New York Graffiti

Sydney Graff Writers Killed Mid-Duty

2008-01-20T23:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the absence of posts over the last few months but I've been living in Australia. Local Sydney news: On the weekend three writers were painting in a drain, when a storm hit. The drain filled up with water, and then swept them almost a mile through the sewers to a drain-end that feeds into the ocean. Two of the writers drowned to death in the tunnels. The third was spat out into Lurline Bay, where he was rescued.

Read more about this here and here.

black

2007-06-15T05:40:00.000-05:00

Marty

2007-06-08T05:18:00.000-05:00

Keith Haring-like movement lines.

Soot

2007-06-05T05:26:00.000-05:00

Clinton-Washington subway (G Line), Brooklyn

1 meter into the tunnel; 1 meter underground

Doorway

2007-06-04T05:20:00.000-05:00

Play Lot

2007-06-01T05:16:00.000-05:00

East Village

Duro One

2007-05-30T20:38:00.001-05:00

Perspective / Lines

2007-05-30T05:14:00.000-05:00

Harlem

totem pole

2007-05-29T05:10:00.000-05:00

Meanwhile, back in Soho....

Tunnel

2007-05-28T04:53:00.000-05:00

Lafayette Station, C Line

Looking down into the tunnel

JOS

2007-05-26T04:43:00.000-05:00

Fulton Street Station (G Line), Brooklyn

Smoke

2007-05-25T07:34:00.000-05:00

Bar, Chinatown

SoHo Pik

2007-05-22T00:25:00.000-05:00

An old one from winter. Soho.

Revised

2007-05-20T20:25:00.000-05:00

Don Hills

2007-05-12T21:42:00.000-05:00

Spring and Hudson, Soho

It was late on a Saturday night, and Viola and I were leaving Don Hills - a long running venue in the hinterland of Soho. It had been raining hard all night, and the ground, cars and walls of Soho were freshly scrubbed clean for another Sunday morning. We came across this car lot playground, and stopped to take in the view.

The white perimeter on the two walls that form the square of this parking lot are a chalk board begging for spray paint. The material here looks as though it was quickly applied, without having been worked over too much (if at all in some cases). There's a relaxed and warm feel about the stuff here that I really like. I now share it with you.

Psychadelic

2007-05-05T20:59:00.000-05:00

3rd Avenue, 4th Street, East Village

This one is important. The coloring scheme is magnificent: purple, yellow and black. the poster is purple, with a light blue to orange-pinky sunset background displayed behind the envisioned apartment block. You can even see that the poster has begun to peel in the top right corner, only to reveal another, lighter purple. The apartments are silvery and nicely add another layer for the tags placed over them.

Over this, there's some silver texta work presumably all by the same writer; and some gold texta work running down the right-hand side. The central motif however is the black swirl. It really is quite beautiful, and its confident trippy swirl harmonises the rich and psychedelic colors around it. This black tag serves as central and strong element to bring all the other disparate elements together. And the yellow paint over it just adds morecolor and movement.

The layering of these texts allows us to see the chronology (the time-line or Tag-Line) that these layers emerged. First there was the silver; then the gold (vying for limited space); then the sprayed black tag; and finally the yellow. The actual time that passed between each of them is harder to trace. But together these levels of color and text has a cumulative effect of psychedelic layers, and competitive harmony.

Whizzing past

2007-04-21T06:49:00.000-05:00

Cars stream past uptown without looking at the art in their midst. This is a good thing: the spray-painted walls are just a natural part of the decay and regrowth in the urban landscape of the city. The pieces here exude a calm which is unkown to the drivers, but felt by pedestrians. The writers who put these up were more than likely doing them in a calm but manic rush, in a well repeated act of getting the art onto cement walls via preassurised aerosol. You should plan for this (or maybe not) so you be stealthful before security, cops or unfriendly pass-bys bring attnetion to the act. That energy is captured here in these pieces; they are moving dancing letters and primal shapes. But there is also a stillness there. Paint on a flat wall.

Random Wall

2007-04-17T05:23:00.001-05:00

East Village ~ Chinatown

Up until the late 1990s large swaths of the eastern edge of the East Village were not considered to actually constitute part of the USA. That area was a freak show of poverty, junkies, political militants and marauding spray can weilding youths. It was somewhere the Police did not care too much about venturing into. While that cannot be really said of the area now (though at least you don't see Yuppies on Avenue D), graffiti continues to rule large parts of the street. Sure, Uptown has been bleached of its once saturation level spray paint. But go down to the East Village, LES and especially Chinatown, and there continue to be many marvels constantly appearing and mutating. Tonight I caught this awesome wall.

Street Art vs Graffiti

2007-04-14T01:45:00.005-05:00

Evaluations, debates and comparisons between “Street Art” and “Graffiti” have been waiting for a long time to be explored. In this article I’m going to try and examine the main difference between Street Art and Graffiti, both as art forms and as communities of artists and viewers. Now, when talking about ‘Street Art’ I’m referring to a new movement of outsider art that has risen in prominence over the last decade. It’s more of a heterogeneous movement than Graffiti (which has come to be defined fairly narrowly), and includes a few mediums and styles - stencil Graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting / street poster art, and street installations (often together). The term ‘Street Art’ is typically used to differentiate this new movement from Graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art.

From the position of Graffiti artists, there has been a lot of apprehension towards Street Art. In one sense it is disappointing to have this perception of dichotomy between ’Street Art’ and ‘Graffiti.’ However the differences between these styles and the tribal politics of Graffiti have rendered some level of competition inevitable. It is very important to recognizse that these differences are major, and that behind them is a vast difference in ideas, aesthetic approaches, culture and history. As far as this blog is concerned, the mystique and techniques behind Graffiti cannot be competed with by any other contemporary art form.

Yet there actually is a high amount of cross over between the two forms. I’ve seen wheatpastes and stencils from Graffiti crews, and tags from Street Artists. In fact it was Graffiti writers in the 90s (and maybe earlier) who pioneered the use of hand written stickers as a form of tagging – a form now taken on by Street Artists. Many Street Artists are writers who have turned their efforts from Graffiti to Street Art. This cross over in medium is natural for anyone who’s going to be placing any kind of art up in as public domain as the streets: visibility, durability, striking colors, mind-grabbing images and direct text. Ultimately Graffiti is just one particular art form and culture, and it was never expected to appeal to everyone anyway: the streets and trains are big enough to hold more paint. Whether through Graffiti or Street Art, it’s awesome that so many people are able to find a way to express themselves through illegal public art.

Street Art and Graffiti in New York

A recent event in New York brought much of the thoughts and emotion resonating behind this issue to light. For the last several years, the building located at 11 Spring Street in Soho has been a site for Street Art and Graffiti. On December 15, 2006 the outside and inside of the building was opened to the public in one final and mass display / installation of Street Art before the building was cleaned up and turned into apartments. This day was billed as a mega gathering for New York and international Street Artists. Spring Street was arguably one of the World’s most famous Street Art canvases.

Graffiti Archaeology have got some flash imaging tools to show you the evolution of the building between 2002 and 2007. Of particular relevance, if you check out this link, is the constant interplay between Graffiti and Street Art. These two dominating forms of Outside Art have been interacting, complimenting and competing with each other since the early 2000s. Check it.

Now what’s really interesting is that the Brooklyn crew DYM used the event to broadcast the widely held view that Street Art aint cool by Graffiti. They arrived at 6.30 am in an unmarked car and unloaded their material onto the pavement. They took an entire wall and brushed over the wheat pastes and stencils with silver paint. By the time anyone had figured out what was going on, it was too late: An entire wall of the building was adorned with a mega silver piece reading DYM. Some Street Artists present pleaded with them not to cover the entire wall. "This window was done by an artist from Australia" one told them. "Do you need to use the whole wall? Can't you just take a section?"

But DYM weren’t listening. They wanted to press the point in the boldest possible way what real Street Art looks like: Graffiti. HOST18 of DYM said this to say about their actions that day:

"Yo,

The reasons for our actions are vast. A lot of these people seem to believe we
just came there with the thought of fucking shit up and that we are art haters. This is completely not the case. We all go to art shows and museums often, we are artists ourselves so of course we respect and have a great appreciation for art. But we are from the streets, and the streets have unwritten rules.

I've personally been getting pissed off at Street Artists for years now, most of them seem to have no respect or regard for Graffiti. I have seen work that was up since the 80's completely covered by stencils, wheatpastes and paint. The bulk of these artists have some sort of 'holier than thou' mentality when it comes to Graffiti.

After all this came to a boil. I decided to take action, against the show and also against Street Art. These 'Street Artists' needed to be shown, no, you are not going to be allowed to disrespect Graffiti any further and when you do, you will pay a price. I'm going to war with these people, if I see any Street Art over Graffiti, I'm going over it. I been doing this for over 15 years, I'm not allowing some art school nerd disrespect me or my peers.”

Marc from the Wooster Collective, who was one of the primary organisers of the event had this to say when he twigged onto what was happening:

The bottom line for me is that I'm not going to lie and say that at first I wasn't a bit disappointed that a tonne of work on the building got taken out by DYM. But after a minute or so it struck me that this had to be the biggest fucking bomb in New York history and that you gotta respect the person that did it. How could you not be impressed? I watched those guys for an hour or so and was absolutely blown away. It was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.

Street Sreet / Graffiti - Ideology

The critique of Street Art has also been expressed in ideological – directly political – terms recently. Since the late 90s it has become apparent that artists and counter cultural movements often serve as unwitting actors in the process of gentrification. A shitty area first attracts squatters, who are followed by artists, then students, and then finally by yuppies. This has been the process in Soho, East Village, the LES and Williamsburg. Street Art, as a more digestible form of Street Art is part of the early stage of gentrification. It is noteworthy that Graffiti has never even been accused of being part of this process. As a symptom of urban blight or decay or post industrial waste – whatever – Graffiti is a part of the run-down ugliness of the city that real estate agents and Street Art are often out to brighten up. Not so with Street Art.

The collusion between Street Art, gentrification and the role that art can play as an arm of the System has been pushed recently in New York by ‘the Slasher.’ Over the last few months, someone has been splashing paint over major Street Art works all over the city. The "Splasher", as he's come to be known, has a taste for targeting major works by the likes of Swoon, Obey, Momo, and others. His trail of paint-dripped terror extends from Williamsburg, Soho, and back again, and he's already fucked up dozens of works. Often, in the midst of his attacks, the Splasher leaves wheat-pasted manifestos that attack the street-artists as tools of capitalism, calling their work a "fetishized action of banality" and "a representation of the most vulgar kind: an alienated commodity."

It’s clear that the Splasher is onto something here. Street Art has gotten way out of control. It rivals sneaker culture in over saturation. Part of me loves Street Art, but it's time the spoiled hipsters got a taste of reality. Old school Graffiti writers have to worry about their murals and production getting dissed and crossed out by toys, building workers and the City constantly - why should so-called 'Street Artists' get any preferential treatment? That kind of attitude draws a distinction between high and low Street Art, which is exactly the kind of bullshit that most artists would claim to be subverting. Welcome to the streets.

The controversy here with the Slasher is not the worthless debate about whether anyone’s creating art, but about who he is "creating" over (and, in effect "destroying"). Street Art is creating commodity over property that is waiting to sky rocket in value. The Street Artists who have beef with the Slasher act like its their right to display their art on the street anyways. It is not. What is vital about Graffiti is that it’s illegal. It takes a special kind of person to actually call themselves a "writer". To be a writer takes serious effort. In a most cases you're risking life and limb on a regular basis. Street Art (in most cases) is too relaxed a form of Outsider Art. Graffiti is a medium for boarder line criminals and maniacs who insist on testing every limit. Street Art is for frustrated graphic designers with too much time on their hands and not enough creative control in their day jobs (in advertising: how IRONIC!!).

The bottom line is that the dudes who have a beef with the Splasher are hypocrites. Lest we forget - when it comes down to it, Graffiti is all about getting up, going over, fighting, and fame and more than anything, the beef. And what’s missing from Street Art is beef. The Splasher is shaping up to be a modern day CAP. Instead of doing throw ups on the 2s and the 5s he’s splashing the walls of the LES and Williamsburg. Splasher is just bringing some much needed drama to the Street Art scene. It would not surprise me one bit if Splasher was actually a Street Artist herself trying to bring some attention to the art form and simultaneously immortalize this time period.

While I love what the Splasher is saying, I want him to turn his attention away from this form of Outlaw Art and focus on the galleries of Chelsea where paintings sell for thousands and millions. These galleries squander the revolutionary potential of art far more boringly than Street Art does. Let’s see the Splasher have the balls to imitate Tony Shafrazi who spray painted over a Picasso painting (!)(Guernica) when it was housed at MOMA in the 70s.

Stylistic Differences

Of course this critique goes between both camps. Street Artists often diss Graffiti writers for obsessing on fame and their mission of getting their name out, often at the expense of actual quality. Certainly Graffiti can become more of a quest for notoriety than art. Street Artists shat the rules of Graffiti, altering their entire style and approach without caring whether or not it was approved of by the sometimes sentimental institutions and ways of Graffiti. In terms of an audience, it’s argued that the general public appreciate Street Art far more than Graffiti. Unlike the early days of New York Graffiti, writers today do not seem as intent on communicating directly with the general public. Knowing full well that the masses don’t know the first thing about the Graffiti underground, writers are often exclusively focussed on achieving fame for them and their crew.

Methodology

Most Graffiti artists are self-taught and never had any formal art training. Graffiti writers are often people who have had an intense urge to create and have found ways to bond together to create the work they make. Graffiti is basically urban outsider art. Most Street Artists however come straight out of the art school world. And while many are talented, too many simply move to a city, come up with some witty poster/sticker, stencil it and then based on their art school connections get press and publicity for it.

Graffiti artists have to come through, bomb quick and clean, and get out of there without being caught. While Street Art also entails a risk, really all a wheatpaster has to do is take all damn day making their poster at home and then arrive at the site and paste it up. Actual spray-can Graffiti is much more dangerous, and in the Graffiti world this rush, and the ability to get away with crazy shit is a large part of the excitement and source of recognition. There is a strong argument that Graffiti is more about the act itself, than the actual product. Style and quantity are always a plus, but in the end they are just aesthetics for a system of markings. The act is the concept. The concept is the art. It is the act that makes Graffiti so romantic. It is the romance that makes it art.

This aspect seems largely missing – though not completely absent – from Street Art.

Recognition

What angers many in the Graffiti world is the fact that Street Artists often place their art over Graffiti. In context, Graffiti from its earliest inceptions in the 1970s, developed a firm etiquette about going over another’s writing. I won’t go into systems of rules here, but the point is that these artschool hipsters put their wheatpaste stencils over Graffiti with absolutely no regard. They have little respect for what it is that they are dabbling in and therefore get little respect from the Graffiti scene in return.

ABOVE: CAP's throw up over a peice. The film Style Wars included CAP's war on any other writer or crew as part of its narrative.
BELOW: A throw up by SEEN over COMET. This was from a number 6 Bronx train in 1986.

Viewed from the perspective of the politics of the Graffiti world, when a Street Artist goes over the work of another artist it’s a declaration of war. Either you already have beef with the guy or you’re looking for beef with the guy. Deliberately or not, these little hipsters are looking for trouble with an entire sub-culture overflowing with hardened thugs that have grown up on beef. And it’s going to catch up to these kids when they get caught in the streets. I think it’s fair enough to say that Graffiti and Street Art will coexist perfectly as soon as Street Artists learn to respect Graffiti writers and vice versa.

Lifestyle

Graffiti is a lifestyle. “Street Art” is a trend. Graffiti is learned over a period of time, with the journey from a toy to a respected writer being a tough one. There isn’t really any learning process to Street Art which is why these yuppies are so clueless. Whilst Street Artists are preparing their stencils and paints at home or at Art School – or even getting them professionally made up - Graffiti writers are racking crates of paint. Another thing: writers go All City. That means getting their tag / throw up / piece up across the length and breadth of the city. Not just all Soho or all Williamsburg. Graffiti writers earn the respect they’re accorded.

People outside of Graffiti have no understanding about the blood, sweat and tears that goes into Graffiti. Do you know how many writers have died for their art? There are countless names of people who have been shot for trespassing, fallen off high spots, or been killed by trains. It seems that in New York alone, every year another writer bites the dust. And this happens to kids in cities across the world. Think also about how many writers have served time in jail, or have been crippled, lost their jobs or been kicked out of home. Graffiti writers are completely misunderstood and hated by wider society. And for what gain? Nothing. No gain whatsoever. But for expression; for a drive to themselves become a part of the landscape; for recognition from their peers. Street Artists are just flattering themselves when they compare what they do with Graffiti. Think about that next time you’re putting your wheatpaste over a tag.

Conclusion
Street Art in its modern form was predated by Graffiti, which set the precedent for Street Art. And if you want to talk about its forbears, then you could easily argue that Graffiti has been around for thousands of years. But in modern and post-modern times, graffiti rules the streets. Personally I’ll take a throw-up over a wheatpasted poster any day.

Regardless of what you do and how you bomb this city: KEEP DOING IT. This City belongs to all of us, and we’ve got to enjoy and paint it. Stop reading this and start painting!

NB NB

2007-03-01T19:45:00.004-05:00

Williamsburg

Two NBs. I'm not sure if I like these guys or not - they look like two pairs of wobblying jello men ... but I wanted to include them for being a pair.

Keep on Truckin

2007-02-28T22:54:00.000-05:00

Spotted on 8th Street and 2nd

Anime

2007-02-28T22:07:00.000-05:00

East Village

This striking piece was applied on a perfect backdrop surface. The smooth earthy-red wall is smooth and warm. The throw-up has a really cool use of both curved and spiked letters. It's sort of rolling and menacing at the same time.

Shaaaaaaaaaahz

2007-02-26T02:45:00.000-05:00

7th Street, Avenue B

Link Dane OS 2007

2007-02-26T02:30:00.000-05:00

Red Silver

2007-02-25T02:08:00.000-05:00

Bayard Street, Chinatown

Vivid red on silver.

Nea

2007-02-25T02:02:00.000-05:00

Rivington Street, Chinatown

Pain

2007-02-24T00:11:00.000-05:00

Somewhere Downtown

Sharp
Angular
Sloping

Silvered Black Doorway

2007-02-23T21:51:00.001-05:00

3rd Avenue, East Village

Disparate elements unify this black and grated doorway into a singular work. The tags don't overlay each other, with an unusually uncompetitive use of space. While the doodle-like drawings, a dancer and a big eared creature, gyrate up the doorway complimenting the more serious tagging work, as well as modifying the menace suggested by the grated window.

KS

2007-02-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

Rivington Street, Chinatown / Lower East Side.

Big, bold and silver. KS fits its fat bubble between posters and a sprinkler warning sign.

S Crest

2007-02-21T22:44:00.000-05:00

South Allen Street, Lower East Side.

There is a regal feeling to this one lettered tag, giving it the feeling of a grimey crest.

Red Bubbles

2006-12-08T21:06:00.000-05:00

3rd Avenue and 4th Street, East Village

Beautiful red clouds of bubble text.

Yello Daw

2006-12-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

This was taken on a nice and mellow Sunday afternoon. This scene just really resonated with me. I sort of laughed when I saw the man's face painted in red on the right garage door. I like the contrast between the bright yellow and the strong blue. Williamsburg.

Loisada

2006-12-08T20:49:00.000-05:00

Often once you get up onto one roof top, you can access a whole multitude of others. Any rooftop that joins onto another and larger building is prime for a work out that will be visible from the street below. And usually the chances of getting caught doing this are quite slim. This formate therefore demands quality: so take your time and deliver something real special and colorful to the people.

Williamsburg Wall

2006-12-08T20:40:00.000-05:00

Williamsburg would have to be one of the current centres for Grafitti in NY currently. This wall is a nice example fo some basic tags and spray painted shananigans. I generally find that the material in Williamsburg has a confident and quirky feel. Love it.

Old School New York Style Tags

2006-12-08T20:21:00.006-05:00

This wall was uncovered in the dark recesses of Avenue C. I turned a corner and found before me a wall of colorful naive old school styled New York graffiti. I squeezed the camera through the wire mesh fencing and took some photos. Apparently this old school looking graffiti was dressing for a film that was shot over the summer. It was done by LEE Quinones with some assistance from PAR ONE. Lee and Spar both grew up on the Lower East Side, and reproduced these old school legend's tags.

Special thanks to ERIC aka DEAL CIA for this information. Check out his site: 149st.

Elongated Bubble text

2006-10-30T15:03:00.000-05:00

Somewhere in China Town...

Cufic

2006-10-30T14:37:00.000-05:00

There's lots of sticker tagging around, but what I found interesting here is that this square-ish text looks like cufic-style Arabic calligraphy. The image below is a typical example (in lurid colors) of kufic style calligraphy. It has been styalised into a block; from which point it can be used as the basis for arrangement into complex geometric forms.

The john from the Johnsons

2006-10-30T14:36:00.000-05:00

Meet the Johnsons

2006-10-30T11:24:00.000-05:00

Bathroom at 'Meet the Johnsons' bar on Stanton St, Lower East Side. I swear, I came out of that toilet with silver spray paint on my hand. Someone must have been in there seconds before me, spraying the walls, the taps, or the toilet paper ... something I touched was a fresh silver...

Evil Eye

2006-10-30T11:22:00.000-05:00

This is from the East Vaillge; around 6th street and 1st Avenue. It has a certain mythological coolness to it. There's an eye there, right in the middle warding off the evil eye.

Some mural stuff

2006-10-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

I'm not not normally into mural art, however this one just seemed to be particularly Haring-like, so I snapped it. Upper West Side

East Village Doorway

2006-10-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

Urban Urdu Tagging

2006-08-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

Pakistani Grocery Store, East Village.
Whether it’s the tags or the Urdu writing of the shop’s name, most people in this neighbourhood would be unable to read these words. In navy blue and outlined / shadowed with yellow is some writing in Urdu. Urdu is the main language spoken in Pakistan (and written with the Arabic alphabet). in black we have SENA or SEN4. in the lower left is some illedgible text in white. What I find so fascinating with this piece is the Arabic-isation of SENA’s “S”. It looks so much like those Arabic / Urdu letters that have a low sweeping line. Don’t forget that Urdu is written and read from left to right. The English tags are written and read right to left.

A HELLISH ZONE

2006-08-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

“Hell Zone”, TAD and TCT, 2006 (?), spray-paint on concrete, on loan from the East Village.

I shot this work in the east Village on 3rd Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery. The wall faced perpendicular to the street, being a building that was on one side of a community garden. To get the photo I had to stick the camera lense through the wire fence, and shoot without being sure I was aiming at the right place.

Hell Zone gives us some great classic-styling overlapping bubble text. The letters are big, confident and juicy. The “N” looks great; the rendering of the “O” as a smiley character with a mischevous grin is cute. It escapes being cliché just through its obvious refernece to what is a classic old graffitti motif.

What looks at first to be a piece is actually just a throw up over someone else’s art. For instance, the colors that initially seem to be the fill-ins for “Hell Zone” go beyond the edges of their letters. If you look carefully you will see some retarded skull on the right, and a toy looking throw up on the left. Before laying down their own piece, TAD and TCT have first gone over this stuff with some white paint. This has reduced the definition of that first tag, toning it down so that it can serve as a generic coloring base for TAD and TCT to lay down their piece. I generally think that shit graffiti needs to be written over, and a look behind the dominating ‘Hell Zone’ shows amateurish material. This a great and justified appropriation of some colors where there would otherwise just be a plain outline.

BASQUIET NEVER DIED

2006-08-04T12:54:00.000-05:00

SAMO©, East Village, 10th street between 1 and A.
SAMO©!!!??? This was Basquiet’s original tag which he plastered the East Village with in the early 1980s. Somehow it’s back; Basquiet’s back in his same old haunt.

DRIPS

2006-08-04T12:49:00.000-05:00

Dripping tag, Housten Street, East Village
Netta told me that drips are a distinctive feature of New York graffiti. It gets hot in this city during Summer. Painting whilst exposed to raw sun rays, on hot surfaces, with paint that got warmed up in your back-pack whilst on the way to some train yard or wall, all make dripping an essential risk factor that has to be taken into consideration. This all made New York writers particularly adept at dealing with drips. Many learnt how to ensure they didn’t mess up their peices. Others incorporated the chaos of dripage into their work

COLOUR

2006-08-04T12:48:00.000-05:00

East Village, Avenue A
As far as I know, graffiti writers only ever use commercial spray paint (traditionally raced from a store, but sometimes even supplied to the writer by a paint company who has decided to sponser a famous graff artist!). Such spray cans only come in the colours that the paint factories produce. Pro artists on the other hand mix their own paints for themselves. Knowing how to mix colours to get the right colour or shade you’re after is an important tool in an artists arsenal, but one that seems to be unavailable to graff writers: how the hell do you mix colours and get them back into the aresol can? Considering the igeniuity that writers displayed with realizing that different types of nozzles could be fitted to spray cans in order to shape the spraying paint; this could be a possibility.

Eerie

2006-08-04T12:39:00.000-05:00

WTO
Graffiti Inside the Subway Tunnel, 6 train.
This was taken on the 6 train somewhere close to the Brooklyn Bridge stop. I was so glad I got this shot. I’ve been admiring and been spinning out on this stuff ever since I was a kid. And it’s very hard to photograph: you have to shoot behind glass, usually in a train full of people, trying to capture an image moving quickly away.

This is without doubt my favourite site for graffiti: inside the subway tunnel. Tags and throw ups along the black walls of the tunnel. They only becomes visible when the train slows down to the point that markings on the tunnels walls can become more than a missed blur. How much of this stuff are we missing? Who writes this stuff!? Who’s risking their everything to put it up!? When and how do they do it? Someone was willing to enter into the very veins of the city to scrawl. They went to a place this is an element of the city’s physical foundation. To me this is part of the mystery and awe occasionally felt towards graffiti; that’s it’s not only obscure: it’s eerie.

A few weeks back, I got talking to a guy on the N train who told me he tags inside the tunnels. He just dresses in black, smoke some kiff and walks to the end of the station platform. There he slips down into the tunnel. When a train comes you just merge into the soot.

Door and Glass

2006-07-31T11:17:00.000-05:00

Doorway in the East Village, 3rd Street

It’s really hard to understand what has gone here.The glass in this door has been tagged, but it has certainly been done before the wood panelld were painted black. That white spray paint was once clearlyt outside it’s the bounds of the glass: this tag once coverfed not only the glass but also the wooden pieces above and to the sides. Sure, someone was pissed off by this, but surely it’s more important to replace the glass so that you can outside, rather than clean up the wood? Perhaps the glass just couldn’t be scrubbed, so it was painted black? In any case KCR has added his red presence here. how weird...

Brown

2006-07-31T11:01:00.000-05:00

Brown spraypaint on creme wall, Chinatown.

With this tag you can clearly see the movement of the writer's hand.

Post Office Boxes

2006-07-31T10:52:00.000-05:00

POST BOXES ARE A COMMON SITE FOR GRAFFITTI AROUND THE CITY. THESE TWO WERE CAPTURED IN THE ASTOR PLACE, 4TH AVENUE BY 11TH STREET. IT SEEMS THA THEIR UNIQUE CONFIGURATION REQURIES DEFINITE ADAPTATION BY THE WRTIOERS TO PLACE THEIR TEXTS ON THESE SURFACES: A CIRCULAR TOPPED RECTANGLE. THE BOX ON THE RIGHT HAS ELONGATED AND CURVED HIS LETTER VERTICVALLY SO THAT THEY SEMI CIRCULARLY REACH THE PERIMETER OF THE SURFACE. I FIND THE PEIRCE ON THE LEFT MORE INTERESTING. IT FITS INTO THE BOUNDS OF THE SHAPE FAR MORE ELEGANTLY. IT SEEMS THERE ARE TWO LINES OF TEXT:

POR
SHOT

(?)

THE TEXT THOUGH TAKES ON A THE MOVEMENT AN FLOOK OF A DANCER. IS IT JUST ME? THE ‘P’ BECOMES THE HEAD, WHILE THE LOWER STRETCHES OF THE ‘S’ AND THE ‘T’ ARE FEET. THERE ARE ALSO SOME KEITH HARING LIKE ENERGY SIGNIFIERS; SEE THE LINES VIBRATING OFF THE DANCING BODY / TEXT GIVING IT THAT PULSING FEEL OF ENERGY THAT SO CHARACTERISES HARING’S FIGURES.

NOTICE THAT THE GARTBAGE BIN ISN’T TAGGED? I WOULD QUITE LIKIE TO SEE SOME TAGGED BINS.

Blue

2006-07-26T19:56:00.000-05:00

Beautiful rich blue, though with some stretched type of moments, as the hand of the writer moved faster than the paint sprayed out from the can. there's also a real nice sense of movement and confidence here. The only thing I don't likehere is the writer's choice of canvas: the section of the wall he's used is just underneath a window-sill, so the tag is kind of boxed in, stifling it's movement and boldness somewhat. But this was stilll one of my favourites from today.

Sikh Curry House Bathroom

2006-07-26T19:31:00.000-05:00

The Sikh curry house on Houstan St, East Village has some cool material within its two toilets. Here we have lots of thin lines, and simple colours: whites, silvers, and a bold primary red. There's also a good mixture of text and humble images which I really liked.

2006-07-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

Hello there

html test html

2006-07-25T19:10:00.001-05:00

shalom

kjhkjhkjh

A Favourite

2006-07-25T19:00:00.000-05:00

This is like the text on a Holy site. A hymn to a new urban utopia of chaos and industrial beauty.

I also love the way this is a type of an accepted alternative writing script; one over the traditional font of tagging

Trux

2006-07-25T18:57:00.000-05:00

Union Square
East Village. The guy in front of the truck's cabin got slightly protective of his vehicle when he saw me trying to capture it on film.
Patriotic Mexico tag in Union Square. The truck behind it actually looks way cooler ... I don't know why I didn't get a photo of her..?
China Town / Soho.
Soho. Good curving movement in this simple black spray paint rite. I've got no idea what the 'Aids' text is about...

It's really hard to tell with most of these trucks whether they were bombed, or whether the truck drivers asked some writers to go over thier boring white van. Maybe the owner of the truck is herself a writer?

Classic Bubble Text

2006-07-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

Here is a nice example of some bubble text. This is surely the 'classic' font that is associated with graffitti. It's easy to do and within minutes you got some 3-D looking writing. I was happy to see this one, and know that bubble text is still capable of capturing some appeal. I liked that it's still being used by graff writers today. I felt as though this peice of graffitit captured some of the original innocence of graffitti which has been lost a little bit with the chaotic complexity of some of wildstyle peices.

Graffittied Doorways

2006-07-25T18:29:00.000-05:00

Chinatown

Here are some of them

DRO

2006-07-25T18:22:00.000-05:00

I've seen Dro all over lower Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn. The three letter namw is prime; what a shame all the three letter words were taken by other writers by like 1983!