Graffiti culture & hip-hop
"Dondi" was a very popular artist in the mid 1970's to influenced more detailed bombs and progressed the movement. He later gained fame from enthusiasts for his extraordinary pieces.
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"Fab Five Freddy" become popular for his tags on entire train cars which in this case mocks Andy Warhol's art. He later made an appearance in mainstream Hip-Hop through his popularity among graffiti culture and opened the pathway for others of his kind to follow.
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"People will never really understand what graffiti is unless they go to New York to live surrounded by abandoned buildings and cars that are burnt and stripped and the city comes out saying graffiti is terrible, but then you look around the neighbourhood and you've got all this rubble & shit, and yet you come out of there with the attitude toward life that you can create something positive" BRIM (Chalfant & Prigoff 17)
Henry Chalfant is one of graffiti's biggest advocates, he focused on capturing video and photography of bombs, tags, and street art all over American cities in the 1970's and 80's. He was a producer of "Style Wars" seen below, and can be credited with a significant portion of the publicity graffiti art and it's street culture experienced in its youth.
"bombing" , "Throw-ups", "tags"
media
"Style Wars" is a documentary released in 1983 that exposed New York street culture. The film makes connections to Hip-Hop, graffiti, and break dancing. The documentary made an impact across the world by capturing testimony from locals, their artwork and motives. Below is an excerpt from the beginning of the film which helps set the scene of New York in the late 1970's and 80's.