Zephyr's "Wild Style" title sequence #ArtInTheStreets

To fans of hip hop, "Wild Style" is the ultimate embodiment of the culture: MCing, DJing, b-boying, graffiti-spraying!

The title sequence of the film is one of the most memorable and creative of any hip hop film and the animation celluloids are on display at MOCA as part of Charlie Ahearn's room at the "Art in the Streets" exhibition.



The Art of the Title Sequence website does does what it says ;) And it brings us a great interview with the Wild Style title sequence creator, graffiti legend Zephyr (aka Zroc in the film.)

Excerpt of the interview. Read the whole shabang here.

Art of the Title: Were you involved with animation previously?
Zephyr: No. The “Wild Style” animation project was my introduction, although I used to make flip books.

ATS: How did you develop and mix the various artistic styles (the “Wild Style” morphing, “Rap,” "Break,” “Pop”)?
Z: Charlie Ahearn was a great director. He had very specific ideas about everything in the film, and was closely involved in developing the aesthetic of the art in the opening sequence. The graffiti styles used for the words “Rap”, “Break” and “Pop” were all variations of things I was doing on walls and trains at the time. There is a generic quality to my graffiti, but there is also something very distinct about my graffiti work. Maybe that sounds like a contradiction, but graffiti writers will always recognize my stuff immediately. I would say that the different lettering forms were guided by Charlie, but they are definitely “Zephyr-style”. It’s weird to be talking about this now. It seems like a million years ago…

Original "Wild Style" (amphitheater scene party) flyer 1982

ATS: At what point was the sequence created? The star at the end of the sequence is an interesting example of the iconography of the film.
Z: The live footage already existed, so we modeled the animation to dissolve smoothly into the live footage.

ATS: How did you mold the visuals to the music?
Z: Joey Ahlbum created a beat chart according to the soundtrack, and we worked from that.

ATS: How were you able to represent the styles of your peers and friends so well?
Z: I assume you’re referring to the train rolling by. That was easy. Copying other writers’ stuff comes pretty naturally to me, although writers will always execute their own signatures better than someone else will, of course. The train was cardboard, and it rolls by very quickly. If you saw it “frozen” you would see that I probably didn’t really do them justice. I think I did a “Bus” piece that was just plain lousy.

ATS: How did the idea of animating the graffiti come about? Are there other examples of this from this era?
Z: Charlie Ahearn had a vision. He wanted to bring “black book” drawings to life. He urged authenticity and rawness. He didn’t want it polished up. And no, this had never been done before.

ATS: What was it like collaborating with director Charlie Ahearn?
Z: It was fantastic. And I will forever be grateful to Charlie. I was a 19 year-old degenerate when Charlie approached me to work on the art for the movie. His faith in me helped me take myself a lot more seriously, as an artist and a person. I will always remember him as one of the people, early on, who recognized that I wanted to be accepted as an artist and not remain a perpetually stoned graffiti writer. Although being a perpetually stoned graffiti writer was definitely fun for a while!

ATS: How did this movie effect your life and graffiti writing career?
Z: It felt good to be working somewhere without barbed wire and cops. But I kept writing graffiti. Charlie Ahearn even came to the train yard with me twice.

ATS: How have you dealt with personal vs. commercial work, especially considering the roots and history of the medium?
Z: In the 1980’s I did a lot of commercial work. Now I refuse 99% of the offers I get, particularly the corporate ones. Graffiti has become so commercially co-opted it’s sickening. If making it that way is partly my doing, I'm embarrassed. That’s not the legacy I wanted.

ATS: What fueled the youth to bridge graffiti with the other dominant youth cultures of MCing, turntabalism and breaking? Why was the form primarily driven by the youth?
Z: Answering that properly would require about six pages. If you ever come to one of my college lectures, you may hear me discuss that subject since college kids get boners when you mention “hip-hop”. But let’s just say that the “organic/south bronx” hip-hop “elements” theory is a good story, kind of like Santa Claus.

Graffiti existed for a decade before “hip-hop” as we know it emerged. This is not the first case of art forms sweeping up and creating associations with other, pre-existing art forms. Graffiti was “anointed” the visual counterpart for rapping, breaking, etc. Most people simply accept that association, but many do not. Some graffiti artists (Blade and Pink, for example) reject the idea that graffiti is part of the hip-hop movement.

Portia and Blade, MOCA 2011

ATS: Did the old concept of graffiti-as-vandalism die? How is the perception different today for the people and those in the employ of the people?
Z: If a real outlaw gets a paid gig, then you have an authentic thing, but the silverware will get stolen. If someone who can draw cute graffiti on paper (or via computer) gets the gig, you have a happy art director.

Pics from press day @ MOCA #ArtInTheStreets

Jeffrey Deitch talking with Taki 183 and Cornbread

I just got back from the members' opening of "Art in the Streets." But, earlier this week I got an invite to the "Art in the streets" press day which I wanted to share. That in itself wasn't that interesting, after all we've been reading snippits of the press release and seeing the press office approved images for a few weeks now.

Artists in attendance The reason for coming down was to see all the artists in attendance. I spent a few hours meeting artists, their families, other journalists and fans like myself. The artist group shot at the end of the afternoon captures the excitement of this exhibition. It was orchestrated by MOCA and Aaron Rose, but Martha Cooper got impatient and she broke rank to get a more energetic photo of her own!

Martha Cooper hijacks the group photo shoot (front: Cornbread, Mare 139, Duster, Sharp, Anita Rosenberg)

Here are a selection of images of the artists and crew.

And some other images from the exhibition in all its glory. The "Donut Time" installation by Steve Powers, Reas and Barry McGee is a crazy, multi-level mini world that drags you back in time to the 80s.

80's LA transit bus painted by Risk

Blade tribute outside MOCA

Martha Cooper redux #ArtInTheStreets

Martha Cooper (credit: Hypebeast)

For next week's "Art in the Streets" exhibition at MOCA Martha Cooper is reunited with her Subway Art cohort, Henry Chalfont (albeit in separate rooms.) Although, this museum show is a major achievement, what could be considered a more ambitious project involving her work is happening in 'midtown' LA.

"Martha Cooper: Remix" is a mixed media show of her photos and on display at Carmichael Gallery in Culver City. As the name suggests the show involves taking her classic and well-known images and having them remixed by artists whom she has photographed or worked with over the years. Think of a 'who's who' of east coast graffiti artists: Bio, Nicer and B-Gee (TATS Cru,) Blade, Cey, Claw, Crash, Daze, Dr. Revolt, Futura, Lady Pink, Mare 139, Quik, Sharp and T-Kid. They are joined by John Ahearn (Charlie's brother,) Aiko, Mark Bode, Victor Castillo, Jane Dickson, Shepard Fairey, Logan Hicks, The London Police, Barry McGee, Nazza Stencil, Neck Face, Nunca, José Parlá, Kenny Scharf, Swoon and more.

The outcome is surprising, exciting and has produced some captivating images...

(credits: Hypebeast)

Read a great article about Martha Cooper and the show written by New York's Miss Rosen published by La Lettre de la Photographie.

“Artists I have had relationships with over the years and I thought it would be fun to have them make their own art that was based on my photos. Over the years a lot of artists have asked for permission to use my photographs in some form or another. While some photographers might not like this, I always felt flattered. Over the years I have seen a lot of flyers that have used my pictures in various ways. It is heartwarming to see a new generation of people using my work to make art.” Martha Cooper interviewed in La Lettre de la Photographie

1980's New York graffiti re-lived: Subway Art history project

Flashback! Ed Koch was Mayor of New York City for nearly a decade during the height of graffiti in the city, 1978-1989. His battle against graffiti on the subway was immortalized in the film "Style Wars," produced by L.A.'s Tony Silver (R.I.P.) and Henry Chalfont.



Stuck in time Two decades later, I read in the New York Times a retro graffiti movement has been spotted near the Prospect Park area of Brooklyn. Whilst Seen (United Artists) has been spending time in Paris, France over the past couple of years it seem fans have taken his infamous "Hand of Doom" whole train (1980) and recreated it at Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.

"The original work — among those canonized in Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper’s 1984 landmark photographic history, “Subway Art” — was a token of its troubled urban times, a reference to the Black Sabbath song of the same title with the words flanked by a hooded executioner and a time bomb. The 21st-century version, on closer inspection, turns out to be a bit gentler and a lot more oblique. It reads “Joan of Arc,” and the hatchet man has been replaced by an armored representation of the martyred French saint." New York Times

Graffiti "Slavery" The artists behind these classic tributes are part of a collective called "Slavery" and made up of, predominately, graffiti writers who grew up studying "Subway Art" like many others born too late to see the real deal rolling gallery.

Inspired by another New York artist, Steve Powers, aka ESPO, (whose project brightened up a rundown West Philadelphia commercial district as part of the city’s Mural Arts Program,) the Slavery collective has chosen 50 seminal old-school graffiti murals to recreate and customize as part of a project imaginably called "Subway Art History."

R-E-S-P-E-C-T As Subway Art co-author, Henry Chalfant, says, the "Subway Art History" project is a rare  form of tribute in the world of (New York) graffiti: “I think it’s a wonderful reverse of what usually happens, which is that these people whose shoulders everyone has stood on don’t get any credit,” he said.

Blade (taken from Miss Rosen)

“It’s nice the attention guys my age are finally starting to get for our work,” he said. “It kind of amazes me actually. People in their teens and 20s come up to me, and they know every detail of my life story. I’m like, ‘Wow, I don’t even remember dating that girl back in ’72, but this kid here knows all about it.’ ” Blade, graffiti legend

Support and collect The "Joan of Arc" piece will be available as a print from Edition One Hundred, a new online art gallery that sells only 100 limited-edition prints, all signed by the artists. 10% of the profits go to charity.

"Whole in the Wall," Helenbeck Gallery

I went to see the last day of the "Whole in the Wall" show in Helenbeck Gallery, midtown Manhattan. As I wandered around the huge, but empty gallery space I saw works from the New York greats: Blade, Daze, Lee Quinones, Quik and Rammellzee. They seemed alone in such a big gallery and a little soul-less compared to the packed scene at the launch party.

Star spotter Things liven up as Crash arrives and hangs out with the galleryowners and is soon joined by Sharp. The doorman (Sharp's godfather) helps me get their tags for my collection. These are guys are New York graffiti illuminati if you don't know!

Antiquities The most interesting room was on the second floor. A room that brought together the "old and new masters" featuring French 17th- and 18th-Century (reproduction Louis XVI) furniture...all gold and baroque shapes counter-balanced by bright chaotic works from Sharp.