Rare ’80s Photos of Subway Graffiti Writers and Guardian Angels
January 22, 2014 | Marina Galperina
Christopher Morris is best known for his photographs of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Chechnya and the drug war in Colombia, but in the 1980s, he was a 22-year-old photo agency intern from Florida. These are some rare, recently-discovered, previously unpublished photographs on Time LightBox today. This is how he got his start.
Morris rode the trains alone — which back in the ’80s, may have been a bit more dangerous for young Floridian intern as himself — but sometimes, he rode with the Guardian Angels volunteer anti-crime group. It’s also fascinating to see ads for the Aqueduct restaurant, which make it seem a lot more pleasant and exciting than the currentreality.
Of all photos of the tags and the trash, this one is pretty jarring — Keith Haring chalk “graffiti.”
It was done by CETE and VEW, two graffiti artists born and raised in New York City. ANIMAL got in contact with the outlaws over email, via a trusted source. For obvious legal reasons, they didn't give us their real names or ages, but were more than happy to discuss…
Snowy weather provides optimal conditions for graffiti artists to get up and lots of them have been using the recent winter storms to do just that. But they're not just hitting walls and roll-down gates. They're painting the holy grail of graffiti: New York City subway cars. UPDATE: Another train…
The Russian graffiti blog VIVACITY has released a trailer for Moscow Subway Chronicles, a docu-short featuring some of the proudest work of BUNT, UTOP, MDT and TERROR from over the past five years. Watch graffiti writers unhinge brick walls, crawl around subterranean tunnels and bomb entire train cars in hard-hat 'n' vest disguise like pros. Just in case you thought Russian…
