Angel Ortiz (now known as LA Roc or LA II) was 14 years old in 1981 when he began his fateful collaboration with Keith Haring. Haring, who called him "the graffiti king of the Lower East Side," had searched Ortiz out after seeing his "tag" all over NYC upon his arrival from Pennsylvania. "My friend told me: 'There's some white guy with funny glasses and a tight ass looking for you,'" Ortiz relates. Ortiz would teach Haring his signature "high and tight" style and how to spray paint an image. Haring relates in his authorized biography: "I was so crazy about LA II's tag that I asked him to collaborate with me...The images consisted of his signature and my own."

 

Ortiz was one of the earliest and best-known of an exuberant generation of street artists who would transform how America thought about art--indeed, what people would consider art. Today Street Art, or Graffiti Art, has found its home in the most prestigious collections and museums.