According to the Daily News, graffiti is on the rise, at least by number of complaints. While not the most prolific writer, MORAL is one of the names going bigger than the rest with fire extinguisher tags around Brooklyn and Manhattan. CURTIS and STER have been at it too, and someone painted a house on a house, which is pretty meta.
First, don’t sell self-incriminating t-shirts and second, don’t take holidays off. On Christmas Day 2006, the Made U Look crew was at work below Central Park, painting the now infamous “Cash is King” whole train. They painted ten subway cars top to bottom and end to tend, spelling out the crew’s name over 750 feet long. Xplicit Grafx, the international graffiti magazine interviewed Made U Look, helping to shed some light on their feat and confirming speculation that law enforcement actually was behind the sketchy website that popped up to sell t-shirts and a video of the hit.
According to Made U Look, the now defunct website, madeulooknyc.com, was created by “New York authorities, in an attempt to confuse and perhaps slip us up.” “We had nothing to do with any of that – website included and if it was up to us no on would have seen what we did for a very long time.” So if you had the bad sense to order one of those cheesy t-shirts, you can figure some “NYC authorities” have started a file on you.
Photographs and part of the Made U Look interview are excerpted below.
Photo of NYPD Vandal Squad undercover at Adidas’ End to End Project by Trubdizzle.
For the past couple weeks, stories have been going around about a former NYPD vandal squad cop set to release a book on some of New York’s most prolific graffiti writers. This rumor was confirmed when Amazon added the forthcoming book to its website. The book, Vandal Squad by Joseph “Joe Blow” Rivera is expected to be released by Miss Rosen Editions, the “urban culture and lifestyle” imprint of Powerhouse Books, in December 2008.
Recently, Graffnews.com, which has sourced the most information on the book, posted a list of writers who are expected to be named, which include SI, LES, FEES, FACET, PEN, SHINE, DECK, CAP, MENOS, JA, FOE, and SKUF. They also posted an excerpt from Rivera about tracking down MENOS.
After several months we caught a break at a graffiti exhibition in lower Manhattan. I was on the roof of a three-story brownstone with binoculars. It was abeautiful night. Half of them were gathered outside,just hanging out, flipping through their photos, the usual. Then one of the guys pulled out a can of spray paint and tagged the sidewalk. When several spectators moved out of the way I could read the tag: MENOS.
Predictably, some people are pissed off and nervous.
Over the last year or so, the concrete slab on the corner of Houston and Bowery has taken on several unique incarnations. HOST18 and TABOO painted some illegal pieces on the wall in November 2006. Unfortunately they were soon covered up with a legal mural by JACE, who was in town to paint 11 Spring Street. HOST18 and TABOO had their final word over the mural and 11 Spring Street for that matter. MISS 17 and REMO came along and bombed it too, before the legal OMNI mural went up.
Now, a Keith Haring mural that lived on the slab for a brief time in the early ‘80s is making a comeback. The Keith Haring Foundation and Deitch Projects are working to recreate the fluorescent mural to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Haring’s birth on May 4th.
“The concept of recreating a mural is not necessarily something we would ordinarily agree to,” Ms. Gruen said, noting the technical resources needed to re-create, as opposed to simply restore or repair, an artwork. “It was really the fact that the wall still exists that made this so attractive.”
The mural, Haring’s first major outdoor project, existed for a few months before its Day-Glo colors began to fade under the sun. Haring then painted over the work, destroying his own creation before it could further decompose.
Several artists were at work on the mural this morning, and it looks like they’ll be finished this week.
Leave it to a cosmetics company to celebrate Earth Day with the most superficial task, cleaning up graffiti. Benefit Cosmetics did just that, unleashing Team Erase Paste underneath the Brooklyn Bridge to “erase” graffiti on the Banks. We’re sure the skaters, bikers and homeless, who are the only people to ever go down there, are much appreciative. The future generations still living in a hellish water world are less so.
Production of the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious continues, with filming taking place outside today at the corner of St. Marks Ave and Franklin Ave in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In preparation, a team of set dressers came through to give the block a slight makeover; storefronts are boarded up and a church is hidden completely. The local graffiti has been supplemented with Hollywood approved tags, which fit in fairly well if you don’t notice the lack of Blood and Crip tags or the protective plastic it’s painted on. By the looks of it, they’re staging a scene inspired by video of Biggie rapping outside a Bed Stuy grocery store at age 17.
If you want to be in the production and you’re between the ages of 17 and 35, they’re looking for unpaid extras for a few concert scenes being shot this Thursday and Friday.
Ripping paper has never been so hypnotizing. [MOMO]
Through March 22nd, Afrology, featuring the paintings of James Top, legendary graffiti writer turned artist and controversial educator, is on display at the Essex Street Gallery (27 1/2 Essex Street, between Hester and Grand Streets). The image of an afroed man forms the foundation of seventeen works, which explore elements of the African American experience. Graffiti letters running across the top label these themes while the collaged images below provide a more nuanced look. Several paintings feature the work of street photographer Jamel Shabazz.
Photo by Runs With Scissors on Flickr. (via C-Monster)
Image by Peter Arkle.
KR, the artist and enabler of drippy silver tags, is profiled by Rob Walker in the New York Times Magazine. Focusing on KR’s eponymous silver ink, Walker describes the evolution of Krink, from a home brewed recipe for friends, to a brand name boutique ink, towards becoming a more accepted and accessible artist’s tool.
