LA II

Angel Ortiz (born 1967), known as Little Angel, and professionally as LA II or LA2 is a Puerto Rican, American graffiti artist and painter. He is best known for his collaborations with Pop artist Keith Haring in the 1980s, contributing his signature tags and distinctive interlocking graffiti motifs to Haring's work.

Born and raised in New York City, Ortiz began tagging across the Lower East Side in the late 1970s. His work caught the attention of Haring, whom he befriended in 1981, leading to a prolific creative partnership. Ortiz traveled internationally with Haring and collaborated on numerous works. After Haring's death in 1990, Ortiz's role in their partnership was often minimized or overlooked by the art establishment. Ortiz also struggled with drug addiction and was incarcerated multiple times for drug possession, car theft, and vandalism. Despite these setbacks, he continued to create art and mounted several solo exhibitions. In later years, his contributions to the Haring collaborations received renewed recognition from critics, institutions, and the broader art world.

Biography

Early life and exposure to graffiti Ortiz was born at Bellevue Hospital in New York City to a Puerto Rican mother. He grew up with two brothers and one sister.

Collaborations with Keith Haring In 1981, Ortiz's subway tags caught Keith Haring's attention, sparking a friendship and creative partnership. Through Haring, Ortiz also met other prominent artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf. Scharf recalled that "Keith treated him as a true collaborator; he didn't treat him like some little kid, which he actually was, really. He respected him and gave him half of whatever they collaborated on." Their collaboration became less frequent by 1985, as Haring's global recognition expanded and Ortiz stayed based in the Lower East Side. However, the two maintained a close friendship until Haring died from AIDS in 1990.

Personal struggles and reclaiming authorship Ortiz later confirmed that he was paid for his work during Haring's lifetime, but after Haring's death, he stopped receiving payments from the estate, and his role in the collaborations had largely been overlooked. A museum coordinator reportedly replied that LA II was "a black artist who is dead." Scholar Ricardo Montez noted that the Keith Haring Foundation has "since made strides to rectify LA2's erasure."

In 2011, Ortiz was arrested three times in quick succession for tagging his LA II and LA ROC signatures over a Kenny Scharf mural at Houston and Bowery Street, as well as for painting a large graffiti piece on the Urban Outfitters store on Second Avenue in the East Village. He linked the outburst to personal grief after the death of his wife in January 2011, saying, "I used the street as a canvas to express myself. It's an emotional thing that I'm still going through." He had previously been in prison on car theft and drug charges.

In 2016, Ortiz was arrested in New York City following an incident on June 28 in the East Village, where he was charged with robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, and petit larceny.

In 2023, his exhibition ODE 2 NYC was displayed at Chase Contemporary in New York City.

Legacy Ortiz's collaborations with Keith Haring helped bring graffiti aesthetics into the fine art world, with joint works entering major museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The market has also reflected this legacy: a 1982 Haring and Ortiz's collaborative painting sold for $1.4 million at auction in 2018.

Despite these achievements, artist Clayton Patterson, an advocate for Ortiz, argued that Ortiz’s contributions had long been underrecognized. Patterson has attributed Ortiz's long marginalization in part to racism within the art world.