The Museum of the City of New York has a new graffiti exhibition entitled City As Canvas: Graffiti Art from the Martin Wong Collection. Martin Wong was a California-born artist who moved to New York in 1978 and immediately became enthralled by the work of graffiti artists. He befriended many of them while working at Pearl Paint, an art supply store on Canal Street in Manhattan. He is recognized as a pioneer graffiti collector. He donated his collection to the Museum of the City of New York in 1994 before returning to the west coast. City as Canvas will run from February 4, 2014-August 24, 2014
The exhibition features seminal paintings and “black book” sketches by CEY (Cey Adams), DAZE (Chris Ellis), DONDI (Donald White), FUTURA 2000 (Leonard McGurr), Keith Haring, LADY PINK (Sandra Fabara), LEE (Lee Quiñones), RAMMELLZEE, SHARP (Aaron Goodstone), TRACY 168 (Michael Tracy), ZEPHYR (Andrew Witten), and many more New York graffiti artists, as well as photographs by Charlie Ahearn, Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, and Jon Naar that show the era’s graffiti-covered subways and buildings.
…
“Graffiti art is now widely admired, but many questioned its merits during the movement’s development in the 1970s. Martin Wong had the foresight to collect graffiti art and advocate for young ‘writers,’ just as New York City’s street art scene was on the cusp of gaining international prominence,” said Susan Henshaw Jones, the Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York. “Understanding the importance of graffiti as an urban statement, the City Museum embraced the opportunity to acquire Martin Wong’s collection, which included many works by artists living just blocks away. We’re thrilled to show this rare collection for the first time since Wong donated it 20 years ago.”
Aside from the many works of art on display, there will also be documentary presentations, including a specially edited version of Manfred Kirchheimer’s Stations of the Elevated, a 46-minute film that he produced, directed, edited, and filmed in 1981. There will also be workshops and panel discussions held by some of the foremost NYC graffiti artists of the era. For more information on the events surrounding the exhibit, please click here.
[Image: Sane Smith • Untitled, ca. 1989 • Ink on paper • Museum of the City of New York, gift of Martin Wong]