Graffiti tower debate shows Los Angeles’ contradictory relationship with street culture
LA TimesGraphic artist Levi Ponce stands for a portrait with a mural he painted of photographer Estevan Oriol’s “Danny Trejo, 2011” on Van Nuys Boulevard as part of a community beautification project on March 21, 2024, in Pacoima. It was a formal recognition that graffiti artists are central to Los Angeles’ identity, but I couldn’t help but wonder about the gesture’s sincerity. But in downtown Los Angeles, the graffiti tower’s neighbors are the Crypto.com Arena, luxury housing developments, and boutique law firms and hotels — well-capitalized businesses that do not depend on foot traffic. “It just depends on where.” It’s impossible to draw a clean line between art and vandalism when it comes to graffiti, said Susan A. Phillips, a professor of environmental analysis at Pitzer College and author of “The City Beneath: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti.” Focusing on that question blinds you to the real reasons graffiti exists, she said. I have talent.’” Ponce enlists graffiti artists as volunteers, a strategy that turns potential rivals into stakeholders, he said.
History of this topic
Downtown L.A.’s graffiti-wrapped skyscrapers become permanent — in a tattoo
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Forget the graffiti. L.A.’s most notorious skyscrapers have a much bigger problem
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L.A. joins ranks of cities with ‘ghost towers’ with graffiti-covered Oceanwide Plaza
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Four more trespassing arrests made at graffitied downtown skyscraper
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Two arrested in connection with tagging graffiti-covered L.A. skyscraper across the street from Grammys venue
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Column: Vandalism or street art? What the graffiti-tagged high-rises say about L.A.
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