Ian Cox

Ben Eine, a former Lloyds of London agent who has met great success with a hand designed font named Vandalism, appropriately oversized and placed in illegal spaces (even on the façade of L.A. Weekly in 2011), hates to do solo art shows.

"It means I get all the attention," he tells L.A. Weekly in an alley late Friday night, as he prepares for his opening at Corey Helford's Circa Gallery the next day. "In a group show, I can aim for having the best painting in the show, but a solo show? I guess I'll always have the best painting -- and the worst."

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Rojelio Cabral

TEMPT ONE's 3D graffiti sculpture in 2011 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, a collaboration with ANGST, EYEONE, DEFER, PRIME and SLICK

Anyone that is a fan of American graffiti art knows about the legacy of TEMPT ONE. His iconic hand style, taking from his Chinese and Mexican roots, is believed by a lot of fellow graffiti artists to have helped put Los Angeles on the map. He is known for harmonizing the precision of Chinese calligraphic lines with the boldness of classic serif Los Angeles "cholo" letters.

TEMPT ONE was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease in 2004 and became fully paralyzed, except for his eye movements. But he can draw and talk thanks to an open-source DIY device called The EyeWriter, which tracks his eye movements. It was developed through an unlikely friendship with a stranger, Mick Ebeling, founder of the Not Impossible Foundation, with a lot of help by the Graffiti Research Lab.

A fundraiser auction and screening of a documentary about him, Getting Up: The TEMPT ONE Story, was held on Saturday night at the Downtown Independent theater, organized by his lifelong graffiti crew-mate and close friend, ANGST. The proceeds went towards funding his 24-hour upgraded care. A handful of TEMPT supporters showed up and took home some original works by featured artists that donated their time, such as Shepard Fairey and DUKE, and photos from graffiti historian Steve Grody. An original piece by CHAZ sold for a mere $550, when they normally go for $2,400. All for the love of TEMPT ONE.

We reached out to TEMPT ONE and asked him a few questions about life and graffiti, and how it feels to have the support of fellow highly-admired graffiti artists.

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L.J. Williamson

Street art is a commentary on the nature of ownership, and the push-pull between public and private property. Using the city as a stolen canvas is in and of itself an artistic statement that art hemmed into the confines of a gallery or museum could never make.

The questions that street art raises -- "who does this city belong to?" and "who gets to decide what it looks like?" will always be a source of tension -- the sort of tension inherent in city life.

Pop star Chris Brown, of "F.A.M.E." fame, has placed himself at the center of that sort of tension in his Hollywood Dell neighborhood by painting a tableau of monster faces on his otherwise elegant home. The ensuing conflict with neighbors, which made front page news and which Brown plainly courted, can be framed a number of ways, but primarily it's an argument between "a man's home is his castle" versus community standards.

Like great architecture, great art installations seek harmony with the surrounding environment -- or if not harmony, then a pointed juxtaposition. Driving up Rinconia Drive in the lushly overgrown Hollywood Dell, when one happens upon the Brown home, the effect is neither. The curbside paintings stick out, to be sure, but in an opportunistic, rather than a deeply considered way. Round the corner and there they are, but the images aren't as glaring on the the approach as one would suspect from newspaper photos -- because of their orientation on the street, passersby view them from the side rather than head-on. In fact, most of Brown's paintings are tucked away into the recessed portions of the house's façade, seeming downright discreet.

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Hanksy

Weird Gal Yankovic

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying

Banksy is so 2010. Hanksy, the similarly secretive street artist and love child of Banksy and Tom Hanks, is reaching his own level of notoriety thanks to his celeb-inspired murals, the subject of Gallery 1988's upcoming exhibit, "How the West Was Pun," which opens May 24.

A couple of years ago, the Brooklyn-via-Midwest, 20-something law school dropout started spray painting Hanks' mug on stenciled images of Banksy in New York, which led to a couple of gallery shows. He's put up similar work in Chicago. (Dude even made it to the White House).

Earlier this year, Hanksy began lurking in our midst, creating street art inspired by Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Ellen DeGeneres, James Franco, Bradley Cooper and Christopher Walken, and accompanied by funny tag lines, in Hollywood along Melrose, Downtown and Culver City. You may have come across "Cage Against the Machine," "The Walken Dead" and our personal favorite, "Weird Gal Yankovic."

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Calamardojo, photo courtesy of Wonderland Gallery

Belin

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*Los Angeles' War on Street Artists

At the back of Kat Von D's High Voltage Tattoo shop, 20 distinct spray-painted faces stare back at you. This detailed mural wraps around the wall space in the parking lot, the shock of red hair on Von D's head standing out from the crowd.

The tattoo vixen and TV personality didn't employ just anyone to do the job. She flew out an artist who'd never been to L.A. -- Spanish street artist Belin. He completed the task back in 2010 (and appeared on Von D's reality show LA Ink) and will now show his exhibit "True or False Superheroes" at Kat Von D's Wonderland Gallery in West Hollywood, opening tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. and running through July.

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Gabrielle Canon

Fabian Debora

See also:
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week

Fabian Debora stood on the railing of a busy I-5 Freeway, just beyond Hollenbeck Park, watching the cars zoom by. Blood spewed down his mouth and onto his water-soaked shirt -- consequences of the manic escape from his mother's home where she had discovered him doing meth.

Haunted by his children's faces and the hurt he had caused, he fled in shame to this spot, where he planned to end his life. Voices shouted in his head, beckoning him to do what he had come to.

"The voice said, 'You worthless piece of shit, kill yourself,' and it's starting to sound scary and its sounding like a demon...and it's getting louder and louder and I just said 'Ahhhh I don't want to hear this!' I ran across the freeway. First lane, second lane, third lane. There was no turning back."

Debora's story nearly ended that day. It is a story laced with sadness and loss, tragedy and regret. But most of all it is a story about an artist's mission to heal himself, help his community, and bring attention to the forgotten area of Los Angeles -- his home neighborhood, Boyle Heights.

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Eva Recinos

GHLA features murals like this one, done by graffiti artist VYAL

Graffiti. Mostly on the streets, sometimes in galleries and always in heated art conversations, this spray-can form of expression remains a huge part of Los Angeles' identity.

Looking to create a supportive, communal space for experienced and budding artists, the recently-established Graffiti House L.A. focuses on offering graffiti artists the opportunity to create indoor pieces, meet other artists and pick up commercial work. Located right off the 101 freeway near Silver Lake, GHLA opened its doors about a month ago thanks to the efforts of a group with very different talents -- currently, 22 members work in creative, marketing and development teams. The unassuming building blends in with the rest of the street and the interior reveals a long hallway dotted with office doors.

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BLU at Tou Scene, Nuart 2010

In Stavanger, Norway, every September for the past 12 years, Nuart, one of the largest street art festivals in the world, transpires. Closeted in the beautiful Fijords, Stavanger is a quaint, oil-rich community with a high standard of living, sometimes making the list as most expensive in all of Europe. However, it is not easy to get to, rains 20 hours out of every day (at least in the fall) and has a zero tolerance law when it comes to tagging and graffiti. A perfect spot to host preeminent street art and its artists?

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Mark Mauer

A work by Sharktoof from 2008

This piece is part of our package on L.A.'s war on street art, including:
*Los Angeles' War on Street Artists
*Fuck New York: Street Art Began Here in L.A.

1. The Boy From Downey: Bumblebee

Street art isn't very big in Downey. "People go to work, go to school, do it all over again," Bumblebee says. "Growing up, you know you're an artist, but you're told not to be one. It's all building up inside of you."

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ART IN THE STREETS, THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY AT MOCA, PHOTOS BY GREGORY BOJORQUEZ, COURTESY OF MOCA

L.A.'s Mister Cartoon works on his exhibit at MOCA's landmark street art exhibit in 2011

This piece is part of our package on L.A.'s war on street art, including:
*Los Angeles' War on Street Artists
*The Secrets of L.A. Street Art: Bumblebee, Sharktoof and Linelinedot Discuss Their Work

More stories on street art from L.A. Weekly:
*Our cover story on MOCA's "Art in the Streets" exhibit
*Harry Gamboa on Asco, the Legendary L.A. Performance Group
*Photos of lowriders at a Mister Cartoon signing

Some were amused when Los Angeles filmmaker Jon Reiss' timely, 2007 documentary about the reignition of hipster interest in global street art, Bomb It, identified New York in the 1960s and '70s as the genre's ground zero.

Sure, the likes of Taki 183, Cornbread and, later, Futura 2000 helped pioneer and popularize street art via their subway tags and bulbous spray-can trips. All hail that, indeed.

But Mexican-American youths were glorifying their names and neighborhoods decades before that, in letters just as large and fantastic -- and they were doing it in Los Angeles.
It's no coincidence that L.A. is the art form's new capital. It was the old one, too. Here, Eastside street gangs dating at least to the 1930s, including White Fence and Maravilla, marked their turf with corresponding graffiti.

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