Last month, Art in the Streets opened at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. It was ENORMOUS, what felt like 30,000 square feet of open space, dedicated to the various forms of street art: graffiti, installations, sculptures, photos, cars, airbrushed trucks, and murals. Three hours wasn’t enough time to get through it all. I left the museum feeling spellbound.





WHY WAS I THERE?

I made a video that was featured in the retrospective for the artist/ performer, Rammellzee. I have come to know Ramm over the last nine years, and was given the opportunity to make a four minute video for him. Details can be found in an earlier post.

I made the film (as well as my college thesis) on a cheap Dell computer, using After Effects 5.0 and a digital camera, (kindly leant to me by Rammellzee). Images were cut up in photoshop, spray paint blotches were cycled and filtered, and photos of New York were taken. One day, Ramm and I shot footage of the Williamsburg bridge together. Once in Brooklyn, he treated me to Peter Luger (my first and only time). Unforgettable.

The results of the video were gritty, and experimental. The perfectionist side of me winces at what I produced at the time. And yet, the lack of polish seems appropriate. Upon completing the video in 2002, I would have NEVER imagined seeing it in a museum.