guerilla art | SUNSETandCLARK.blog

Forget the Walk of Fame—West Hollywood’s alley walls are where legends like MJ and Ali are immortalized in raw, street-level glory.

By Mac Davis Fleetwood

In West Hollywood, legacy is not confined to curated museum walls like at LACMA or the Getty. Instead, it spills out in the quiet shadows of WeHo’s forgotten blocks, just past shuttered nightclubs, empty warehouses, and graffiti-scarred alleys. Here in the Creative City, a unique and captivating kind of idolization festers—louder, rawer, and more honest than anything you’ll find embossed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Take a turn down an alley just south of Santa Monica Boulevard and off Sycamore, and suddenly you’re face to face with a pair of familiar eyes that stop you in your tracks. Piercing, soulful, surreal. It’s the immortal King of Pop, Michael Jackson, or at least the memory of him, rendered in rich colors, framed by waves of soft pastel lines that ripple across his face like soundwaves from a song you can almost hear. His expression is both ethereal and human, as if watching over the sacred Hollywood streets he once danced across in music videos. MJ isn’t just remembered here. He’s revered in a saintly glow.

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Metal-Loving, Groundbreaking Urban Artists–and a Few Superstar Creatives–Are Turning L.A. into the Guerilla-Art Capital of the World. Eat Your Heart Out, East Village

By David Ciminelli

Hanging out in NYC’s East and West Villages in the ’80s/early ’90s, it wasn’t uncommon to spot cool and edgy urban art left by creative transplants like Keith Haring and Mark Kostabi and locals like SAMO/Basquiat and Robert Longo. (Nowadays, you can still find some of these celebrated artists’ sidewalk carvings and fading murals throughout NYC, if you know where to look.)

Today, throughout Greater Los Angeles, there’s a new crew of mega-talented street artists leaving an artful touch on the cityscape and transforming the Sunset Strip and various parts of L.A. into an attention-grabbing urban art gallery of wickedly-creative pop art. Prolific standouts in the urban jungle of creativity include current and future superstar artists like ThrashBird, Becca, Annie Preece, Alec Monopoly, David Flores, Plastic Jesus, Phil Lumbang, Cyrcle., ThankYouX, Wrdsmth, Teachr1, ImHuge, Trusto, SepterHed, Homo Riot, Mr. Brainwash and Destroy All Design.

Take a virtual tour below of these and other artists’ amazing artwork that Sunset and Clark has stumbled upon over the past few years during our travels up and down the Sunset Strip, from the PCH to DTLA, and throughout the Southland. A few world-renown artists, including the edgy and awe-inspiring Banksy, Kenny Scharf, Retna and Shepard Fairey, also gifted the City of Angels with colorful original creations, both sanctioned by the city and guerilla-style. Check ’em out and get inspired by awesome artworks that all share a rock and roll edge.