Art And The Subway

Traces the history of New York graffiti, shows a variety of painted subway cars, and desribes the graffiti writers and how they work.

Explores artistic production surrounding the world's most famous public transportation system, from just before its opening in 1904 onwards. Using images, this work offers perspectives on ways in which the subway has been used as a subject about which to make art, as a site within which to make art, and as a canvas upon which to make art.

Authentic first–person accounts from the graffiti artists whose creative genius fueled the movement from its beginning in late 1970s and early 1980s New York Late 1970s New York City was bankrupt and its streets dirty and dangerous. But thecity had a wild, raw energy that made it the crucible for the birth of rap culture and graffiti. Graffiti writers worked in extremely tough conditions: uncollected garbage, darkness, cramped spaces, and the constant threat of police raids, assault by security staff and attacks by rival crews. It was not unlike practicing performance art in a war zone. Yet during the fertile years of the late 1970s and 1980s they evolved their art from stylized signatures to full-blown Technicolor dreamscapes. Henry Chalfant created panoramic images of painted trains by photographing overlapping shots along the train’s length. It took time to earn the writers’ trust andrespect, but Chalfant became their revered confidant and with Tony Silver went on to produce the classic documentary film Style Wars (1983). Through a series of interviews conducted by Sacha Jenkins, we hear the voices of these characters of old New York. Quite a few of the original writers are no longer with us, but those who have survived have continued to push the envelope as artists and individuals in a new millennium.The stories they tell, included here alongside iconic, raw photographs of their work, will enthrall graffiti fans everywhere.

The authors conduct a tour through New York's underground museum of contemporary art, works commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit for the subway system. 200 full-color illustrations.

30 anni di graffiti sulla metropolitana di Roma racchiusi in 432 pagine, con testi e interviste di 90 tra i writers più prolifici della scena romana. Un viaggio introspettivo in centinaia di archivi segreti arricchito da alcuni scatti di fotografi conosciuti a livello internazionale che sin dai primi giorni hanno seguito e documentato questo fenomeno culturale che nonostante i maggiori controlli e le pene più severe, non sembra avere fine.

The 2nd ed. includes comments of the graffiti artists on the 1st ed., and photographs of New York from 1975.

Over the summer of 2015, typographer and occasional artist Craig Ward rode the trains of each of New York City's twenty-three subway lines, collecting bacterial samples from hand rails, seats and other high traffic surfaces in an attempt to create an unconventional series of portraits of the city’s complex eco-system and a snapshot of the city at large.

This is a nostalgic, visual account of the best time and place to be a graffiti writer. In the 1980s, brothers Kenny, a.k.a. KEY, and Paul, a.k.a. CAVS, immersed themselves in the graffiti scene in the Boogie Down Bronx, dutifully photographing hundreds of pieces on now-discontinued MTA subway cars and capturing their proud comrades before, during, and after the act. "Bombing" "White Elephants" with their pilot markers and documenting them with their cameras, which they always carried, they were on the ride of their lives--until 1989, when the last painted train was removed from service. Tags by names like QUIK, IZTHEWIZ, and many others appear here in color exposures, and dozens of artists share stories and drop knowledge with no filter. A foreword by graffiti historian Henry Chalfant, coproducer of Style Wars--the seminal documentary on New York graffiti and hip-hop culture--kicks things off.