Opened: September 2021
The Museum of Graffiti is pleased to announce the opening of Escape From Los Angeles, a solo exhibition of new and recent works by SABER, the Los Angeles graffiti artist and activist. The exhibition opens on September 10, 2021 and will be on view through mid-November 2021.
Rising to international fame at the age 21, Saber created the world’s largest graffiti piece on the bank of the LA River, which was visible and documented by satellites in space. Over years of dedicated and often dangerous illegal painting, Saber’s work has helped bring public awareness to the true art form of graffiti. The artist’s upcoming solo show, Escape From Los Angeles, contains a body of work created during a year of self-isolation and quarantine. During the time spent inside his home studio, the artist created a body of work that reflected upon his current reality at home versus his life as one of Los Angeles’ most notorious graffiti writers. The artist’s color and light intensive pieces show the results of his research on brain chemistry and his current experience living with repetitive grand mal seizures. These works will be presented together with darker pieces haunted by the specter of Los Angeles’ intense urban landscape, filled with danger, looming police helicopters, fires, and of course – graffiti. These pieces reveal the vantage point of the graffiti artist that once lurked in the night seeking public locations to enhance with art. The drawings and paintings will be presented with a large-scale mural made with modified fire extinguishers, filled with paint – a tool typically used by the most extreme graffiti vandals.
The decision to focus on his studio practice instead of creating art in the streets has allowed for the artist to dive deeper into abstraction and move beyond using letters and graffiti as a source of inspiration. His escape from the streets to the studio has allowed him to remove the illegal aspect of street graffiti and push the boundary of abstract graffiti.
“The rapid cleaning and eradication of illegal graffiti in our cities creates a challenge to artists, so I figured let’s start with a big, beautiful drippy and raw fire extinguisher tag, right there in the middle of the museum,” said Saber. Museum of Graffiti co-founder Alan Ket adds, “Graffiti and its proliferation can become easily invisible to the average commuter. As an activist and artist, SABER has been pushing boundaries with his work creating meaningful dialogue for the public. The paintings show Saber’s versatility and his ability to channel the energy and style he once painted in the streets.”