West Coast graffiti legend, SABER, best known for creating the world's largest graffiti piece (in the L.A. River, back in the 90s), just took graffiti bombing to a whole other level today!
As his way of protesting the Los Angeles' mural moratorium he got some skywriting jets to "tag" over City Hall. The planes "threw up" Twitter hashtags like #ArtIsNotACrime and #EndMuralMoratorium. The planes also wrote monikers of some of the crews and graffiti artists that Saber associates with (and/or respects), such as: Risk, Retna, Revok, Obey, Dream and many others.
The LA Taco blog was the first to report and post photos of this unique art installation. They also had some very good commentary, saying, "The Mural Capital of the World, has been able to find massive amounts of public space for corporate advertisements, but not for works of art. The city spends more than $10,000,000+ on graffiti abatement programs, but none on mural programs that divert young artist to legal walls to display their art. Existing murals are crumbling and the city’s best artists are forced to go to Europe and other US cities to display their largest and best works."
Indeed, as the LA Weekly also pointed out, it has become OK for the city to flood skyline with billboards for advertisements, but it's not cool to have beautiful public art. Some might remember, earlier this year, a property owner had to cover up some very-well done graffiti art that had been commissioned by young artists because the city deemed it as "illegal advertising." And, just today, the beautiful work that had been done on private property in Santa Monica to raise awareness for Heal the Bay, also had to be taken down.
As his way of protesting the Los Angeles' mural moratorium he got some skywriting jets to "tag" over City Hall. The planes "threw up" Twitter hashtags like #ArtIsNotACrime and #EndMuralMoratorium. The planes also wrote monikers of some of the crews and graffiti artists that Saber associates with (and/or respects), such as: Risk, Retna, Revok, Obey, Dream and many others.
The LA Taco blog was the first to report and post photos of this unique art installation. They also had some very good commentary, saying, "The Mural Capital of the World, has been able to find massive amounts of public space for corporate advertisements, but not for works of art. The city spends more than $10,000,000+ on graffiti abatement programs, but none on mural programs that divert young artist to legal walls to display their art. Existing murals are crumbling and the city’s best artists are forced to go to Europe and other US cities to display their largest and best works."
Indeed, as the LA Weekly also pointed out, it has become OK for the city to flood skyline with billboards for advertisements, but it's not cool to have beautiful public art. Some might remember, earlier this year, a property owner had to cover up some very-well done graffiti art that had been commissioned by young artists because the city deemed it as "illegal advertising." And, just today, the beautiful work that had been done on private property in Santa Monica to raise awareness for Heal the Bay, also had to be taken down.
So, much props has to be given to Saber for calling out City Hall on this. Let's see if anything happens. Also, stay tuned to The 7th Letter site for more pics and updates...
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