Angel "LA2" Ortiz

LA2 came of age in the 1980s when tags adorned the trains, busses and walls of the City and like many kids of that era, he joined the movement and adopted a pseudonym: LA2. By the age of 14, his name permeated the walls of lower Manhattan garnering street fame that led to a chance encounter with another downtown artist, Keith Haring who was 9 years his senior. The two artists became fast friends and began spending their days painting in Haring’s studio and their nights partying at the downtown clubs. As an impressionable teenager, their friendship changed the artist’s life forever as he became introduced to Haring’s impressive art world and its stars: Warhol, Kostabi, and Basquiat. In exchange, LA2 and his TNS crew gave Haring the street cred he needed to navigate the streets with ease to create public art, even on subways, a surface typically reserved for the most daring graffiti writers.