Photo by xxjetlab via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr A week ago Sunday, the London paper, Mail on Sunday, revealed "compelling evidence suggesting" the identity of the famous and anonymous street artist, Banksy, as Robin Gunningham. To date Gunningham nor Banksy's agent or spokesperson, have not confirmed this. And a note from Banksy's on his website says "anyone described as 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me." Banksy frequented Los Angeles and......

On October 28, 1966, commuters between Malibu and the Valley were surprised by the image of a large, running depiction of a naked woman. Sixty feet tall, painted in pink house paint, she was quickly dubbed The Pink Lady. At first, there was much speculation as to the artist and the purpose of such an image. Due to the subject matter, it was assumed to be a man. It turned out that this mysterious image......

Confronting the paparazzi is one thing, but to confront a tagger always leads to the same headline: someone is shot trying to interfere with a tagger. Yesterday, a businessman confronted two taggers who were defacing a business near Hollywood and Vine. He's currently in the hospital in "critical but stable condition," according to Ruby Malachi at the LAPD. Detectives have some good leads and did serve one search warrant last night in Tujunga, but no......

Earlier we did an interview with director Jon Reiss about his graffiti documentary, Bomb It. Here we offer a gallery of photos featuring some of the work and artists featured in the film from all over the world. If you really want to get your graffiti fix on, check out the Bomb It Flickr site.......

Bomb It! A documentary on graffiti art opens today. / Photo by C-Monster via LAist's flickr pool. FILM* John Reiss’s graffiti documentary Bomb It! premieres tonight. The film begins chronologically with artists like Cornbread, “King of Walls” in Philly and Taki 183 in NYC and traverses the globe to Spain, France, Germany, South Africa, following the controversial art form. 10:10 pm // Laemmle Sunset 5 // 8000 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles // $7-$10. THEATRE......

In 1999, director Jon Reiss brought the electronic/rave scene to audiences with the documentary feature Better Living Through Circuitry. Reiss now returns with another kinetic documentary, this time exploring the controversial art of graffiti in Bomb It. Shot with vivid colors and set to an energetic soundtrack, the film investigates the history of graffiti while profiling artists all over the globe. Featuring old school legends and current favorites such as Taki 183, Cornbread, Stay......

Cyrus Yazdani, 24, who is known on the streets as Buket, was arrested after videos of him allegedly tagging around Los Angeles were posted on YouTube. Los Angeles County Sheriff's had been looking for him for awhile and finally caught up with the by-day Las Vegas convention planner/by-night alleged prolific street tagger with a criminal record (see videos here of him on a freeway bridge and tagging a bus in downtown during the middle of......

Back in March, three guys taped themselves scamming Del Taco in order to get free food, which is essentially stealing. They put the whole how-to guide on YouTube, which led to their arrest. Now, another artistic criminal has gotten himself arrested after posting videos of him tagging around Los Angeles. He's done $150,000 worth of damage, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department estimates. Another video of "Buket" tagging a Metro bus in the middle......

This past week, an international exchange called LA Goldrush brought graffiti artists from Italy to Los Angeles. Now in it's second year, organizers Raptuz (Milan) and Man One/Crewest Gallery (Los Angeles) created a series of events throughout the city, one that many witnessed on Winston St. at the Downtown Art Walk on Thursday. Over the weekend, the artists hit two spots. On Friday and Saturday, they created permanent murals at The Hollywood condo development near......

Saturday morning in the parking garage of The Hollywood | Photo by Tom Andrews/LAist LA Goldrush is an international exchange of Graffiti artists from Italy visiting Los Angeles this week. Now in it's second year, organizers Raptuz (Milan) and Man One/Crewest Gallery (Los Angeles) have created a series of events throughout the city, one that many witnessed on Winston St. at the Downtown Art Walk on Thursday. Yesterday and today, in an event closed......

A cool and rather large crowd of art lovers attended last night's fun Downtown Art Walk; enjoying an evening of great works, good music & yummy food. Next month's artwalk is scheduled for Thursday, June 12th. Check out www.downtownartwalk.com for more info and if you need more reason to go, here are seven.......

Photo by consiglieri80 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Have you been talking about anything else this week? Grand Theft Auto 4 is set to break all kinds of records today. Not only are they ugly, they are hazardous to your health! New safety warnings are being issued for Mario Batali's signature footwear, Crocs. More first-person reports from the Los Angeles Times Book Festival over at LA Observed. Some badass large-scale guerrilla......

$10,000 reward and four lifetime passes to whoever returns a giant pig....

After confronting a tagger in Garden Grove, a man was shot four times in the upper body, according to police. The incident took place around 10 p.m. Sunday night at the corner of Robyn Court and Trask Avenue. The victim is listed in critical condition and undergoing surgery at UCI Medical Center in Irvine. The man is expected to survive. Last year, two women in separate incidents were murdered by taggers in Whittier and San......

Photo by LAist Contributor Julie Wolfson Streetartist MBW has been changing up the art on this wall on La Brea north south of Olympic every few weeks. He got into street art by making a movie on it, but he never finished-- and ended up becoming an artist while trying to promote it. Art seen at this very same spot include the Mona Lisa and Marion Cottillard pieces. Now he's gone Star Trek. Could......

Photo of Herakut in their process by Carmichael Gallery Germany street art duo, Herakut, is in Los Angeles this week and on Monday they hit up Melrose clothing store Barracuda's roof. Herakut's first U.S. art show opened Saturday night with great success at the Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art in West Hollywood. Also, regarding the Charlie Chaplin on Laurel Canyon Blvd. readers were asked to help identify on Monday has been revealed. In an......

Like Blek le Rat, who had his first U.S. show last week at Shepard Fairey's Subliminal Projects, more European street art comes to Los Angeles for an American debut. Tonight, from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., Herakut's show, Streichelzoo (“petting zoo” in German) opens at Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art in West Hollywood and runs through through May 4. Of Frankfurt and Erfurt, Germany, respectively, Hera and Akut emerged as two of the strongest young......

Photo by kpe II via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr GRAFFITI German graffiti artists, known as Herakut, takes over the walls of Carmichael Gallery starting tonight. The artists will be there celebrating their first show stateside. Open bar. 8 p.m. // Carmichael Gallery // 1257 N. La Brea Ave, West Hollywood // (323) 969-0600 // Free DRIVE-IN Hedwig and the Angry Inch is shown tonight on a giant wall while you sit......

Before Banksy and Shepard Fairey there was Blek le Rat. The French street artist is quite possibly the first person to use stencils for graffiti, a style he pioneered to veer away from the NY city tags he had witnessed. His first stencils of life sized rats invaded the streets of Paris in the early 80's. From there he moved to stencils of popular icons of culture and some self portraits. To say he is......

Photo by hello_winnie via Flickr Oh, that nefarious and elusive Osama bin Laden is at it again... Someone tagged the side of a cargo container of a truck that arrived at the Long Beach Harbor. It read "Anthrax a gift from Osama." The mid-morning incident prompted a hazardous materials investigation while normal operations continued at the port after the truck was brought to a more secluded area. "The truck driver told authorities the container......

Remember that scene in I Am Legend where we see a gas station selling a regular gallon for $6.63. Well if we're lucky those prices won't hit us until 2012, along with vampire zombies. In the area baptized as Hel-Mel (Heliotrope and Melrose) you'll find this amazing mural. In it the major oil companies are depicted as blood thirsty hyenas. Appropriate for the area as it is the unofficial Bicycle District of LA. Well at......

New mural of Madonna and Britney Spears making out, found in Los Angeles I Photo by Osmany Rodriguez for LAist> Remember that one time Madonna and Britney Spears made out in front of millions of people, and more importantly Brit's ex Justin Timberlake. Before the new Tila Tequila MTV where girl-on-girl kissing is encouraged, preferably in front of parents.......

Before Halo, before Gears of War, before Doom, there was Space Invaders: the first intergalactic shoot 'em up video game. If you're a child of the 80s you probably spent way too many hours at the arcade or with your Atari playing this classic game. A French artist, known only as "Invader," has taken the alien figures from the game and transposed them to the streets of the whole world. Using ceramic tiles he......

Bikes and graffiti are on tap for today. / Photo by Lush.i.ous via LAist's flickr pool. GRAFFITI ART Ghettogloss presents the graffiti art of Jersey Joe in Silverlake. The exhibit runs until March 20, but the opening reception is tonight from 7-midnight. 7 pm // Ghettogloss // 2380 Glendale Blvd #C, Los Angeles // Free. RIDE & TALK * RIDE-Arc monthly ride -- themed "Trolly" -- happens tonight. The group rides along for awhile......

New mural of Marion Cotillard, Oscar winner, found in Los Angeles I Photo by Osmany Rodriguez for LAist> That's Marion Cotillard, this year's best actress winner at the Academy Awards. Pictured is a mural depicting a moment from her very sweet Oscar speech. Sadly my name isn't Olivier, I am at the moment providing 0.00% of rock to Marion's world. She's referring to Olivier Dahan, her director in the Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie......

Photo by Andrew at Here in Van Nuys A couple weeks ago, Andrew Hurvitz at the Here in Van Nuys blog snapped this photo of the Sherman Way tunnel under the Van Nuys Airport and questioned the state of security. "Is it just my foolish and suspicious imagination that sees this tagged up tunnel as something which raises questions about security at Van Nuys Airport?" he asked. "This is evidence that security right on......

God, sometimes we love Orange County. It's such a parody of itself at times, which we admire. Especially when it comes to brilliance like the following found over at Laughing Squid. You see, the city of Santa Ana (oy) wants to help parents determine, via the graphic above, whether or not their child is a rat bastard tagger. The city of Santa Ana's site explains their accusatory and unfair image, along with the final word......

Drinks with Digital LA tonight at Bodega Bar in Santa Monica (and yes, this is not the Bodega bar) / Photo by C-Monster via LAist's photo pool. FILM I am so scaaared. Writer/director Eli Roth (Hostel) continues his reign at the New Beverly in “The Greats of Roth” series. Tonight, he’s screening the double-feature of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980), an earlier film that deals with a missing documentary film......

Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist Who knew an early Monday morning post about graffiti on a mural posthumously made famous by singer/songwriter Elliott Smith would lead to such wonderful results. Nearly six months ago, then-editor of LAist, Tony Pierce, posted a photo of the graffitied wall stating that "this is why we can't have nice things." Then, on Monday, reader Robert T. wrote an e-mail attaching a photo of a new tag on the wall.......

On my way to dying my hair pink and eating yuca tacos, as apparently all Silver Lake residents do, I saw some work being done on the Solutions! wall. Yes, the same one we reported on today, which had been horribly defaced. Some Silver Lake locals took it upon themselves to bring the mural, which serves as an Elliott Smith shrine, back to its former splendor. The wall will now be a canvas ready......