Renaissance & Rebellion - Flipbook - Page 13
CHAZ
BOJÓRQUEZ
UEZ
CHAZ BOJÓRQUEZ is a luminary in the old days of lawless invention and
the new world of fine art’s global embrace of street art, especially in Los Angeles,
who, after 40 years of building a living legacy, is today more creative and prolific
than ever. His career began as a graffiti writer who tagged mostly in the Arroyo Seco
and Highland Park, where his Señor Suerte became the first known stencil tag 30
years before there was a Banksy, and was adopted by the Avenues gang as a symbol of
protection they called “Mr. Lucky”. He has pursued a refinement of these poetically
vandalizing impulses between then and now – resulting in a unique combination of
legible passages, invented fonts, and familiar symbols that describe, depict, and evoke
the cultural and linguistic mash-up he inhabits. He is known as the Godfather of
Graffiti – but he has also found success and acclaim in the adjacent realms of fine art,
publishing, and design, producing work for gallery – and increasingly, institutional
– contexts. Art-world success notwithstanding, his compositions tenaciously refer to
the risky impulses that inspire maverick writers to festoon their cities with emblems of
individual existence, contested history, political dissidence, and cultural resistance.
CALIFORNIA
20
LOCOS
At Risk Rock’s studio
