The Rise Of Graffiti Writing | From New York To Europe EP01
Through the 70’s graffiti writing caught on like wildfire in New York, kids all over the city started to write their names everywhere with markers and spray paint. The subway trains quickly became a rolling platform for the movement and carried their names all over the city. Techniques and methods on how to paint your name were developed and led to bigger and bolder paintings until they filled up entire subway cars. When the 80’s arrived, is where our story starts.
All the standards had been set and the most active generation was about to reap the benefits of the artistic foundations established by prior generations and a city in the middle of a financial crisis. New York City was broke and therefore the transit system was poorly maintained. By the early 80’s the city and especially the subway trains were covered in graffiti. At the same time graffiti artists from New York started to transfer work from the subways to canvas. The New York downtown scene played a very important role in the spread of graffiti to Europe in the early 80´s. The downtown scene was a culture clash of art galleries, the punk scene, the disco movement, filmmakers, street art and graffiti. Everyone met at that time in the downtown scene. FUTURA2000 met the punk band THE CLASH and started to work with them on backdrop paintings. The subway graffiti king LEE met the filmmaker CHARLIE AHEARN through FAB5FREDDY who had the very first vision to create a historical document.
The Rise Of Graffiti Writing-From New York To Europe tells the story of the New York origins and the rise of modern graffiti in Europe from 1981 and beyond. LEE, FUTURA2000, CHARLIE AHEARN, FAB5FREDDY, SKEME, the TATS CRU, YAKI KORNBLIT and a very limited group of European graffiti pioneers like SHOE (Amsterdam), BANDO (Paris), MODE2 (London), 3D (Bristol), DELTA (Amsterdam), STONE (Munich), LOOMIT (Munich), HESH (Hamburg), CANTWO (Mainz), MICKEY (Amsterdam) and a few more protagonists will be featured in the series.
