LA's museums reinvent themselves; MOCA features street art

Aliza AbarbanelStaff WriterThe hipsters came in droves. Armies of teenagers clad in flannels, floral dresses and boots flooded into The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA on Saturday, May 14 to attend a museum event, one where gallery walls were covered with the newly iconic scrawl of graffiti artists and Odd Future’s stark beats drifted over the walls into the darkening sky. The message projected was clear — the art world and its followers are changing.Changing the GameAll over Los Angeles, museums are reaching out to high school students, whether the featured exhibitions are on Tim Burton or Rodarte — both being hosted at LACMA — or, like MOCA’s “Art in the Streets,” encompass the edgy genre of street art and the culture it spawns. The exciting “First Fridays” food truck culture has caught hold at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, where the entire museum stays open late, DJs and live bands come to play music and, of course, food trucks come to park. In short: museums are shedding their boring rainy day label and becoming cultural hot spots.Pictures at an ExhibitionMOCA’s “Art in the Streets” is not simply a street art exhibition; it aims to explore the culture behind the movement. After walking around the metro bus smothered in graffiti parked outside the entrance and past the skate ramp in the opening room, the visitor embarks into the world of street art.Huge Polaroids of tattooed, half-naked partiers hang on the walls next to monitors blazing with rap videos and skateboarding tricks. In one blacklight-lit room, glowing Transformer-like robots and a cow skull line the walls; another canopy-draped nook displays an incredibly intricate three-dimensional cut paper sculpture.Just around a bend, street art in its most iconic sense and truest habitat is displayed, for beneath the fluorescent ceiling lurks a fabricated ghetto. Huge neon signs advertising stores hang in front of gated tattoo parlors and automated spray paint wielding mannequins use the grimy “city” walls as a canvas. Vending machines lean up against the bar “The Church of the Open Tab,” partially obscuring the heaps of cans piled within.The English street artist Banksy is among the most talked-about artists of this decade. His uncommissioned artwork adorns city streets with brilliant sociopolitical commentary, and his film, “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” was nominated for an Oscar just a few months ago. Therefore, it is only sensible that an entire branch of the exhibition is dedicated to this artist and his work. Banksy’s most famous works, including his “Crayon Warrior” piece, line the walls; a still image from the infamous Rodney King tapes with a pastel piñata substituted for the limp form of Rodney King hangs across the way from a solemn portrait of a Native American man holding a “No Trespassers” sign. The focal point of the room, a hooded man praying at a chapel adorned with graffiti instead of stained glass, points to the street artist’s near-religious fervor for his work.The gallery then becomes maze-like, and the seemingly simple task of viewing all the work becomes daunting. Perhaps the aim of the exhibition is not to have visitors see the entire show, but to envelop them in the experience. Instead of making sure to see every last work down to the macabre clown ice cream truck, study the crime that has become an art form.Close to the exit, street art and its history are outlined in a timeline. Beginning in 1989 with the famed SLICK/HEX graffiti war — in which the two highly regarded street artists did battle with spray cans for four days, using imagination and paint to outdo one another — it continues to Banksy’s 2010 Oscar nomination for “Exit Through the Gift Shop.”Street art, fashion, the inspiration of a film director — all are fodder for Los Angeles’ museum exhibitions. As local museums start to widen their definitions of what art is, audiences should widen their gaze and their artistic palates as well, transcend the barrier between them and the art itself.