Over the many years that Label Networks has covered graffiti and street art exhibitions and random sightings from Barcelona, Berlin, Venice, CA, and even Reykjavik, Iceland, last weekend, September 29-30 at the Los Angeles River, was one of the most spectacular exhibitions of live graffiti mural paintings we’ve ever seen. More than 200 top international graffiti artists gathered to spraypaint a 10,000+ square foot section of the concrete waterway at the Arroyo Seco Confluence in Highland Park in a two-day exhibition called The Meeting of Styles LA.

Man One, a famous LA graffiti artist and director of the graffiti art gallery Crewest in downtown Los Angeles coordinated efforts with the Friends of Los Angeles River (FoLar) and the international artists collective based out of Germany called Meeting of Styles (MOS) to make last weekend happen. Meeting of Styles events take place around the globe, bringing together artists to paint often discarded areas of cityscapes to bring attention to the beauty of urban environments and to unite the graffiti tribes, share ideas, and explore new possibilities in art. The event last weekend was the first Meeting of Styles in the U.S., prompting not only hundreds of artists to get together, but thousands of spectators who watched either from the top of the LA River bridges, or climbed down into the waterways to view the masterpieces close-up.

Many of the murals were so large, it required two-story scaffolding with 3-4 artists working in tandem to complete oversized characters, shapes, writing, or landscapes. Themes were across the board ranging from new scripts to crickets and grasshoppers, characterizations of people, new galaxies as realized through the eyes of a graffiti artist, and of course an array of vivid colors.

Some artists brought with them entire families who then brought out small hibachis for barbeques while artists continued their work to tunes coming from portable stereos. In the background was the constant tic-tic-tic from spraypaint cans being shaken for another graffiti art-stroke. Many artists knew the work of others, but had never met, which prompted an exchange of black sketchbooks collections, tags, and autographs of others. Still others would work out pieces and designs in their sketchbooks before tackling another huge section of their own creations.

Top artists were across the board, including Man One, Swedish graffiti artist Puppet, Vyal, Sacred Spurn, Asylm, Werc, Krol, Eyeone, and Swank among others. In a rare honor, the Meeting of Styles logo was actually tagged by the original LA graffiti artist, Chaz, using his signature Cholo-Old English text. Scores of artists talked to him and asked for photo poses with the legend. As Chaz described the scene, “If you had asked me 25 or 30 years ago that such a sanctioned event and all of this talent would be together here, I never would have believed it. This is worthy of a documentary—it’s such a rare thing to behold. I’m honored to be with all of these young talented people. However I bet there’s not a mainstream art curator here. It’s hard to believe that to some institutions, what’s going on here is still not considered artistic.” While mainstream art gallery curators may not have been there, CNN and other top media outlets were.

In an interview with Label Networks TV, Man One shares the story of how the event came to happen, its success, and the importance of having it at the LA River to bring attention to the importance of this greenway, and the revitalization of parts of Los Angeles. For example, although the LA River is mostly known as a bleak concert environment, local artists have long sought to express its hidden beauty and alter the perceptions and significance through their artwork. Last weekend, in a rare sanctioned event, the paved riverbanks at the convergence of highway overpasses and a railroad, were transformed into a beautiful, artistic, live and spontaneous “gallery” created from the meeting of styles.

In conjunction with the Meeting of Styles event, Crewest Gallery is presenting RiverCityVisionz which celebrates artwork inspired by the Los AngelesRiverand concrete landscapes through October 6^th (www.crewest.com). The Meeting of Styles LA event and LA River City Visionz with Crewest Gallery and Man OneDesigns will continue as an annual event each year. For information for joining the Friends of Los AngelesRiver, go to www.folar.org.