The three public murals displayed on the exterior walls of the new West Hollywood Library are the fruits of an innovative collaboration between Vanity Fair and Cadillac in partnership with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), and the City of West Hollywood. Underwritten by Cadillac, the project, known as “The West Hollywood Library Murals,” features work from three of the biggest names working in the visual arts today: Shepard Fairey, Retna (a.k.a. Marquis Lewis), and Kenny Scharf. The official unveiling is slated for October 12, 2011.
“The West Hollywood Library Murals” is an extension of MOCA’s wildly popular “Art in the Streets” exhibition on view at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA until August 8, 2011, which traces the evolution of graffiti and street art from the 1970s to the global movement it has become today. Renowned photographer David LaChapelle will capture the artists and their murals for a featured custom portfolio, presented by Cadillac, scheduled to run in the November 2011 issue of Vanity Fair (on sale nationwide October 11, 2011).
For Cadillac, trusting in and persistently following its creative instincts was the notion that led the brand to champion this extraordinary project. Indeed, there is an authentic convergence point between Cadillac’s core messaging and these artists—recognizing risks as opportunities is a hallmark of the Cadillac brand, just as the street artists, through their work, break down and rebuild new paradigms every day. To further this connection, Cadillac provided each artist with points of inspiration based on the core tenets of its ideology: uniquely American, bold creativity that surpasses expectation, and daring ingenuity that breaks all boundaries. Vanity Fair, as cultural arbiter, connected the iconic car brand with MOCA and the artists, a partnership that will result in three powerful works of art that will enrich the City of West Hollywood and the experience of every member of this diverse community.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Retna:
Marquis Lewis, a.k.a. RETNA, began writing graffiti as a child, and by high school, he was a member of the storied graffiti crew LTS (Last to Serve) and executing pieces that broke with graffiti conventions, incorporating mixed media, drips, and nods to calligraphic traditions from around the world. In the early 2000s, RETNA started painting on advertising posters and developing his calligraphic work in screenprints, in textile design, and on furniture. RETNA’s loose, painterly brushwork simultaneously recalls ancient writing from Mayan, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese traditions as well as Los Angeles’s cholo writing, combining these influences to form his own contemporary take on graffiti.
Shepard Fairey:
As a 19-year-old Rhode Island School of Design student, Shepard Fairey showed a friend how to make a stencil, using an image of wrestler Andre the Giant as a tutorial. The resulting “Andre the Giant has a Posse” sticker was initially an in-joke between Fairey and his skateboarder friends, but after he put the enigmatic image around Providence, public interest was piqued. He began a street campaign of stickers, stencils, and posters, posting the Andre image whenever he traveled and mailing stickers to friends and fans in other cities. Inspired by the use of slogans in John Carpenter’s 1988 movie They Live, Fairey paired the command “Obey” with images from tabloids to produce an iconic combination that has since been reworked in countless other forms. In 1995, Fairey introduced the “Obey Giant” face icon, an abstraction of the wrestler’s face, and used it as the core image in his street poster campaign. The following year, he moved to the West Coast and began to exhibit his work in galleries, creating portraits of pop and counterculture icons in addition to his “Obey” iconography. His iconic “Hope” poster for presidential candidate Barack Obama brought the artist international fame. In 2009, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston mounted the first ever museum survey of Fairey’s work.
Kenny Scharf:
In the late 1970s, Kenny Scharf studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he was exposed to subway graffiti and the downtown art scene. He began to work in spray paint, combining it with the traditional media he used in art school. Scharf graduated from SVA in 1980, and a year later he was given a solo show at the famed FUN Gallery in New York. He became one of the principal figures on the East Village art scene, painting both in the streets and for galleries such as Tony Shafrazi, which showed Scharf’s work in 1984. The following year, the Whitney Museum of American Art included Scharf in its biennial. Scharf’s cartoonish renditions of Jetsons and Flintstones characters, distorted into lava lamp–like shapes and floating on wild, outer-space backgrounds, are often painted on huge, wall-sized canvases. His aesthetic has lent itself to popular applications, as well, including nightclub and restaurant décor, clothing, toys, and album covers for pop groups such as the B-52s. Scharf recently returned to the streets of New York, painting a series of store grates with his signature characters and a large mural at the corner of Houston Street and the Bowery—a wall he first painted in collaboration with other FUN Gallery artists in the early 1980s.
ABOUT CADILLAC:
Cadillac has been a leading luxury auto brand since 1902. In recent years, Cadillac has engineered a historic renaissance led by artful engineering and advanced technology. More information on Cadillac can be found at media.cadillac.com.
ABOUT VANITY FAIR:
With its mix of muscular journalism, stunning photography, in-depth reporting, and memorable profiles of the movers and shakers of the age, Vanity Fair has become, by many estimates, the magazine world’s acknowledged arbiter of modern society, power, and personality. Since Graydon Carter became editor in 1992, the magazine has won numerous awards, and has assembled a group of A-list contributors and expanded the magazine’s mandate to cover politics, business, and world affairs. For more information, please visit www.vanityfair.com
ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES (MOCA):
Founded in 1979, MOCA’s mission is to be the defining museum of contemporary art. The institution has achieved astonishing growth in its brief history—with three Los Angeles locations of architectural renown; more than 14,500 members; a world-class permanent collection of nearly 6,000 works international in scope and among the finest in the nation; hallmark education programs that are widely emulated; award winning publications that present original scholarship; and groundbreaking monographic, touring, and thematic exhibitions of international repute that survey the art of our time. MOCA is a private not-for-profit institution supported by its members, corporate and foundation support, government grants, and retail and admission revenues. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Friday; 11a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday; and closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. General admission is $10 for adults; $5 for students with an I.D. and seniors (65+); and free for MOCA members, children under 12, active military, jurors with I.D., and everyone on Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., courtesy of Wells Fargo. For 24-hour information on current exhibitions, education programs, and special events, call 213.626.6222 or access MOCA online at www.moca.org
ABOUT THE NEW WEST HOLLYWOOD LIBRARY:
After two years of construction and many years of planning, the City of West Hollywood is nearing completion of Phase I of the West Hollywood Park Master Plan which includes the building of the highly-anticipated new West Hollywood Library, City Council Chambers and public meeting rooms, CATV facilities, 2.5 acres of expanded parkland and open space, new tennis courts, and 400 parking spaces in two municipal garages. The City Council Chambers, which will accommodate more than 150 people, will also be used for special performances and presentations. The new 32,000 square foot, LEED-certified West Hollywood Library will serve as the centerpiece of the West Hollywood community. It is designed to showcase the City’s rich intellectual, literary and cultural diversity and provide a landmark facility for the community’s passionate commitment to lifelong learning. The Community Dedication and the Grand Opening of the new West Hollywood Library will be held on Saturday, October 1, 2011.
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MEDIA CONTACTS
VANITY FAIR
Giulia Melucci, Deputy Director of Public Relations
212.286.7844
giulia_melucci@condenast.com
Andy Gelb/Stephanie Samson, Slate PR
310.461.0111
andy@slate-pr.com
stephanie@slate-pr.com
CADILLAC
Robyn Henderson, Cadillac Communications
313.269.3256
robyn.henderson@cadillac.com
MOCA
Lyn Winter, Director of Communications
213.633.5390
lwinter@moca.org
Jessica Youn, PR Coordinator
213.633.5322
jyoun@moca.org
