LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art, in partnership with Vans, the action sports footwear and apparel brand, presents limited-edition lines of footwear and apparel featuring art by California artists Judy Baca, Brenna Youngblood, and Frances Stark, as well as designs inspired by MOCA’s iconic logo. Launching for Holiday 2021, all Vans x MOCA products will be available on November 12, 2021.
Born and based in Los Angeles, Dr. Judy Baca (b. 1946) is a muralist whose public works have shed light on the lives and hardships of disenfranchised communities for more than 40 years. Her best-known work, The Great Wall of Los Angeles (1974-1984), is a half-mile-long mural in the San Fernando Valley, completed in collaboration with more than 400 local youth and their families. Baca’s Vans x MOCA Old Skool shoe features a design inspired by her work Hitting the Wall, Women in the Marathon (1984), a mural commissioned for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles that commemorates the first time women were admitted to compete in an Olympic marathon. The design is also featured on the collection’s Judy Baca Jacket, while another Baca work–Triumph of the Hearts (1990)–decorates a fleece pullover.
"I particularly love the way that Vans placed the central image on the toe and that this is actually raised embroidery for the nopal. That's because I told them that for a long time I never signed my works. I simply put the nopal as a symbol of me," said Baca.
Hailing from Riverside, Brenna Youngblood (b. 1979) is a lifelong California artist whose work reconsiders the art of assemblage, combining found materials and discarded artifacts to create work that addresses issues within the culture around her and in society at large. Youngblood reinterprets the Vans Authentic with her signature abstract and colorful style, giving her prints a 3-D aspect that capitalizes on negative space.
"It's interesting, I actually use slip-on shoes as a material in some of my latest paintings. Now seeing my work and signature on these Vans is really special,” said Youngblood.
Throughout her career, Frances Stark (b. 1967) has explored a fascination with the subcultures of Southern California: skateboarding, punk, rap, and the city of L.A. itself. Stark’s love of Los Angeles is memorialized in her own version of the Old Skool, which features a hand-drawn map illustrating the streets that have inspired her for decades.
“The talented Southern California misfits that turned me on to the best art were punk skaters wearing Vans. My art is in museums, but this is a higher honor,” said Stark.
The Vans x MOCA partnership also features Vans’ most iconic silhouettes reimagined with MOCA’s logo–first created by graphic design icons Ivan Chermayeff & Tom Geismar in the 1980s–and a playful green-and-white dot pattern. The full Vans x MOCA collection includes a cotton canvas coaches jacket, cotton 5-panel adjustable snapback hat, plus the SK8-Hi and Classic Slip-On footwear silhouettes.
