New York Subway and Graff thread

A couple of (very bad) pics from the Moca LA show, have got 100's of pics of the whole show stashed away on a hard drive. I will try to dig out better ones when i arrive home next week. Like i said before, i wasn't expecting to be going so only had the partners point and shoot camera which wasn't ideal but at least I got to go.

Again if anybody has any info on the whats the best version of the Subway art book, it would be greatly appreciated.

feralthings just got off my arse and picked up the 84 edition, will check your other recommendations too

Lee Quiñones has just painted a large scale mural in the Hotel Indigo, in case anyone is visiting New York, and a post about Lee seems like a suitable place to start on a thread about graffiti's roots.  He might not have been the first to paint the subway but he was the first writer to ever paint a whole car and he went to paint another 124 in total; his 'God Piece' even stretched over two whole cars.  These photos came from his website and there's loads more goodies on there worth checking out:


The iconic Howard The Duck handball wall was a game-changer in so much as it helped take graffiti out of the subway and onto the streets:

(Photo from NYC1981)

And he was also the first graffiti artist to have a gallery show way back in 1979.  This is a sketch for one of the painting from that show in Rome and, personally, I think the flow and form and structure is just extraordinary. 

Ramm:ell:zee's last album entitled 'Cosmic Flush' is being released posthumously by Gamma Proforma next month.  They are also putting on an exhibition for the album including the artwork created by the likes of Futura, Doze Green, SheOne, Poesia and Will Barras; the show opens at the Magda Danysz Gallery in London on Thursday 10th December, 2015.

If anyone isn't familiar with Ramm:ell:zee then you're in for a treat, as his brand of gothic futurism is like nothing else you'll ever encounter.  There's no way I can do justice to Ramm:ell:zee's universe in one post but I'd definitely recommend this interview with The Wire from 2004. Ramm:ell:zee had his own mind-bending theories on everything from quantum physics and mythology to algebra and symbology and this permeates both his art and music.  The most astute thing I've read about Rammellzee was in his 2010 obituary that appeared in the LA Times and ends with the lines: "It remains unclear whether he was born 600 years too early or 600 years too late. We probably won't know for another 60. But right now, it's evident that no style was wilder than Rammellzee's."

Ramm:ell:zee painted a lot of trains back in the day but there are almost no photos of them online.  Since he stopped painting the subway system he has been producing work created from the ephemera and debris he finds across New York's streets.  These are some of his costumes he created for his performance art and for just walking around the city:


These are Ramm:ell:zee's 'Letter Racers' which he created for cosmic battle:


And here's some of his paintings:

video I took of a freight train right outside the city.... quality aint great but if you pause it you can see a lot of nice pieces (don't worry - camera flips after a few seconds)

A few pics of my newly acquired Henry Chalfant's Children Of The Grave Return from 1980
Edition size on paper was 20 and I think there was some sort of edition on aluminium but at a later stage.
Size Approx 1070mm X 250mm

Coincidentally a Hardcover copy of Subway Art 25th Anniversary edition came in the post today and one of the centre foldouts was this image.

Great find off Ebay which cost me hardly anything.

I thought I'd keep this thread ticking over with a 'wildstyle' double-header...

Tracy168 started off using very simple typography but he went on to create 'wildstyle' itself by abstracting and stylising his letters.  He doesn't get much of a mention these days but imagine being the guy who invented wildstyle!  I think it's interesting that Tracy168 was painting in the Bronx at the same time that the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash were laying the foundations of MC-ing and turntablism but he felt that wildstyle was more similar to jazz, in as much as they are both experimental and embrace a free-form approach to creating their art.


(Photo from The Red List)

The name Wildstyle was then used for the title of the film and Zephyr created the iconic 'Wild Style' logo/wall that was used for the cover.  Personally, I think there's something really special about Zephyr's letter; the form and compositions was really something else.

Roger Gastman, who produced ETTGS and curated Art In The Streets, is releasing a film called 'Wall Writers'.  The film covers the period between the birth of graffiti in Philadelphia in the late 1960s and the first graffiti painting being sold in New York in 1973; hence the film's subtitle, 'Graffiti In Its Innocence'. Given the individuals who are involved with this project I think it's got the potential to be something quite special.  There are screenings coming up in Long Beach, San Francisco and at The Smithsonian, some of which will also have writers like Taki183 in attendance:



There is also a book being released to accompany the film featuring interviews with pioneers like Cornbread.  The book has a foreword by Barry McGee and it is hardbound, 10”x12”, 350+ pages, 800+ images and includes two inserts:

Thanks feralthings that trailer looks great, picking up the book now nice price IggyWiggy

If you're new to speedyhen use the code NEWCUST16 for another 5% off

Been dispatched from SpeedyHen. Looking forward to getting my teeth into this. Yes, literally.

This interview with Rammellzee is from the May 1983 edition of Artforum. The interview, which was published just a few months before Style Wars was released, is about Rammellzee's theories about Gothic Futurism which underpinned his whole career's work.













There was also this advert for a show at 51X Gallery by some fella called Futura2000 - I wonder whatever happened to him?

wow that book looks sick. ordering now