New York Style Masters – exhibition at We are related
Friday, September 24th, 2010We are related presents
“NEW YORK STYLE MASTERS”
October 8 – November 13, 2010
Curated by Alan Ket
Opening Friday October 8, 2010
From 17:00 – 22:00
We are related
Sankt Hans Gade 19
DK-2200 Copenhagen
Cheap bar and dirty grooves from The Rotten Apple
“During the 1970s and 1980s young men and women took it upon themselves to create beautiful, but illegal works of art on the outsides of New York City’s trains. These young writers challenged traditional means of art production and risked their freedom in order to beautify the trains with their stylistically rendered names. Developing strong and bold letters became a major component of the writer’s movement and originality was the most celebrated aspect of writing culture.
Unlike many of the hundreds of writers painting the trains there existed a select few that pushed and developed letter styles and challenged each other to improve. These writers became the most respected and admired in their community and became known as style writers and a few gained the recognition of style masters. These include legendary writers Phase 2, Riff 170, and Dondi.
During the train era, depending on the year, some of these writer’s train pieces would last longer than others, by the 80s it was typical for the art to last not longer than a few short hours. Today photo documentation is all that is left of these works and many are lost as they were not all documented.
New York Style Masters is a celebration of the pioneers of this global art movement. Many of the works presented are relics, once used as sketches for works that ran on the New York City Subway system during a period when the trains of the Subway were the canvas of choice. The drawings and photographs showcase a lost era in our collective history.
The New York Style Masters project intends to recognize and celebrate the global contributions made by New York City based artists such as PART ONE, FUZZ ONE, BOOTS 119, MARE 139, MIN ONE, DOC, and NOC 167 to the style writing movement while making an effort to preserve work and cement it in the broader lexicon of the global graffiti movement.”
- KET / 2010
