It may seem impossible to imagine, but rock music never dated classical till the Beatles, and before Run DMC married rock and rap there was no love between the two. Hardly seems worth mentioning now as the subgenres of music propagate nearly weekly – have you seen the Techno Hippie Disco people in your neighborhood yet?

Cryptic, Chor Boogie (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Likewise, it seems like only a decade ago the chasm could not have been wider between hardcore graffiti writers and the relatively new Street Artists popping up on the street. It’s not that the two didn’t know each other and see each other at barbecues and even get drunk together sometimes, but their divisions and personal alliances disallowed hanging out regularly. Those Cold War years are being chopped away brick by brick like the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, and a new language borrowing vocabulary from graffiti, street art, fine art, advertising, and pop/punk/hiphop/skater/cholo/tattoo culture continues to emerge in ways we never thought of before.

Cryptik, Chor Boogie (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

The current show at Hold Up Gallery in the Arts District of downtown LA called “Hi-Graff” reveals the lengths that artists will go to work together these days, and the results are a surprising hybrid. Photographer Carlos Gonzalez took these shots to illustrate what curator Brian Lee refers to as graffiti’s “embellishment period”.

Says Gonzalez, “Hi-Graff” is “an impressive show featuring some of graffiti’s greats as well as some notable up and comers. ” It’s a thrilling sign to see everyone can actually get along, and with frequently stunning results.

Foreground detail NICNAK, Background Cryptik, Chor Boogie (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

“Clearly, the show succeeds in more ways than one and it points very much toward a street art movement where trends and talents can all merge into one cohesive unit, both inside a gallery space and on the concrete streets,” Carlos Gonzalez

Left -Vyal, Defer, Slick. Right -Cryptik (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Right Wall -Cyrcle. Left Wall -Risky, OG Abel (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Left Wall -Cyrcle, Teal. Center Wall -Augor, Zes, Bonks, Right Wall – Vyal, Defer, Slick (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Bonks (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Augor, Zes, Bonks (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Left -RTSYSTM, Right-Andy Rios  (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

James Haunt (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

(let to Right) NICNAK, Axis, Rick Ordonez (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Left Wall -Vyal, Defer, Slick. Right Wall -Spurn, Codak, Kym CBS (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Left Wall -Spurn, Codak, Kym CBS. Right Wall -Risky (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Spurn, Codak, Kym CBS (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Codak, Spurn (photo © Carlos Gonzalez)

Carlos Gonzalez is a contributor photographer to BSA. To see more of his work click on the link below:

www.facebook.com/CarlosGonzalezPhotography

“Hi-Graff” at Hold Up Art

Featuring the work of Alec Monopoly,Augor,Cache,Chor Boogie,Codak,Coto,Cryptik,Cyrcle,Defer,Free Humanity,Midtz,Rick Ordoñez,RISK,ROOTSYSTM,Slick,Spurn,Teal,Vyal, and Zes

On View May 7th-June 2nd, 2011

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