12ozProphet

Aiko and friends have been stenciling up a storm in the top floor stairwell of the luxurious Standard Hotel
in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. The hotel boasts an innovative design, built on stilts straddling the High
Line. Last year hotel guests cavorting naked in front of their floor to ceiling windows, gave passersby an
unexpected X-rated peep show.  Now Aiko’s sexy stencils covering walls, stairs and ceiling will envelope
visitors as they walk out onto the roof deck with its amazing wrap-around views.

No one was more surprised than I to see a series of 7 tiny drawings about graffiti in this weeks’
New Yorker. The New Yorker has long peppered its pages with line drawings of everyday life that
don’t relate to the surrounding articles. For the past few years, these so-called “spot” drawings have
had a theme or told a story. In the March 8, 2010 issue the 7 sequential drawings seen below were
printed somewhat randomly from pages 29-75. They are only an inch or two high.

The story line is a familiar one of a writer being apprehended in the act of spraying and having to paint
over his tag with a paint roller. But the beauty of this particular tale is that the final frame shows our
intrepid hero unbowed and clinging one-handed as he sprays again, this time out of reach of the authorities.
I give the New Yorker a gold star for that surprise ending. For a staid magazine, it’s positively subversive!

Unfortunately it’s nearly impossible to figure out the artist of the drawings because no individual credits for
drawings are given. Big up to you whoever you are!!  Addition—Thanks Alex for pointing out that the spots are
separately credited. The artist is Maximilian Bode. Nice job Max!!

I don’t like my copyrighted images to be reproduced in books or elsewhere without my permission.
But sometimes I get a kick out of seeing how my documentary photos have morphed into something
completely different. Lady Pink sent me the photo below from an art piece by a collective in Rochester,
NY called The Sweetmeat Co.  I admit Pink does look like an angelic vandal in my original photo taken
in 1982 (see below) but it was a surprise to both of us to see her sanctified in 2010.


Yes—that’s Skeme on the right. You are seeing the full frame for the first time. He was hidden under the
slide mount which was removed for the drum scan for our 25th anniversary edition of Subway Art.
Who knows what may be hidden under other mounts??

For the past two days a few of my upperwestside neighbors toiled away molding ice blocks to build a
fabulous igloo in Riverside Park that looked just like the real thing. They sprayed it with water to make
sure it was frozen solid. It was open at the top so there was no danger of the roof falling in. Beside the
igloo they sculpted an Inuit man ice fishing.

The installation was a spectacular work of art and architecture and immediately became a community
gathering place and a super photo op. It was especially popular with toddlers who fit perfectly through
the low arched doorway and whose parents could hoist them up for a peek through the open roof. But
sadly the killjoys in the Parks Department demanded that the igloo be leveled.  It was unsafe—or so they
said. The guys who were ordered to accomplish the destruction were chagrined. One told me that he
had planned to bring his young daughter the next day.
So just who are on the igloo safety committee and against what criteria do they measure? Is there such
a thing as an igloo building permit? Aren’t snow forts a traditional and treasured part of winter?
C’mon—give us a break!







For $4.99 you can buy a handy plastic snow mold especially made for building snow forts and igloos. It was awarded a prize for “best snow toy”. It has never been recalled for being hazardous to children. There are websites detailing how you can make an igloo with an ordinary bucket. Warning: If you want a long-lasting igloo, don’t build in a New York City Park! You might have better luck on the street.

The night I spent in the New Lots Yards in 1980 watching Dondi paint a top to bottom whole car was the
highlight of my graffiti photographing experience. Dondi called that piece “Children of the Grave Part 3”
Later I realized that “Children of the Grave Part 2” was one of the first whole cars I’d photographed but
I always wondered what the first Children of the Grave had looked like.

Last week, 30 years later, I found out at Francisco Reyes II’s photo exhibit at BronxArtSpace. Francisco
hadn’t taken many photos of graffiti but, by luck, he’d shot Dondi’s first Children of the Grave. Here are all
three pieces seen together for the first time:

There’s a wonderful new website devoted to spray paint nostalgia.  Cap Matches Color is the labor of love
of Meal UTS and Slyle UTS whose goal was “to document individual writers’ knowledge of vintage spray paint,
brands, favorites/worst etc. ”  The site contains everything anyone could ever want to know about spray paint
including early advertising, color charts with discontinued shades,  lists of off beat brands, photos of spectacular
collections and hilarious racking stories. Rust-Oleum, Red Devil and Krylon may have emerged the favorites but
they survived competition from dozens of long forgotten wannabes.

Contributions to the site are welcome. Here are two of mine from the early ‘80s.

Yesterday I went to BronxArtSpace to catch the end of a photo exhibit of work by Lisa Kahane and Francisco Reyes II.
They both shot the South Bronx in the late 70’s and early 80’s, a time when most photographers were not about to risk their
camera equipment by walking around snapping pictures.  Lisa called her group of photos “Lapses of Memory” and Francisco
called his “The Exile of Innocence”—insightful titles for excellent work. Hard to believe that thirty plus years has passed.

Last night Lisa was busy shooting portraits for her present Bronx project and Francisco was hanging out. I was surprised to
see his photo of Dondi’s Children of the Grave. I have photos of Children of the Grave Parts 2 & 3 but this was the first time I’d
seen Part 1. Francisco told me that he’d always thought of the pointed roofs of the building at 180th Street as representing a
crown over Dondi’s piece.

Paris was da bomb! Blade, Henry Chalfant and I teamed up for a graffiti photo show at Galerie Bailly
directly across from the Louvre. We had a warm-hearted opening in spite of the freezing cold. Lots of
writers came and we were busy signing books all night.  It was only Blade’s second trip to Paris so it
was a fantastic opportunity for local writers to get a big, beautiful Blade tag in their black books. Keith
Baugh came all the way from England with copies of his new book of early subway graffiti that he shot
from 1973-75. You can order one from his website Big up to exhibition organizers Valeriane and Helene
Bailly for their support and to Nicolas for our beautiful catalogs.

I didn’t have a lot of time to check out the scene but with the help of my friends Silvio and Marie-Laure
and their handy cars, I was able to get around to some pretty cool areas. Paris is an absolute graff and
street art smörgåsbord. Stencils, stickers,wheat pastes, spraycan and roller graf and rooftop pieces are
around every corner as is Space Invader. I happily sampled everything with my trusty point and shoot
Canon—see snaps below—

Blade, Henry Chalfant and I are having an exhibition of 70’s and ‘80’s subway graffiti
photos in Paris next week at Galerie Bailly. Hope to see you there!

I spent the first week of December in Miami basking in the heat generated by hundreds of spray cans,
paint rollers and brushes wielded by an army of graffiti and street artists who had descended on the Wynwood
area of Miami for an incredible painting & pasting extravaganza. While more formal galleries catered to
the high end collectors across the causeway on Miami Beach as part of Art Basel, the streets of a lesser
known neighborhood called Wynwood were oveflowing with artists from everywhere doing their thing.

I was lucky enough to be able to photograph two different wall painting projects going on at the same time. One
of them, Primary Flight, founded by Books IIII three years ago, has matched walls within the community with
artists who wanted to decorate them and procured paint for doing so. The other project, new this year, was
spearheded by Tony Goldman of Goldman Properties, a developer with a history of starting up successful arts
districts including Soho in the 70’s.

Goldman purchased a group of unpromising looking two story former shoe warehouses in Wynwood and
decided to turn them into a street art museum. By teaming up with Jeffrey Deitch, he was able to entice a
star-studded selection of artists to come to Miami during Art Basel and paint day and night. What an incredible
photo op!!  Here are some of the walls in progress. Will post some Primary Flight ones in the following blog.
Unfortunately I didn’t stay in Miami long enough to see many of the finished walls but I’m sure there are lots of
photos of them on other blogs.