Best Ice-Cream Van Ever!

Monday, Memorial Day, found me at the MOCA Geffen Center downtown, where there’s a huge retrospective of graffiti and related forms of street art, including marvellous works like this – elaborately decorated cars. Wouldn’t you just love to get an ice-cream from this van? The artist is called Mister Cartoon. I am sorry to say that the shot I took of a small child looking at it in awe was too blurry (I was in such haste to get the shot before he walked away). The exhibition is quite splendid, with a huge variety of pieces, including some that were created specifically for the exhibit, said to be the largest ever retrospective of its kind in the USA.

One such site-specific piece was “Wish You Were Here”, by an artist called Mode 2, from Mauritius. He or she drew and painted this wonderful scene (see photo on left) on the wall. I was delighted to see a representative of good old fashioned fine draughtsmanship among all the contemporary techniques done with found art, spray cans, and other more typical forms of street art. (See my earlier post about not seeing enough pure drawing in local art spaces.)

I recommend the exhibition if you are in Los Angeles.

-cvj