Art In The Streets is the first major museum retrospective of street art – pretty much ever. Basically, the folks at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA attempted to put together one single exhibition that would pay homage to all of the various forms of street art that have developed since the first writers began tagging their names on brick walls in Philadelphia. Before last night I would have said that was a metaphysical impossibility. I stand corrected. The exhibition officially opens on Sunday, April 17th, but thanks to the perks of being a Living Proof slave… er.. author, I got to slide into the private pre-opening shindig. It should tell you something about the scope of this exhibition that the VIP pre-party had about 2,000 people in attendance.

Art In The Streets feels like it will never end. It begins with a room paying dedicated to the roots of graffiti. Once you descend the stairs on to the main floor you enter a world that has never existed in a museum. The exhibition is part funhouse, part performance art, part car show. An entire city block of New York is replicated down to the last spec of dirt on the windows, Neck Face has created some sort of haunted hall, Mister Cartoon’s candy-dripping ice cream truck is stunning. The exterior walls of the museum are tagged with 60 foot tall murals. There is too much to mention. Go see this. If you don’t live in LA, buy a plane ticket. You have time, the exhibition runs through August 8th.

I took some photos, but there was free beer so they aren’t very good.

www.moca.org

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