The wailng about a wall…

I was recently invited to attend the viewing of the ‘Wall’ recently by an old friend Fab 5 Fred, who was and continues to bridge the culture of Graff and hip hop across many planes. This wall is a real find in many ways, it represents the migration of graff artists of the movement connecting with the downtown art scene in the early 80’s and it also has a backstory which is critical in understanding how we have managed to get to where we are today in some respect. The ‘Wall’ which in fact was not displayed but a photo representation has in my opinion less aesthetic quality than historic importance, given that at that time we were producing far more prolific works. It points to a time and place in which so many important things were happening in the culture on and off the trains. Riding the coat tails of the movement came Basquiat, Haring, Scharf and others whom intermingled with writers like Fab and Lee, Futura and others. While these artists were in art school and also making their presence felt on the downtown scene they saw that this movement was vital and liberating to them as outsiders. Basquiat was an anomoly in the group being that he in many ways was a primitive artist with highbrow ambitions.

I like many celebrate the find as I would a Taki 183 or Super Strutt tag, I recall excavating layups and yards to see how many new and old tags I could find. This event was in its presentation, much like the Banksy show, stirred up mixed emotions. As Allen pointed out the only real cats from the culture of that era were Fab, Lee and myself, the rest of the crowd were mostly tony white folks, some artists and who knows who. I did catch up with Marc Ecko who has long supported graff and leveraged it to build his brand, though he himself is not a writer he has supported the culture in many ways. What struck me as uncomfortable is that the representation in all this still seems to revolve around people like Basquiat, and Haring, while in front of the wall their names came up constantly and I was like in my head- you never heard of the Fab 5! Thats real yo! Still it was what it was and my man Fab 5 Fred is so down by law that he would be the only one to draw me to see a ‘wall’.

Allen and I had an incredible dialogue about the show, its good and bad, and we both agree that it is a meaningful find but at the same time I feel some conflict as to how this is all playing out again within and without the world of art and money. We see this type of thing playing out across the board in the culture and by and large it does not benefit us or at times correctly represent us. In this case I hope it sheds light and benefits the efforts of Fred and others who were really putting in the work. Ive been there before folks, Ive lived thru it all in the 80s and saw these folks dart in and out like bandits so to me it will always be suspect unless some official cats like Fab, Lee, Futura or others who were down are in the house.

- After thought- while at the show a part of me was guilty of not getting to go see a true graffiti masters show, Part 1- TDS, weather and transportation didnt work out but I will get there, his work is also very important to this culture but receives little fanfare in comparison, if I were asked who is more relevant in graffiti culture Basquiat, Haring, Scharf (note- these artists were branded by the media as graffitist, they themselves have unequivocally at one point or another let it be known that they werent), or even Banksy I would without hesitation say Part1.