West Coast folks, don’t sleep on the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) exhibition “Art in the Streets” opening this weekend.

Last year's wildly popular film about street artist Banksy, Exit Through the Giftshop, did a lot to bring street art into the popular conversation and made people more aware of graffiti in general. This exhibition takes it a step further, institutionalizing the most guerilla of guerilla art with a bonafide museum retrospective. For many, there's probably a moment of hesitancy about the "never the twain shall meet" nature of this proposition. If you're already aware of this stuff, it can feel sort of insulting to have a museum suddenly  "legitimize" it.  And how, in a staid museum setting, do you maintain the energy, immediacy, and do-it-yourself-with-zero-budget qualities that make street art so compelling?

In this case, it looks like the curators did their research with minds wide open. They draw in ancillary cultures—hiphop, skateboarding, filmmaking—to present a thoughtful and exciting historic narrative that feels alive. People should be especially excited to see a memorial installation of legendary artist, musician, and philosopher king Rammellzee's "Battle Station," the ever-evolving sculpture that he inhabited until his untimely death last year.

If you're lucky enough to attend the members' opening this Saturday, you'll also get treated to a performance by bigtime hiphop legends Busy Bee and the Cold Crush Brothers with Grandmaster Caz. I'm jealous.

The exhibition is on view from April 17-August 8, 2011 and travels to the Brooklyn Museum next year.

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