Skip to Content
Art

Anthony Rokin is a Street Artist Who Makes Art by Recycling Advertising Posters

DSC_0248
Artist Anthony Rokin collects paper from all over the Los Angeles, then organizes it depending on location, color, etc. and uses it to create new works of art that comment on the very materials he recycles, and their place in the urban landscape.  The piece above, from the arts district in downtown LA, mostly consists of advertising posters from Hollywood (one of the artist's main sources for recycled paper).
Some of his pieces are site specific to emphasis a particular place, while others can emphasis movement throughout the city and the neverending parade of advertisements strung up at street level.  The posters he gathers are often from the wooden temporary "fences" around construction sites and empty lots, or telephone poles. Individual pieces of collected paper can vary from small flyers to 8 x 10 ft sheets of layered poster.
DSC_0246
Rokin d0esn't recycle other street art, although at times it gets mixed in naturally since some artists post work in advertising spaces and paper sticks together.  According to the artist, it's not about the specific ads, it's about the paper itself and how it serves as "malleable flesh that is receptive to the variety of forces in the urban environment".  He often returns to the piece multiple times to tear away and re-attach layers of paper, emphasizing the transient nature of anything put up in the city and thus subject to its environment.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from L.A. TACO

Scoop: City of L.A. Facing Over 120 Claims For Damages Related To Anti-ICE Protests Amid Financial Crisis

Since 2019, the city of L.A. has paid out more than $430 million in liability claims related to policing, according to Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office. More than 40 percent of those payouts are listed as “civil rights/excessive force” claims.

Daily Memo: ICE Returns to Downtown LA ISAP Office, Increases Raids in the Inland Empire

ICE returned to the ISAP office after a week-long hiatus, and another woman has died after release from ICE custody.

April 8, 2026

The Best Restaurants in L.A., According to Punks

Here's a guide to where today's grittiest punks eat.

April 8, 2026

You Can Now View a 20-Foot Map of U.S. Detention Centers at The Huntington

The “Borderlands” exhibition draws a line from past to present, as experienced by contemporary artists pioneering their fields.

April 8, 2026

Daily Memo: ICE Shoots At Man in Central Valley and ICE Takes People in the Coachella Valley and Glendora

ICE continues to conduct raids and traffic stops, taking three men from their work truck in the Coachella Valley.

April 7, 2026

We Mapped All 64 TACO MADNESS Competitors, From Palms to Pomona

Did you know that our list of TACO MADNESS competitors doubles as a foolproof guide to try L.A.'s absolute best tacos? Here is a Google Map of them all. Happy taco hunting.

April 7, 2026
See all posts