New
York graffiti writers who cut their teeth painting trains in the ’70s and ’80s transfer
Old Skool street art to a more permanent, collectible medium in this book, using
transit maps, instead of subway cars, as canvases. GHOST,T-KID,QUIK, REVOLT, BLADE, SHAME125, COPE2,SKEME,and others decorated ordinary 23″ 32″ MTA
maps with their personal tags and graphicsechoing the heyday of New York train
graffiti. Sixteen sections, one for each writer, feature a total of more than
100 maps, as well as brief statements about the painters’ artistic evolution and
style. Like a dynamic “piece book,” or sketchbook, this collection is
an exclusive sampling of the painters’ signature strokes and tags in portable
form. In fact, many of the artists featured here have used subway-map art as a
springboard from the fleeting genre of train-tagging to the sturdier platform of the
international art gallery circuit.By Alan BortmanAlan Bortman lives in the greater Boston area. He is the curator of DirtyPilot.com,an urban art and graffiti art store featuring well-known and underground artists.105 color photosOld Skool Paintings on NYC Subway Maps105 color photos