March 29, 2011
SAMO© graffiti appeared in NYC from 1977 to early 1980. They were short phrases, in turns poetic and sarcastic, mainly painted in downtown Manhattan. The tag has been primarily associated with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, but was developed in collaboration with his high school friend Al Diaz, and a few others. Diaz had previously been part of the New York graffiti scene, using the tag ‘Bomb I.’ Later Basquiat took on the tag himself, creating some non-graffiti work on paper and canvas with it, just before and after killing off the SAMO graffiti by painting ‘SAMO IS DEAD’ around the streets of downtown in early 1980.
Basquiat claims the name was first developed in a stoned conversation with Diaz, calling the marijuana they smoked ‘the same old shit.’ The character of SAMO was first developed by Basquiat, Diaz, and Shannon Dawson while they were students at City As School high school. Basquiat took the lead in the project, selling a false religion, in comics made in high school. The concept was further developed in a theatre-as-therapy course in upper Manhattan (called ‘Family Life’).
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March 29, 2011
Jean-Michel Basquiat [bah-skee-ott] (1960 – 1988) was a Neo-expressionist painter who got his start as a graffiti artist in NYC in the late 1970s. He died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. In 1976, Basquiat and friend Al Diaz began spray-painting political-poetical graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, working under the pseudonym SAMO. In 1979, he formed the noise rock band Gray with Vincent Gallo. In 1983-84 he was a frequent collaborator with Andy Warhol. The record price for a Basquiat painting is $14.6 million, paid in 2007 for an untitled 1981 piece. In keeping with his street art roots, Basquiat often incorporated words into his paintings.
He would often draw on random objects and surfaces. A major reference source throughout his career was ‘Gray’s Anatomy,’ which his mother gave to him while in the hospital at age seven. It remained influential in his depictions of internal human anatomy, and in its mixture of image and text. Other reference sources were Henry Dreyfuss’ ‘Symbol Sourcebook,’ Da Vinci’s notebooks, and Brentjes’ ‘African Rock Art.’ Basquiat doodled often, and some of his later pieces, done mostly with colored pencils on paper, exhibit this, often with a loose, spontaneous, and dirty style much like his paintings.
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March 28, 2011
Red Hot Organization (RHO) is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture. Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise donations totaling more than 10 million dollars for HIV / AIDS relief and awareness around the world.
First founded as King Cole, Inc. by Leigh Blake and John Carlin, Red Hot was established in response to the devastation wrought by AIDS on a generation of New York artists and intellectuals. Carlin had an ‘improbable dream: to create an AIDS charity album with pop stars singing Cole Porter songs.’ In 1990 the dream was realized when ‘Red Hot + Blue’ was released, featuring David Byrne, Annie Lennox, Tom Waits, U2, and Erasure.
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March 28, 2011
Keith Haring [hah-ring] (1958 – 1990) was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, at age 19 he moved to NYC, where he was inspired by graffiti art, and studied at the School of Visual Arts. Haring achieved his first public attention with chalk drawings in the subways. The exhibitions were filmed by the photographer Tseng Kwong Chi. Around this time, ‘The Radiant baby’ became his symbol. His bold lines, vivid colors, and active figures carry strong messages of life and unity. Starting in 1980, he organized exhibitions in Club 57, a performance venue.
He participated in the Times Square Exhibition and drew, for the first time, animals and human faces. In 1981 he sketched his first chalk drawings on black paper and painted plastic, metal and found objects. Haring died of AIDS-related complications. By expressing concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, his imagery has become a widely recognized visual language of the 20th century. His work was featured in several of the Red Hot Organization’s efforts to raise money for AIDS and AIDS awareness. Specifically, its first two albums, ‘Red Hot + Blue’ and ‘Red Hot + Dance’ — the latter of which used Haring’s work on its cover.
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March 28, 2011
Nadia Plesner is a Danish/Dutch painter who works and lives in the Netherlands. Plesner is working on issues that lie between the editorial and advertising and often with political undertones. She trained at the Graphic Arts Institute, Copenhagen and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. In 2010 Plesner was sued by Louis Vuitton for showing her controversial painting ‘Darfurnica.’ The painting shows a little hungry boy holding a handbag resembling one made by Louis Vuitton. The little boy is standing in the conflict-ridden region of Darfur in Sudan. The fashion giant thought that the legal rules about logo products were broken and the case was taken to court.
A Dutch court imposed daily fines for approximately 6000 US dollars. The trial attracted much international attention and several artists and celebrities supported Plesner as they believed that the case also referred to artistic expression and the right to make the world aware of international issues in an artistic way. Plesner and Louis Vuitton were also involved in a prior dispute about an artistic campaign called Simple Living in 2008. In 2011 the Dutch court reversed its decision and acquitted Nadia Plesner. ‘Darfurnica’ was sold in 2011 for approximately 45.000 US dollars.
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March 28, 2011
Roadside Picnic is a science fiction novella written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in 1971. The film ‘Stalker’ directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is loosely based on the novel, with a screenplay written by the Strugatskys. The novella was refused publication in the Soviet Union for eight years due to government censorship, numerous delays and sabotage.
The heavily censored different versions published between 1980 and 2000 have little in common with the original version written by the authors. Soviet censors rewrote major plot points, changed names of characters and dialog to better reflect the Marxist ideology (removed language deemed as ‘rude’; heavier emphasis was placed on the exploitation of the Zones for ‘materialistic’ purposes by an elite bourgeois cabal as a means to oppress the proletariat masses, etc.).
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March 28, 2011
Stalker is a 1979 science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, with a screenplay written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, loosely based on their novel ‘Roadside Picnic.’ It depicts an expedition led by the Stalker (guide) to bring his two clients to a site known as the Zone, which has the supposed potential to fulfil a person’s innermost desires. The title of the film, which is the same in Russian and English, is derived from the English word to stalk in the long-standing meaning of approaching furtively, much like a hunter.
The sparseness of exposition leads to ambiguity as to the nature of The Zone. Seven years after the making of the film, the Chernobyl accident led to the depopulation of an area rather like that in the film. Some of those employed to take care of the abandoned nuclear power plant refer to themselves as ‘stalkers’ and to the area around the damaged reactor as ‘The Zone.’
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March 28, 2011
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932 – 1986) was a Russian filmmaker, widely regarded as one of the finest of the 20th century. Tarkovsky’s films include ‘Andrei Rublev,’ ‘Solaris,’ ‘The Mirror,’ and ‘Stalker.’ He directed the first five of his seven feature films in the Soviet Union; his last two films were produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively. They are characterized by spirituality and metaphysical themes, long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure and plot, and distinctively authored use of cinematography.
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March 26, 2011
Lee Quiñones [kwi-nohn] (b. 1960) is one of several artists rising from the NYC subway graffiti movement. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Lower East Side Manhattan, Lee was constantly drawing since the age of five and started with graffiti in 1974. By 1976, Lee was a legend, working in the shadow, leaving huge pieces of art across the subway system. His style is rooted in popular culture, often with political messages. Along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lee Quiñones was one of the innovators of New York’s street-art movement and is considered the single most influential artist to emerge from the graffiti era.
As a subway graffiti artist, Lee almost exclusively painted whole cars (all together about 125), and he was a major contributor to the first-ever whole-train. In November 1976, ten subway cars were painted with a range of colorful murals and set a new benchmark for the scale of graffiti works. Quiñones often added poetic messages in his pieces such as: ‘Graffiti is art and if art is a crime, please God, forgive me.’ He was one of the first street artists to transition fine art. The 1979 exhibition of his canvases at Claudio Bruni’s Galleria Medusa in Rome introduced street art to the rest of the world.
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March 26, 2011
Graffiti Research Lab is a NYC art group dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protesters with open source technologies for urban communication. The members of the group experiment in a lab and in the field to develop and test a range of experimental technologies.
The GRL is particularly well-known for inventing ‘LED Throwies.’ Each extension of Graffiti Research Lab is called a cell. Localized cells are found in Vienna, Amsterdam, and Mexico, copying and extending the work of the NY based organization. The cells cooperate and communicate, but are not one formal organization.
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March 26, 2011
‘Wild Style‘ was the first hip hop motion picture. Released theatrically in 1983, featuring Fab Five Freddy, the Rock Steady Crew, The Cold Crush Brothers, and Grandmaster Flash. The protagonist ‘Zoro’ is played by the legendary NY subway graffiti artist Lee Quinones. An early version of the ‘Wild Style’ logo appeared in the Fall of 1981 when director Charlie Ahearn hired graffiti legend Dondi to paint the ‘window down’ subway car piece that appears in the film. The Dondi piece was the inspiration for the animated title sequence designed by the artist Zephyr in 1982.
The ‘Wild Style’ logo was designed by Zephyr and painted as a huge ‘burner’ mural by Zephyr, Revolt, and Sharp in the Summer of 1983. In addition to covering street artists, the film depicts several prominent figures from the early hip hop culture, engaging in activities such as MCing, turntablism, and breaking. The film has been sampled by many prominent hip hop artists (e.g. ‘Illmatic’ by Nas, ‘Midnight Marauders’ by A Tribe Called Quest, and ‘Check Your Head’ by Beastie Boys).
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March 26, 2011
Wildstyle is a difficult and intricate form of graffiti. Due to its complexity, it is often very hard to read by people who are not familiar with it. It incorporates interwoven and overlapping letters and shapes, and may include arrows, spikes, and other decorative elements. It has also been common practice to incorporate 3D elements into the pieces, and even transform the whole letter structure into three dimensions, to add to the depth of visual perception of the work.
The numerous layers and shapes make this style extremely difficult to produce homogeneously, which is why developing an original style in this field is seen as one of the greatest artistic challenges to a graffiti writer. Wildstyle pieces are also known as ‘burners,’ meaning ‘hot’ as fire.
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