Pasadena (July 12) – On Friday, July 15th, 89.3 KPCC’s Talk of the City heads to the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A. for an examination of the upcoming Basquiat exhibit and the latest on the Grand Avenue Project. The program will air on KPCC on Friday, July 22 from 2-3 p.m.

Talk of the City Host Kitty Felde will speak with Basquiat co-curators Fred Hoffman and Mark Meyer about the exhibit, which opens to the public July 17.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) began his brief but highly influential career as a graffiti artist, spray painting on subways and slum buildings in New York. In the 1980’s, the prolific artist gained recognition for his bold use of color, his skill for drawing, his integration of text into his paintings, and his exploration of themes such as life and death, wealth and poverty, and integration and segregation. Basquiat’s meteoric rise to fame ended tragically with his death from a drug overdose at 27. This career-spanning retrospective features more than 100 works, many of which will be shown for the first time in Los Angeles.

While in the neighborhood, Talk of the City gets the latest on the $1.2 billion Grand Avenue project which Frank Geary is now slated to design and which aims to transform the sleepy street into a vibrant Mecca of shopping, eating, and urban living. Felde will talk with a panel of experts to find out if this project can live up to the expectations it has generated.

MOCA is located at 250 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Basquiat is on view from July 17 through October 10, 2005. For more information: http://www.moca-la.org/museum/moca_grandave.php

PARKING INFO: Use the Walt Disney Concert Hall garage. Full directions and parking info at http://www.mocala.org/pdf/Parking_directions_CP.pdf?PHPSESSID=f455003772de4f83fc955ee41513cb51

This program is supported in part by Southern California Edison.

Kitty Felde has been named Journalist of the Year by both the LA Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. Talk of the Cityâ is part of KPCC's award-winning newsroom. KPCC is the flagship station of Southern California Public Radio. In the past four years, KPCC has won more awards for excellence in journalism than any other radio station in Southern California. KPCC is also the fastest-growing public radio station in the country, airing the signature public radio news and talk programs from NPR, along with Talk of the Cityâ weekdays from 2-3 p.m. and AirTalkâ with Larry Mantle weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon.