A Night View
Primary Artists: Helen K. Garber + Duce and a collaboration with Graffiti Writers: Vyal, Reed, Saber, Gzer, Revok, Mears, Cr8, Retna, Cab , Gin, Zes and Glow. It is available for acquistion for your business or home.
Mixed Media Mural combining photography and spray cans 5'6" x 40 foot on vinyl with original applied paint.
Artists collaboration: Helen K. Garber + Duce, Vyal, the Reed, Graffiti Writers: Saber, Gzer, Revok, Mears, Cr8, Retna, Cab, Gin, Zes, and Glow. Assistant Photographers: Eric Poppleton, Curtis McElhinney
Collections - Exhibitions-Publications-Awards
Interview with Helen K. Garber on Noir Photography
Helen K. Garber, an urbanist, feels a camaraderie with graffiti writers as she and they roam the city at night while sometimes forsaking their physical safety to use the urban landscape to create their art. She partnered with Duce, a renowned graffiti writer, to design the collaboration and invite influential writers to her studio to lay down their tags without obscuring the significant landmarks that she painstakingly rendered.
The view of the city was a huge technical achievement, pushing the available software at the time, but Helen felt that her weeks of computer work drained the energy and emotion of the piece. She wanted to add power back into the piece and decided to invite top L.A. graffiti writers to use her print as a surface to tag the entire city at once ceremoniously
A Night View was a commission for the 10th International Biennale of Architecture, Venice, Italy, 2006. The mural is Helen K. Garber's 360-degree panorama of Los Angeles as seen from the helipad of the U.S. Bank Tower. The print for the Biennale is from one piece of 5'6" x 40 foot stretched silk. One hundred forty thousand people attended the 3-month long fair. The first print is stored in Italy, in the archives of the Venice Biennale.
The second print of A Night View of Los Angeles was a commission for the exterior of the front entrance of the 16th International Art Exposition, Photo LA, at the Santa Monica Civic in January 2007.
It was printed on banner vinyl and fastened through grommets to a 40-foot outdoor concert lighting truss to allow it to be windproof and waterproof and no threat to the 10,000 attendees of the fair. It made for a much less elegant installation than the back-lighted, stretched silk indoor exhibit at the Venice Biennale, but still impressive enough for Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa to give Helen a commendation for the beautiful rendition of the city.
Other Exhibitions
Local well-known L.A. Graffiti artists tagged the photograph in Spring 2007 for the Venice Art Walk installation. The second set of tags was added by other Graffiti artists who were unavailable in 2007. While the piece was on exhibit at the Convention Center for the 2010 Los Angeles International Art Show, the second round of tags were done.
A Night View was the featured backdrop of Helen K. Garber-art directed installation presented by the Lucie Foundation, Group LA 2008, An Intimate View of Los Angeles.
A Night View Collaboration was first exhibited on the Westminster School Fence at the Venice Art Walk in 2007, Gallery Skart, Santa Monica, 2009. The Pico Art Walk, 2009, and FADA Los Angeles Art Show, 2010 at the Convention Center, downtown Los Angeles.
Statement
Most residents do not understand the difference between graffiti writing and territorial tagging and consider it all urban blight. And while Helen doesn't condone uninvited graffiti, she views it no worse than billboards, electric wires, and thoughtless urban development such as fortress indoor shopping malls, dingbat apartments, and McMansions created with lots of money but no aesthetic sense.
She presents this piece to enlighten the viewer about the importance of art programs in public schools. Ms. Garber imagines children learning art appreciation with classes devoted to appreciating the urban landscape. That way, she thinks future graffiti artists and future property owners and developers will consider design and aesthetics when they create something that will be visible to the community.
The mural is being offered to secure a permanent home for this auspicious collaboration between well-known graffiti artists from L.A. and Helen K. Garber, photographer.