Photo: How graffiti artist Droyce’s trickster take on the Hollywood sign rethinks dead public space

From slivers of gray rooflines in Los Angeles’ industrial zones, to tucked-away corners under freeway stacks, graffiti has a way of occupying and transforming unused urban spaces.

In his 1974 book, “The Faith of Graffiti,” Norman Mailer wrote of the phenomenon:

”... those wavelets of ego forever reverberating upon one another, could have risen like a flood to cover the monstrosities of abstract empty techno-architectural twentieth century walls where no design ever predominated over the most profitable (and ergo most monotonous) construction ...”

Like a lot of Mailer, it’s pretty melodramatic. But he touches on something I’m quite intrigued by: the ways in which a simple spray-can tag can draw your eyes to a space that was designed to be ignored.

Such is the case of the sculptural installation by the L.A. artist who goes by the name Droyce — a piece that is tucked above a stretch of the northbound 101 Freeway in Boyle Heights. It consists of a series of three-dimensional letters, in a font similar to the Hollywood sign, that spell out the artist’s name on a steep hillside above the freeway.

The artist, who has been known to get around town with a spray can, frequently collaborates with a number of other artists under the moniker Culture Crew.

But his sculptural intervention on the 101 is the one that I find most compelling and humorous — an artist who has rebuilt an icon in his own name in a space where barely anyone looks. Every time I drive by, I’m filled with the urge to salute.

Our freeways are lined with so many visually dead spaces. This nicely conceived work is a reminder that they’re also filled with possibility.

Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.