Art in the Streets

Art in the Streets was an exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles from April 17 to August 8, 2011. Curated by its then-director Jeffrey Deitch and associate curators Aaron Rose and Roger Gastman, it surveyed the development of graffiti and global street art from the 1970s to the present, covering the cities of New York City, the West Coast, London, and São Paulo with a focus on Los Angeles.{{cite web|url=http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?id=443|title=Past Exhibitions: Art in the Streets|publisher=Moca.org}} It was supposed to travel to the Brooklyn Museum from March 30 to July 8, 2012. The exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum was cancelled because of financial difficulties.{{cite web|url=http://sites.moca.org/thecurve/2011/03/09/announcing-art-in-the-streets/|title=Announcing Art in the Streets|publisher=The Curve (MOCA LA)|date=March 9, 2011|access-date=August 21, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140622165553/http://sites.moca.org/thecurve/2011/03/09/announcing-art-in-the-streets/|archive-date=June 22, 2014|url-status=dead}}

By some estimates, it was the most attended exhibition in the MOCA LA's history.{{cite news|title=How Do You Solve a Problem Like MOCA?|publisher=Vanity Fair|date=March 2013|last=Colacello|first=Bob}}

Artists in the exhibition included: Barry McGee, Lee Quiñones, Os Gêmeos, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, TAKI 183, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Chaz Bojórquez, ROA, JR, RISK, Rammellzee, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Angel Ortiz, Gusmano Cesaretti and others.{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/drohojowska-philp/moca-art-in-the-streets-4-15-11.asp|title="Art in The Streets" at MOCA LA|website=artnet Magazine|access-date=2018-04-29}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/arts/design/rammellzees-work-and-reputation-re-emerge.html|title=Rammellzee's Work and Reputation Re-emerge|last=Kennedy|first=Randy|date=2012-02-23|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-04-29|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|quote="A bunkerlike, black-lighted re-creation of the Battle Station was one of the most talked-about pieces in "Art in the Streets," a sprawling graffiti survey last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, organized by the museum's director, Jeffrey Deitch, who as a New York dealer had courted Rammellzee for years."}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnews.com/2011/06/01/art-in-the-streets/|title=Art in the Streets|last=Miranda|first=Carolina A.|date=2011-06-01|website=ARTnews|access-date=2018-04-29}}

In early December 2010 Italian street artist Blu was painted a mural on the side of the museum's Geffen Contemporary Wing to coincide with the exhibition.{{Cite web|url=https://huffingtonpost.com/jaime-rojo-steven-harrington/censorship-moca-has-a-blu_b_796865.html#|title=Censorship! MOCA Has a BLU Tiger by the Tail|website=HuffPost |date=15 December 2010}} Because the work's antiwar theme might be deemed offensive, the museum had it painted over within a day, and anonymous fellow artists avenged themselves by putting up posters of Deitch as an ayatollah holding a paint roller.{{cite news|url=http://archive.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/pl_art_revenge/|last=Somerstein|first=Rachel|title="Burnt Umbrage: Studies in Anger"|publisher=Wired|date=April 26, 2011}}