November
12, 2005- January 28, 2006
Duo
Kaptein Roodnat (Marleen Kaptein & Stijn Roodnat) contribute
to project "School Zone" at Urban Academy (Julia Richmond
High School)
NEW YORK - Martinez Gallery is pleased to present SCHOOL ZONE,
a reconsideration of the roles played by art and educational
institutions, and of longstanding assumptions about the ways
the two interact.
SCHOOL ZONE
is an intervention into a New York City public high school classroom,
an open process in which artists are given leeway to bring their
own ideas and concepts into a space normally reserved only for
traditional accoutrements and systems of organization.
Like previous
projects organized by Martinez Gallery, this intervention will
be undertaken by graffiti artists, and as such aims to challenge
even further the seemingly sacred character ascribed to art
and to education, which normally only meet in the most academic
realms of each field.
SCHOOL ZONE
is not, however, a case of simply opening the chalkboard to
graffiti, that is to say underground or taboo art, nor is it
glorified decoration; rather, it is an opportunity to artists,
students and teachers alike to question the underlying exclusions
implicit in being both a graffiti artists and, frankly, an urban
public school student. This project, then, comes with its own
coursework, and subjects like the food chain, the corporation,
artist's black books, history of gangs, history of ethnic groups,
and modern television will be incorporated into the curriculum.
These themes, as well as others that may evolve in situ, intend
to extend beyond the normal intellectual fare of the classroom,
allowing students to identify themselves in what they are learning.
In sum, the idea is to redesign not only the modern classroom,
but also the idea of a school as a whole, exploring the real
and logical possibilities for change in the relationship between
education and art. If school is the place, the institution,
granted the responsibility of first introducing art into the
consciousness and social discourse of the public mind, then
SCHOOL ZONE puts that introduction under examination.
Click to
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release and model
information
Hours:
Saturdays Noon - 6:00 PM. Mondays - Fridays by appointment
Gallery
Address: Urban Academy [Julia Richmond High School] 317 East
67th
Street, Room 222, NYC 10021
Contact:
Martinez
Gallery
Tel.: 212-619-2149
Bios
STAFF
Curator:
Antonio Zaya
Antonio Zaya, a native of the Canary Islands (North Africa),
has spent his entire life working in and around the visual arts,
starting as a performance artist (1974), painter and poet. While
he continues to produce performance art, Zaya's focus has moved
towards criticism, editing and curating, and he has a long list
of projects in those fields to his credit. He has served as
curator of ARCO, editor and curator of the Havana Biennial and
editorial director of Atlantica magazine.
Designers:
Kaptein Roodnat
Marleen Kaptein/Stijn Roodnat are a design team based in the
Netherlands who have produced award winning furniture and architectural
design internationally, and are committed to socially responsible
design concepts.
Editor:
Ken Bensinger
Ken Bensinger has spent the last eight years between NYC and
Mexico City, where he has worked as a newspaper reporter, freelance
writer, translator and editor for the Wall Street Journal.ARTIST
BIOGRAPHIES
BAMA
is a founding member of United Graffiti Artists, a graf groundbreaker
and a pious pilgrim spreading the word that graffiti is art.
A visionary, he brought advanced styles to the streets long
before anyone else, styles so innovative that it would take
years for others to catch up. His work is a maze of reference
and implication, full of allusions to comics (in particular
Marvel) and album cover art (Yes, Santana and Osibisa). Always
unselfish, Bama’s post-hippy roots led him to dispense
styles freely; a fundamental part of his contribution to the
form is found in his influence on other artists. Pieces: 5
Tags: 1,200
Status: King [based on influence]
CASE
2, legendary king of style, demon god of the oldest of
the old school piecers, has never let anything slow him down,
not even the loss of two of his limbs from his wild way of life.
Hailing from the Bronx, Case was part of graffiti’s original
generation of piecers, first exploding onto the streets in the
mid-1970s with a pioneering squad called TFP. He wasted no time
reaching stardom with his famed “computer rock”
series on the subways, ultimately kinging various lines and
co-founding the legendary Fantastic Partners crew. This true
artist has given everything to writing in a relentless quest
to “be the best.” Style: Bronx baroque.
Pieces: 600
Tags: 8,000
Status: King
CAY
161,
an original godfather of graf, began writing back in 1970, and
has been lording over the masses ever since. This is the man
who invented the now-ubiquitous crown icon and was the first
king to reign over the IRT subway lines, famed for his wanton
destruction of IRT walls from 125th to 135th, not to mention
Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain. Frequently credited
with the first masterpiece, or “piece,” in all of
creation, at the 116th street station. There is only one “Swift
King Cay.”
Pieces: 8
Tags: 5,000
Status: Legendary King
COCO
144
needs no hyperbole. A founding father of the graffiti movement,
he ascended the throne to become King of the #1 train all the
way back in 1971. The Thomas Edison of the writer’s market,
he holds the street patent on innumerable styles and techniques
[including the first stencil] that are as basic to contemporary
graffiti as form and composition are to gallery painting. For
example, Coco was the first writer to put an outline around
a tag. He was also introduced the use of multiple colors in
a single tag, facilitating the eventual development of the Masterpiece.
He was the cofounder of UGA (United Graffiti Artists) and was
a participant in the first graffiti exhibition ever at City
College in 1972. Style: Paul Klee of graffiti. Zen chemistry.
Pieces: 0
Tags: 5,000
Status: Legendary King
EARSNOT
is the undisputed king of the downtown scene and he’s
unique: the first hardcore bomber to be openly gay. Add to the
mix Fagan-style street thief skills, a shoplifting talent that
runs so deep he even dubbed his writing crew Irak (e.g.: “I
steal”). And, he’s relentless in his quest to spell
out his name in blazing letters across the entire city of New
York; indeed, one would be hard pressed to walk five blocks
in any neighborhood, in any borough of New York, without seeing
the infamous Earsnot tag. Style: The “Macandal”
of Graff.
Throw-ups: 400
Tags: 9,000
Status: Influential.
FLINT
707
was the first graffiti king to emerge from Bushwick, back in
1972, opening the gates to a flourishing hotbed of graffiti
talent. Perhaps most famous as the originator of the timeless
3-D style, Flint was heavily influenced by the psychedelic movement
and as such the first writer to incorporate psychedelic elements
into his work for dramatic effect. His style transforms dance,
fashion and machinations into composition.
Pieces: 200
Tags: 3,000
Status: King
GHOST
is a writer’s writer, one of the most influential artists
of his or any generation, and elements of his style can be seen
in graffiti from here to Hong Kong. He got into the game just
in time to emerge as one of the latter-day kings of the subway
empire, hitting trains hard and fast with an irreverent Hannah
Barbera-style highlighted by trademark “wacky” letters.
Ghost has served as a medium for graffiti’s old masters,
channeling their energies into his own work. A founding member
of the RIS crew, he is a professional hater, making competition
a creative form in its own right as he haunts the tunnels of
Gotham.
Pieces & Throw-ups: 8000
Tags: over 6,000
Status: King
GIZ
grew up among the huge cemeteries that dominate much of Queens,
making enough noise on the city’s streets to wake the
dead. His style is clean, with heavy Pop Art influences, and
he has developed it into an iconic throw-up oeuvre that will
be remembered long after Giz has hung his last masterpiece upon
the city walls.
Pieces and Throw-ups: 9,000
Tags: 3,000
Status: All City 4 times
JA
is arguably the most savagely prolific bomber in the storied
history of graffiti, crushing the city in his personal vice
grip, night after night, for over 15 years. Simply put, JA is
a beast. Not only has he done more than anyone else for more
time, but he also hits the highest, biggest and most life-threatening
spots the city has to offer, all with an insouciance and ease
that has led many to wonder, is this a mere mortal, or some
evil cyborg programmed to destroy? Style: rich kid on steroids
with a chip on his shoulder.
Throw ups: 20,000-30,000
Tags: 20,000-30,000
Status: All City 17 times
KEZ
5,
a native of Bushwick, Brooklyn, is notorious for his no-holds-barred
tactics and raw bombing style and for an extreme attitude, he
applies as much to city walls as his own lifestyle. Fluent in
the intricate language of the arcane and exclusive world of
graffiti gossip, Kez now has taken up the role of informal historian
and scorekeeper, keeping the form’s oral tradition alive.
In that spirit, he has decided to use his talents for good,
imparting the wisdom of his wild lifetime on a new generation
of little savages. Mass Disturbance. In addition, Kez is the
leader of YKK, one of the most important graffiti crews; and
has led his merry band into great danger and glorious adventure
with a spirit that sets him apart from other Graffiti Kings.
Throw-ups: 3,000 [300 extreme spots]
Tags: no comment
Status: King
LES
is among the most prolific bombers of the last two years. Consumed
with a wild hunger to mercilessly tag, he made no qualms about
carpeting every square inch of a neighborhood. He is celebrated
for his record-setting marathon, going All-City in less than
a month, a superhuman effort in the hardest city ever to see
spray paint. He has temporarily been taken out of the game,
but we will surely see big things from him in the future. Style:
the Joe DiMaggio of graffiti, 1,000,000 different faces for
his e’s, Matt Groening/The Simpsons.
Throw ups: 6,000 including 200 extreme spots
Tags: 8,000
Status: All City 3 times
MICO
invented the “throw-up” in 1971. Born in Columbia
and moved to Brooklyn at the age of 9. Homeless at 17, he was
the only writer to have ever done explicitly political work
on the trains and streets of New York. One of the founders of
United Graffiti Artists, he served as a constant supporter of
political conscience and the movement. Arrested for doing political
murals on NYC highways, his style has always been brutally raw
and instigating. He is an avid opponent of the use of the term
graffiti to describe the writer’s movement and describes
his current work as Abstract Social realism “…a
result of my love for the "abstract" in art, as well
as my passion for the "social reality" that surrounds
us all...”
Throw-ups: countless
Pieces: enough
Tags: hundreds
Status: King
MÖSCO
(Spanish slang for “mosquito”) is a native of Mexico
City and began writing when there was virtually no scene at
all south of the border. Essentially inventing a movement from
scratch, Mosco was among the pioneers of Mexican graf, a second
evolution that paralleled the original creation of the movement
in New York. His influences range from skateboarding to punk
rock, from leftist 1960s Mexican graphic art to Cholo graf and
of course, the classic book “Subway Art,” which
became a bible to Mosco’s generation. Mosco moved to New
York in 1998 and quickly turned heads with his non-traditional
fluid style, which stands starkly out from the pack. This graf
nomad has spanned much of the globe in his quest to create,
leaving an indelible mark across four continents.
Pieces: 3,000
Tags: 1600
Status: King
NATO
is best known for devastating rooftops alongside the 7-train
line in his native Queens with a vigor surpassing all comers.
Not content limiting his repertoire to roller and bucket, this
skilled craftsman taken his boundless graffiti knowledge into
the third dimension, creating a thrilling series of sculptural
works. NATO takes old-fashioned bombing, pop art, ideas about
image and urban mythology and blends it all into his entirely
original work. He is also a journalist/poet, some mix of Breslin
and Baudelaire, combining traditional journalistic methods and
his New York wit to comment on the state of the graffiti scene
from an insider’s standpoint.
Throw ups and Pieces: 4000
Tags: 5,000
Status: King of the Rooftops
NOXER
is a potent blend of bomber and caped crusader, leaving his
Bushwick fortress to swoop around the city, leaving his signature
“Blackman” throw-up wherever injustice and the lack
of distinctive style, reigns. Earlier in his career, he developed
a reputation as an expert piece-maker, known for running with
some of the best and most-influential crews in all of New York.
But, lately he’s been on a street-centric mission, burning
a trail through the city streets and into the darkest corners,
leaving the citizens of Metropolis, and the Vandal Squad, shaking
in their boots. Style: subversive and confrontational.
Pieces and Throw-ups: 3,000
Tags: 8,000
Status: All City twice
OS
GEMEOS
(Portuguese for “the Twins”), brothers from Sao
Paolo, have made quite a name for themselves in the past year.
However, long before stateside fame came to them, the inseparable
logged countless hours working the walls of their native Brazil
and beyond, getting up early and often around the world. This
mysterious duo disappears as silently as it came, shadow-dwelling
emissaries of the third world, leaving little clue of what the
scene was like where they came from, and no hints about where
the might appear next. Still, they have a style that can’t
be missed, blending Latin American folk art, Day-Glo colored
work (or “pixadores,” as it’s called in Brazil)
and good old fashioned uncut bombing.
Pieces: 7,000
Tags: 6,000
Status: Kings
RATE,
hailing from Boston, Mass., is one of the first writers to use
a mascot as his chosen calling card of destruction, painting
hundreds of signature rats in New York City’s darkest
and most forgotten corners. He is also prolific in other graffiti
disciplines, having developed a unique and immediately recognizable
style observed in the literally thousands of tags and hundreds
of pieces littered across the poison landscape. Rate displays
uncanny ease traversing the all too thin line between art world
elitist and ghetto brawler, maintaining strong relationships
in both worlds without falling into the booby traps each throws
across many a writer’s path.
Throw ups and Pieces: 300
Tags: 10,000
Status: Influential
RIFF,
who started writing in the early 1970’s, was also a member
of UGA. A man of a thousand faces, he kinged the subway lines
using over a dozen different names that ultimately betrayed
his identity because of their unmistakable Riff style. With
a cat burglar’s eye, he pilfered the premium elements
of styles of contemporary masters, and then bent them into his
own particular style, making them entirely new again. Over time,
he developed a formidable arsenal of bars, arrows and connections
that even today would blow most piecers away – especially
since much of what they consider “theirs” was born
of none other than Riff himself.
Pieces: 3,000
Tags: 2,000
Status: King
SKUF,
the Bushwick Bully, broke out of the bomb shelter and onto the
scene in the early 1990s, stomping boldly through great swaths
of the city as if he lived in Gracie Mansion. After having gone
All City many times over, Skuf began branching, out into new
disciplines, including multimedia work, all the while ensuring
that his name never left the streets by going out repeatedly
with his crew, the YKK gang. Displaying an insatiable thirst
to crush, destroy and otherwise permanently leave his unmistakable
footprint upon the city, the reigning heavyweight champion of
Brooklyn is the greatest thing this side of Muhammad Ali. Vagabond
Victorian, trademark status, gladiator.
Pieces: 150
Throw-ups: 6,000
Tags: 9,000
Status: All City 8 times
TRACY
168
is the Shamrock mad scientist who invented the most intricate
and arguably most important piecing technique of all time: the
Wildstyle, which he subsequently put a name to (no thanks to
a certain movie that racked the name with no credit).As such.
He is one of the graffiti movement’s founding fathers
and to this day remains the most prolific piecer/painter/bomber
in the history of the culture. His contribution to the genre’s
history is unquestionable, but beyond the Wildstyle, Tracy instilled
a savage energy into the game, teaching whole generations how
to prowl the lay-ups and the yards, searching endlessly for
that great pot o’gold. Style: Warner bros Looney toons,
and Disney, alchemist.
Pieces: 4,000
Tags: 15,000
Status: King
TYKE
is an original member of Los Angeles’ AWR crew, one of
the West Coast’s greatest, and most feared, graffiti mobs.
With the mission of showing the world that the West is the best,
Tyke has mixed biomorphic, organic elements with traditional
letterforms to create a brand new style that is impossible to
forget. He’s a man of many aliases, including Witness,
and the original Bigfoot. He’s spread his considerable
talents generously around, and is behind a successful line of
toys and clothing.
Pieces: 900
Tags: 3,000
Status: King
VFR
started writing graffiti back in 1985, beginning small in the
Lower Eastside, then slowly developing his repertoire, increasingly
focusing his attention on bigger and better things; first it
was streets, then trains during the last golden age of subway
painting, and finally back on to the streets, strategically
“Kinging” almost continually since 1988 with a style
that has brought admiration but never duplication. His two-decade
long siege of New York has earned him the nom de plume “the
Black Guevara,” a lurking, shadow-dwelling embodiment
of the streets, traceable only by the marks he leaves on city
walls.
Throw ups: 20,000-30,000
Tags: 20,000-30,000
Status: All City 17 times
None of
the artists have any “formal art education”.
