"Fuck the Pigs" 2022

Josh “Bagel” Klassman (Photographer) & Jayme “VISION” Burtis (Artist) have been friends since 1986. Both are from Venice. Both grew up surfing the Venice Break Water when it wuz off limits to the rest of the world, as well as skating, hanging out at, hiding from the cops at their own sub-station, and hitting up the walls in paint and marker at the Venice Pavilion (RIP) in its hay day. Josh has documented Venice since he wuz 14, his photos are a personal view of the scene and world he and Jayme grew up in. Jayme has been drawing and painting since he was a young child, then in his teens he got into Graffiti Art and joined the world famous Graffiti Crew WCA taking on the name VISION. Both have solo careers in the photography / art world and have been in many shows, locally, nation wide, and world wide. Then in 2020 they decided to team up and make collabs out of their photos, art, and words, to tell the story of their friendship and unique culture of Venice and the world they grew up in back in the 1980’z & 1990’z. Dangerous, volatile, diverse, and all that fun crazy trouble this town can provide, are well represented in their pieces. it was the perfect time to be a teen and young adult, it wuz still the wild west. Venice is a sea of interesting characters, Josh and Jayme being two of them. Their collabs show the character of the people, places, and things during the era that Venice wuz called Ghetto by the Sea. “I’ve always said that growing up in Venice wuz all a beautiful disaster, same with me and Jayme’s collabs, each piece is a beautiful disaster and the stories are told in every square inch of those pieces of ours”.