great panel. (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Director of LA MOCA and co-curator of “Art in the Streets”, Jeffrey Deitch, talks with Shepard Fairey after the presentation and panel (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

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SPECIAL THANKS TO:

MONICA ROACHE, JESSICA YOUN, CHRIS RICHMOND, DAVID BRADSHAW, JEFFREY DEITCH, LYN WINTER, PATRICK IACONIS, TANYA PATSAOURUS, TRAVIS KORTE, MELINDA BROCKA, TINA SOIKKELI, EUTH, ANDREW
HOSNER, CARLOS GONZALEZ, KIMBERLY BROOKS, MARSEA GOLDBERG, KEN HARMAN,SHEPARD FAIREY, ETHEL SENO, THE MOCA MUSEUM STAFF AND SECURITY,

THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES (MOCA), BROOKLYNSTREETART.COM, HI-FRUCTOSE, JUXTAPOZ,

IMAGES IN PRESENTATION BY JAIME ROJO WITH ADDITIONAL PHOTOS BY MARTHA COOPER, REVS PHOTO BY BECKI FULLER, and FAUXREEL PHOTOS BY DAN BERGERON