Is the Art World Ready for Graffiti?
by Steven Hager
EPUB ISBN 978-1-4661-1782-2
copyright 2012 by Steven Hager
Published by Steven Hager at Smashwords
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They started as outlaws, invading the subway yards by night, armed with fists full of magic markers and sacks full of spray paint. More than a decade later, the graffiti writers, as they call themselves, are still waging a guerrilla war against the Metropolitan Transit Association (MTA), which spends millions of dollars each year to erase their fanciful handiwork. Lately, though, the more ambitious writers have acquired a new, above-ground cachet, and a new audience for their efforts. With the encouragement of some influential gallery owners and collectors, the subway scrawlers are making a serious bid to be accepted into the art world.
On April 9, 1981, an exhibit of their paintings, "Beyond Words," opens at the Mudd Club gallery; graffiti writers also have participated in four New York alternative-space exhibitions in the last six months. Sam Esses, a private collector, recently announced plans for a European tour of 47 graffiti paintings, and Art Letter, a newsletter for dealers and collectors, devoted a third of its February issue to describing recent advances on the graffiti frontier. "I think they (the writers) are producing some of the best work by young artists today," says Leo Castelli, the Soho gallery owner who represents Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. "They have the talent to make it in the art world; all they need is the opportunity."
The notion of subway graffiti as art was first entertained in the early '70s: Richard Goldstein wrote a critical evaluation of graffiti in New York magazine, and Norman Mailer and Jon Naar published a book called "The Faith of Graffiti," which provoked sneers from some of the writers.
Then, in 1973, a group called the United Graffiti Artists—which included some of the hottest writers in New York—put on an exhibit at the now-defunct Razor Gallery. For the first time, writers were brought off the streets, given canvas and paint, and encouraged to create sellable works of art. Although the opening was widely covered, the paintings didn't sell well and public interest in the project soon fizzled.
"The problem with those writers is they promised never to paint the trains again," says Fred, who belongs to a "The Fabulous Five," a graffiti group immortalized in the recent Blondie hit "Rapture." Like many of his peers, Fred believes he must stay in touch with real graffiti—by returning to subway yards—in order to avoid "selling out the art." Futura 2000, another prominent writer, also insists that "painting the trains is what gives our work credibility. They were trying to create a graffiti elite, which is something we aren't interested in." But the new graffiti flowering as another impulse. Says Futura matter-of-factly: "Our work has gotten much better."
Observers confirm that the quality of work has improved dramatically in the past year, a development which may have been helped, at least in part, to Sam Esses, who provided studio space last spring for fledgling writers to refine their skills.
Esses' route to the writers was circuitous. In 1979, a Swiss photographer took pictures of a graffiti mural on a handball court on the lower East Side, painted by Fred and Lee, the founder of the Fabulous Five. The pictures eventually landed on the desk of an Italian art dealer named Claudio Bruni, who was sufficiently impressed with the mural to make an effort to find the artists who created it. Because the graffiti community is tight-knit—and because Fred and Lee are well-known and highly respected—he had no trouble. Bruni gave them canvas to paint on and took the results back to Rome, where the paintings sold for $1,000 each.
Esses, a burly, outspoken collector from New Jersey who now lives on Park Avenue, became aware of a growing European interest in graffiti through contacts with Bruni. When he discovered that his 15-year-old daughter knew some of the writers, he decided to make contact.
Esses admits that he is an unlikely candidate to play a key role in the introduction of graffiti to the "straight" art world; his own taste, he concedes, tends more towards trompe l'oeil. "I don't know why, but I decided to rent a studio to see if I could preserve some of the work that was being created on the trains. I found an empty studio on the upper East Side and stocked it with supplies." Word soon spread through the graffiti grapevine, and the best writers from all over the city quickly materialized on Esses' doorstep. A highly competitive atmosphere developed, and over the next couple of months some of the graffiti began showing signs of rapid improvement.
According to Esses, the results began to show up last summer on the trains. The crude name writing (called "tagging") was being replaced by more sophisticated full-car murals (called "masterpieces") Masterpieces had been done before, but they now seemed more elaborate, filled with cityscapes, cartoon characters and complex color fields. The newer work, in fact, resembles the massive Pop paintings of the '60s.
Writers have become so adept at manipulating spray paint that they can blend colors effortlessly, sometimes spraying two cans at once. In one favorite technique, a writer starts with a dark color at the bottom of a train which slowly blends to a lighter color at the top; the result, something akin to a psychedelic sunset, is called a "fade." Some murals even make reference to art history; in homage to Andy Warhol, Fred recently painted a train with gigantic Campbell soup cans, labelled Dada, Futurist, Pop, Fred, Fabulous Five, Art, and Tomato.
Despite all the fanfare for graffiti writers, only a handful stand a chance of establishing themselves as artists. Among them, Futura 2000 is a prime contender.
As on only child, Futura, now 24, was adopted and raised by a white father and black mother on the upper West Side. "I was always a class clown," he says. "I always wanted to be the center of attention." Tonight, he is sitting in a bar near his old neighborhood wearing his usual uniform: baggy Army pants, basketball shoes, Lacoste shirt, and camouflage cap. "It's funny," he says taking a sip of beer, "but this is the same bar my father used to come to every night. He was an alcoholic."
After graduating from trade school at 16, Futura became a full-time graffiti artist. "I wasn't into drugs or crime," he says evenly, "but I always had a mischievous streak. I liked to run around construction sites when I was a kid. Writing had a daredevil quality I liked."
In 1973, Futura and his best friend Ali were involved in a serious accident while painting a subway car in the early hours of the morning. A train suddenly started up and began moving, and the sparks ignited a hissing can of paint near Ali, who was instantly covered in flames. Futura helped his friend to the hospital, but Ali must have been in shock, because he told a New York Times reporter the next morning that he had learned his lesson and would never write graffiti again. Always a great story-teller, Ali also told the reporter that his sidekick had abandoned him to die in flames in the tunnel, which wasn't actually true, but it made the whole story much more dramatic if Ali had to save himself. Within a week, Futura had to join the navy and get out of town because nobody believed his side and there were many on the street who wanted to stomp him on sight. That was seven years ago.
Then, last year, Futura returned to New York and started writing again (at the suggestion of Ali, who felt the movement was gaining momentum again). The Village Voice ran a piece praising Futura's work, and CBS asked him to appear in a graffiti documentary that aired recently.
Futura finishes his beer and heads for a storefront near Columbus Avenue and 106th Street, to attend the weekly meeting of the Soul Artists, a club of writers spearheading the graffiti revival. Several writers have brought along their "piece books," which contain photographs of finished trains and sketches of new ideas; by the time Futura arrives, groups of four and five writers are gathered around each book, jockeying for position as the pages are turned. A radio is blasting in one corner and several bottles of wine are making the rounds. As is customary at these meetings, an odd assortment of outsiders has gathered. The writers are wary of them—especially when they're from the press. Asked his age, the writer Dondi informs a reporter, "That's not important. Only my work is important."
Ali—founder, leader and spokesman for Soul Artists—calls the meeting to order and introduces the main topic for discussion: How to stop the MTA from destroying the writers' murals. "How can the city spend $6 million a year removing our art when the subway don't even run on time?!" an angry Ali asks rhetorically. "They should take the money and put it into a preventative maintenance program." Ali and the other Soul Artists are lobbying for the legalization of subway graffiti. "We intend to submit a proposal to the MTA when our exhibit opens," he says.
The MTA, of course, remains singularly unimpressed with the artistic aspirations of the new breed of writers, and it is unlikely that Richard Ravitch will be on hand at the Mudd Club opening next week. Says Alfred Oliveri, head of the Transit Association's vandal squad: "The media has glorified these kids to the point where we are getting more and more of them. The trains are saturated with garbage. If this is art—then to hell with art!"
In fact, it seems that the more attention the graffiti writers get, the more determined the MTA is to thwart them. But the writers are unlikely to turn in their spray cans anytime soon. "I the early days, we never went down to the yards thinking we were artists," says Futura. "Now, everyone takes his work seriously."
The End
Note from the author: If you enjoyed this ebook, please check out Hip Hop, Art After Midnight, Looking for the Perfect Beat, The Pied Piper of Hip Hop, The Steam Tunnels, Bugging Out on the Endless Beat, True Ghost Stories, Cannabis Cures Cancer?, Dirty Money, Rock's First Diva, The East Village, also available at smashwords.com