In 1983 New York PBS station WNET (aka Channel Thirteen) broadcast "Style Wars" - the now-legendary, pioneering documentary on New York City's graffiti art movement. But for some mysterious reason it never re-broadcast the documentary in the following weeks/months as it was scheduled to do. The reason? "The guy who was the head of programming on WNET lived in New Rochelle," explained Henry Chalfant, who co-produced the film with Tony Silver. "And the night after 'Style Wars' was shown a couple of (New Rochelle) kids were arrested for tagging up. And when they were asked 'Whatever possessed you to do that?' they said 'Oh we saw this great film on Channel Thirteen!'" Chalfant revealed this tidbit of information when interviewed March 30th on WFMU.
The WFMU graffiti special, whose in-studio guests included the artists EZO, MUCK, HOST18, TENZ, SAVAGER, and DEMER and photo-journalists James T & Karla L Murray, explored many issues concerning graffiti - especially in New York City. All agreed that graffiti in NYC has a shorter lifespan today than in previous times. In fact Karla Murray estimated that "a good 75%" of the street art captured in hers and and her partner James' book "Burning New York" - published only four short months ago - has already disappeared!
Check out the Realaudio archive of this show, and the Playlist, which includes about 30 photos taken by Karla and James.
this was an excellent excellent show, and anyone with even a passing interest in graffiti/street art/public art should check it out. Billy Jam is the man.
keep tagging!
Posted by: kr | April 02, 2007 at 02:20 PM
It's on Google Video as well.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5065949310221269915&q=style+wars
Posted by: Stuart | April 02, 2007 at 07:48 PM
There is some good graffiti if you take the NJ transit rail lines out from NYC. The Morris and Essex lines definitely, but I suspect others as well. It's not "I moved here from the midwest because I wanted to be a tagger in NYC" graffiti but some of it is very impressive.
Posted by: bartelby | April 03, 2007 at 09:07 AM