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LA graffiti artist Chaka (Daniel Ramos) moves his work from the street to the studio. His solo show "Resurrection" opens Saturday night at Mid-City Arts.
Chaka was arrested in 1990 at age 18 and charged with 48 counts of vandalism, trespassing and causing $500,000 in property damage. At the height of his tagging career, he left his mark in 10,000 locations from Orange County to San Francisco.
Here's the LA Times article that chronicled his arrest:
Ramos was arrested the morning of Nov. 28 by Los Angeles police officers who say they caught him scrawling "Chaka" with a marking pen on a traffic light pole at San Fernando Road and Humboldt Street in Lincoln Heights.The prosecutor who has charged him with 48 counts of vandalism and trespassing calls him the most prolific tagger ever in Los Angeles. Ramos allegedly has inscribed his tag in fat looping letters taller than his 5-foot-4-inch frame and also has scribbled smaller versions of it on lampposts, concrete curbs, brick buildings, Southern Pacific railroad cars and, it would seem, every available nook and cranny in the city.
"That idiot has managed to paint everything in Southern California that I've seen," said Lt. Rob Waters, of the Los Angeles Police Department's Northeast Division, where the arrest was made. "He considers himself an artist, you know. In the L.A. area alone, this guy is good for half a million dollars in vandalism, bare minimum."
Well the tagger has become a bona fide artist, and for Chaka’s fans as well as street art collectors, Saturday night will be a rare chance to meet the man who moved graffiti from NY's "wildstyle" to his clearer, block lettered style.
Chaka's "Resurrection"
Mid-City Arts
5113 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles
Opening reception from 7-9 pm on Saturday
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chaka rules!!! :)
yeah... vandalism is awesome.
yup!! :)
I go back and forth with graf. I understand it's artistic relevance, but it's also shitty for those affected, and the link to gangs and all that. But there's the element of danger and anarchy that is so relevant in the work...I don't know.
yeah, $500K in property damage is not cool. that's crap.
while i understand artistic expression, i think it's fucked up to think it's cool or funny to destroy someone else's property in order to express yourself.
can we make him pay restitution for the damages?
you got to be kidding me? perhaps you and that bitter LAPD officer should run after chaka with pitch forks and chase him down? obviously being ARRESTED AND CHARGED in 1990 wasn't enough for you.
say what you might about graffiti art, but he was the guy that got on the local news back when i was a kid. a lot of LA youth thought he was the shit. riding the 5 and seeing chaka was awesome. it's ok if you don't get it.
hm...murders and rapists also got on the local news back then. do you think they're the shit too?
And the difference between Chaka and Shepard Fairey is?