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Style Wars
''Style Wars'' is an American 1983 documentary film on hip hop culture, directed by Tony Silver and produced in collaboration with Henry Chalfant. The film has an emphasis on graffiti, although bboying and rapping are covered to a lesser extent. The film was originally aired on PBS television on January 18, 1984, and was subsequently shown in several film festivals to much acclaim, including the Vancouver Film Festival. It also won the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. The show captures and includes many historical moments of hip hop culture during its earliest days in the 1970s onward towards the early 1980s. Many film elements from ''Style Wars'', including outtakes, are now housed at the Academy Film Archive as part of the Tony Silver Collection. Background The show shows the perspective of writers and their points of view on the subject of graffiti, as well as the views of then New York City Mayor Ed Koch. Graffiti writer Case/ Kase 2, graffiti writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Silver
David Anthony "Tony" Silver (April 15, 1935 – February 1, 2008) was an American documentary filmmaker known for directing the film ''Style Wars''. Biography Silver born David Anthony Silver in Manhattan on April 15, 1935. He attended Columbia University as a Ford Foundation scholar. He was a maker of trailers and other promotional materials for movies and television, including a trailer for Oliver Stone's ''Platoon'', which won a Clio Award in 1986. He directed the 1983 documentary ''Style Wars'', one of the earliest accounts of hip-hop culture that documented the lives of subway graffiti artists in New York City during the early 1980s. The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at the United States Film and Video Festival, a precursor to the Sundance Film Festival. Silver also made the documentary ''Marshall Arisman: Facing the Audience,'' about the artist Marshall Arisman. Silver died at his home in Los Angeles on February 1, 2018. He married film producer and later acting chairma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in the United States. The NYPD headquarters is at 1 Police Plaza, located on Park Row in Lower Manhattan near City Hall. The NYPD's regulations are compiled in title 38 of the ''New York City Rules''. The NYC Transit Police and NYC Housing Authority Police Department were fully integrated into the NYPD in 1995. Dedicated units of the NYPD include the Emergency Service Unit, K9, harbor patrol, highway patrol, air support, bomb squad, counter-terrorism, criminal intelligence, anti-organized crime, narcotics, mounted patrol, public transportation, and public housing units. The NYPD employs over 50,000 people, including more than 35,000 uniformed officers. According to the official CompStat database, the NYPD responded to nearly 500,00 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frosty Freeze
Wayne "Frosty Freeze" Frost (December 4, 1963 – April 3, 2008), also known as The Freeze To Please, was an American old school hip hop b-boy known as a member of the second generation of the hip hop/breakdancing group, Rock Steady Crew. He was known for his comedic, acrobatic, and inventive style. His trademark move is known as "dead man drop", a move that he created accidentally by attempting a poorly executed backflip and landing on his back. His was featured in movies such as ''Flashdance'', '' Wild Style'', ''Style Wars'', and ''The Freshest Kids''; he also appeared on the cover of ''The Village Voice'' in 1981. He was featured in early hip hop music videos such as Afrika Bambaataa and The Soulsonic Force's " Planet Rock" and Malcolm McLaren's "Buffalo Gals". In 2004, he and several other members of The Rock Steady Crew were honored at the VH-1 Hip Hop Honors. Frosty Freeze resided in New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fab Five Freddy
Fred Brathwaite (born August 31, 1959), more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American visual artist, filmmaker, and hip hop pioneer. He is considered one of the architects of the street art movement. Freddy emerged in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a graffiti artist. He was the bridge between the burgeoning uptown rap scene and the downtown No Wave art scene. He was immortalized in 1981 when Debbie Harry rapped on the Blondie song "Rapture" that "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly." In the late 1980s, Freddy became the first host of the groundbreaking hip-hop music video show ''Yo! MTV Raps''. Career In the late 1970s, Freddy became a member of the Brooklyn-based graffiti group the Fabulous 5, known for painting the entire side of New York City Subway cars. Along with other Fabulous 5 member Lee Quiñones, under his direction they began to shift from street graffiti to transition into the art world and in 1979 they both exhibited i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Futura 2000
Leonard Hilton McGurr (born November 17, 1955), known as Futura, and formerly known as Futura 2000, is an American graffiti artist. Biography He started to paint illegally on New York City's subway in the early 1970s, working with other artists such as ALI. From 1974 to 1978, he served in the U.S. Navy and traveled all over the world. In the early 1980s he showed with Patti Astor at the Fun Gallery, along with Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Hambleton and Kenny Scharf. Futura painted backdrops live on-stage for British punk rock band The Clash's 1981 European tour. In 1985, he was on the first meeting of the graffiti and urban art movement in Bondy (France), on the VLP's initiative, with Speedy Graphito, Miss Tic, SP 38, Epsylon Point, Blek le Rat, Jef Aérosol, Nuklé-Art, Kim Prisu, Banlieue-Banlieue. More recently, he is a successful graphic designer and gallery artist. One of the most distinctive features of Futura's work is his abstract approach to graf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cey Adams
Cey Adams (b. New York, 1962) is an American visual artist, graphic designer and author. He was the founding creative director of Def Jam Recordings and is known for his work with Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, and Mary J. Blige. He has been described as "legendary" for his work in hip-hop graphic design. Biography Adams was a graffiti artist in the late 70s and early 80s. He studied painting at New York's School of Visual Arts and ultimately had work exhibited in the city alongside Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. In 1982 he appeared in the historic PBS documentary Style Wars about subway graffiti in New York. Cey Adams met Adam Horovitz in 1983, and a close relationship with the Beastie Boys began with Adams designing the graffiti lettering that spelled out the name of the band on the cover of their 12" single for Cooky Puss. Around the same time, he began working with Russell Simmons' Rush Artist Management creating logos, tour merchandising, billboards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crash (graffiti Artist)
Crash (born John Matos; October 11, 1961 in Bronx, New York) is a graffiti artist. Early life As early as 13, John Matos was spray painting New York City trains, the full image art as opposed to simpler tagging soon transferred to silk screened canvas. Recognition Crash was first noticed through his murals on subway cars and dilapidated buildings and is now regarded as a pioneer of the Graffiti art movement. His work is said to convey a "visual link between street life and established society". and in 1980, Crash curated the now iconic exhibition:"Graffiti Art Success for America" at Fashion MODA, launching the graffiti movement that has remained very active through today. During the 1980s, Crash had exhibits across the United States and abroad. Galerie Yaki Kornblit was the first instrumental gallery in Amsterdam that helped launch his career in Europe. In 1981, Crash, along with 10 other artists were chosen by The Public Art Fund to design animated imagery for The Spectacol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlos Mare139 Rodriguez
Carlos Rodriguez (also known as Mare 139) is a New York-based artist born in 1965 in Spanish Harlem, New York City. He was best known as the subway graffiti writer Mare 139, and has since adapted the graffiti lettering styles to metal sculpture in the fine art context, and is recognized as a media artist for his creation of graffiti-art-related websites. Work As a member of the golden age of subway graffiti (1975–1985), he painted under the moniker "Mare" which was short for "Nightmare". He wrote alongside many of the style masters of his generation among them Kel First, Dondi White, Crash, Kase2, Noc167 and others. This tutelage along with his interest in modernizing the art form lead his interests to contemporary art as a vehicle to re-interpret the concepts and aesthetic of style writing. As a sculptor, Carlos Mare139 Rodriguez's breakthrough was with the metal "K" sculpture in 1985. This led to a series of large-scale sculptures that were true to graffiti lettering format, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zephyr (artist)
ZEPHYR, born Andrew Witten, is a graffiti artist, lecturer and author from New York City. He began writing graffiti in 1975 using the name "Zephyr" in 1977. He is considered a graffiti "elder", who along with Futura 2000, Blade, PHASE 2, CASH, Lady Pink and TAKI 183 invented styles and standards which are still in use. Graffiti Much of Zephyr's original work was graffiti applied on New York City Subway rolling stock. Witten has commented on this period of his work: From 1977 to 1981, Zephyr was a key member of graffiti crews including The Rebels (TR) and Rolling Thunder Writers (RTW), composed largely of artists affiliated with a scene of teenagers spending time in Central Park. Witten was influenced in part by psychedelic artists and underground cartoonists such as Vaughn Bodē and Victor Moscoso. Witten was part of the first wave of graffiti artists to make the transition to galleries, collectors and commercial work. In the early 80s, he showed at New York City galleries sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dondi White
Donald Joseph White, "DONDI" (April 7, 1961 – October 2, 1998) was an American graffiti artist. Biography Early life Born in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, Dondi was the youngest of five children. He was of African American and Italian American descent. He attended a Catholic school during his sophomore years. By 1975, East New York became an unstable region with racial tensions and social conflicts such as the prominence of gangs. In an interview with Zephyr, Dondi stated that he had joined several gangs in the 1970s to avoid being attacked. Anxious to leave high school behind, he earned his GED in 1984, took a job in a government office, and began to indulge his interest in graffiti. Graffiti Graffiti became a serious part of Dondi's life in the mid-1970s. He tagged using "NACO" and "DONDI", and worked on refining his style, gradually moving from simple tagging to building more elaborate pieces. Using the name Dondi (a version of his own name) was considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IZ (graffiti Artist)
Michael "Iz the Wiz" Martin (November 8, 1958 – June 17, 2009, aged 50) was one of the most prominent graffiti writers of the New York graffiti movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Biography Martin was from the New York City borough of Queens, a Rockaway Beach native. Beginning in 1972, he became a long reigning All-City king of New York, known primarily for his quick, simple two letter tag, 'IZ'. IZ represented a new breed of fame-obsessed writers concerned with finding the perfect balance between quantity and quality. He also wrote "CI" (for Crazy IZ), and "Ike", (short for Mike). He rolled with few crews, the most notable being TMB (The Master Blasters), RTW (Rolling Thunder Writers), and TPA (The Public Animals). He wrote graffiti on every train line in New York City. IZ was also prominently featured in the 1983 documentary ''Style Wars''. IZ THE WIZ started writing with Evil 13 FI 1 and after going through a variety of names BENZ CLICK2 SCAT he wrote his name Mike th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DJ Kay Slay
Keith Grayson (August 14, 1966 – April 17, 2022), professionally known as DJ Kay Slay, was an American disc jockey (DJ) from New York City. He is referred to by ''The New York Times'' as "Hip Hop's One-Man Ministry of Insults". He released four studio albums, ''The Streetsweeper, Vol. 1'', '' The Streetsweeper, Vol. 2'', '' The Champions: North Meets South'' (with Greg Street), and ''More Than Just a DJ''. Early life Grayson was born August 14, 1966, in New York City. He was originally a prominent graffiti artist, having been featured in the 1983 hip hop documentary, ''Style Wars''. One of Grayson's better known tags was "Dez". As a youth involved in New York's flourishing hip hop scene, Keith witnessed firsthand the ascent of legendary disc jockeys such as Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizzard Theodore, and Kool DJ Red Alert, in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. "I didn't so much set out to be a DJ," he said. "It was just something to do that was fun and that I enjoyed doing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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