I’ve always had an obsession with Street Art, better known to many as Graffiti.
Over the years, graffiti has been accepted as an art form by many more people… and I don’t mean the work of that little punk who wrote ‘Troy’ on the bathroom walls in scribble, but there were some true masterpieces over the years… and a few famous artists came from it….
many of you know how much I love Keith Haring’s work… which in his early years was mostly done using chalk in the subways, on the black felt of a vacant advertisement.
he managed to get arrested a few times despite using nothing more than chalk, though as he became more famous, more cops would shake his hands, then put them in cuffs……
Recently a large mural was discovered in an old building in SoHo, that was about to be converted into luxury condos….. with a variety of images, including a cartoon-like picture of a bomber plane, a heart and cake, and references to Quaaludes… 714 anyone? Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 figure prominently on the wall.
…..in addition, there was writing believed to belong to Jean Michel Basquiat, the words “Dead or Alive” suggesting it is the late artist’s work, with his tag, “SAMO,” in the stairwell of the building.
Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 helped pioneer graffiti as an artform by spray-painting entire subway trains in psychedelic colors.
“It’s a great discovery,” says Alberto Mugrabi, a major Basquiat and Andy Warhol collector. “It’s the beginning of graffiti (as art).”
after careful removal… treated like an archaeological dig…
“The mural will be publicly unveiled Thursday as part of a retrospective exhibit of the graffiti art movement (1980-1985). Running until Feb. 15 in the SoHo building’s Gallery 151, “The Wild Style Exhibit” takes its name from the iconic 1982 hip-hop movie. The show will display works of graffiti’s greats: Keith Haring, Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Ero and Fab 5. All come from private collections, many unseen since the 1980s, including Scharf’s “Palladium, a mural canvas created for the reincarnated Palladium Music Hall and Disco, and Basquiat’s portrait of Fab 5 Freddy. Fred Brathwaite, also known as Fab 5 Freddy, a hip-hop pioneer who has forged a career in music videos, says the graffiti was a spontaneous collaboration among the various artists who visited the loft. Basquiat mentor Diego Cortez agrees. “They took something that was local, self taught like folk art and made it something beyond that,” he said.”
“The loft was a kinetic space where artists creating and experimenting in new artforms could crash, cook a meal together and swap ideas. Brathwaite says he came there with Futura and Basquiat and recalls mingling with filmmaker Eric Mitchell, members of the band “Blondie,” and fashion model Lisa Rosen, who appeared in the Basquiat cult film “Downtown 81.”
more to come on this topic for sure……..
“The Wild Style Exhibit” @ Gallery 151
151 Wooster St, New York, NY - near Prince St.
December 15th - February 15th
Tuesday & Thursdays 1-3pm, Saturdays 12-4pm
admission - Free