Correction: The original version of this article contained an error. Michael Cho was a UCLA undergraduate student who was killed two years ago when police shot and killed him after mistakenly identifying him as a suspected tagger.
Los Angeles is losing something. Last fall, local officials began an aggressive campaign to rid the Los Angeles River Basin of graffiti, slathering vibrant and animated paintings and tags with sheets of gray paint.
The project is ongoing, with Los Angeles officials throwing millions of dollars at what some decry as the smothering of masterpieces that can be seen from satellite. This project has drawn heated arguments and has inspired UCLA’s Art History Undergraduate Student Association to create an exhibition examining the issues that the clean-up project has raised.
“(Today), graffiti is erased, but it’s a very complex issue because it’s not only art and culture, it’s free speech,” said Yoonkyung Lim, a a second-year master of fine arts student. “Policemen try and investigate the taggers because of gang problems.”
From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, the group will host an opening reception for their fourth annual exhibit, entitled “Lost Angeles,” in the Powell rotunda. Though the L.A. River Basin project was the initial idea behind this year’s exhibit, which is on display until May 23, the artwork explores more complex issues stemming from the project.
“We hope that the show will make people think about what constitutes art in L.A.,” said second-year art history student Melissa Liu, club president and exhibition curator. Despite the more abstract questions on the table at the exhibit, the inspiration for the show is not very far away.
Jacob Patterson, a fifth-year art history student and member of the Art History Undergraduate Student Association, has been making graffiti and street art in Los Angeles for a year and a half. Patterson had intentions of painting in the basin before the clean-up project began.
“Today, graffiti artists are being treated in the exact same way that modern artists were treated earlier ““ people would refuse to put their work in studios,” Patterson said.
Patterson compares the graffiti clean-up project to the silencing of past modernist masters. He uses this correlation as the basis of one of his pieces for the “Lost Angeles” exhibition. His work includes a portrait series of modernist artists Marcel Duchamp, Ellsworth Kelly and Jackson Pollock, with each of their individual artistic styles as an homage to their influence on him and on modern art.
Lim’s work examines the social issues arising from street art. Her video installation and posters commemorate Michael Cho, a UCLA undergraduate student who was killed two years ago when police shot and killed him after mistakenly identifying him as a suspected tagger.
Though many consider graffiti as art and a valuable part of Los Angeles culture, others call it vandalism.
Though the clean-up project is a hot bed of passionate debate, a look around the Powell rotunda at the “Lost Angeles” exhibit allows viewers to form their own opinion.