The Subway Art History Project: Difference between revisions

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Graffiti is play, it’s Hip and it’s full of imagination. }}
Graffiti is play, it’s Hip and it’s full of imagination. }}
[[File:Birzin-Graffiti.jpg|thumb|The Crossfit Mural; see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C07YyyKScKY drone footage on YouTube].]]
[[File:Birzin-Graffiti.jpg|thumb|The Crossfit Mural; see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C07YyyKScKY drone footage on YouTube].]]
In June 2019, the owners of Crossfit 718 commissioned an original work of art on the side of their building. The mural was painted by the Slavery Collective and is part of their ongoing Subway Art History Project. That project re-imagines the names of famous graffiti writers from the bible of graffiti, ''Subway Art'' (1984), and repaints the greatest graffiti pieces with names and phrases that elicit new meaning and new questions.
In June 2019, excited about the upcoming opportunity to share their Ph.D. research with the [[NMS|Mailer Society]], the Slavery Collective painted this mural as part of their ongoing Subway Art History Project. The Subway Art History Project led to a written Ph.D. thesis about the growth of graffiti from child’s play to an original art in the 1970s.
 
The Subway Art History Project led to a written Ph.D. thesis about the growth of graffiti from child’s play to an original art in the 1970s.


This mural connects with a very important part of the story uncovered in the thesis, the influence that [[Norman Mailer]]’s 1974 coffee table book ''[[The Faith of Graffiti]]'' had on elevating the meaning of graffiti. In his essay, Mailer connected the young graffiti writers of the 1970s with the Hipsters of the 1950s. Briefly, Hipsters are always-already set up against the Squares; Hipsters are cool and do not support the totalitarian state where Squares are conformists who prop up the totalitarian state.
This mural connects with a very important part of the story uncovered in the thesis, the influence that [[Norman Mailer]]’s 1974 coffee table book ''[[The Faith of Graffiti]]'' had on elevating the meaning of graffiti. In his essay, Mailer connected the young graffiti writers of the 1970s with the Hipsters of the 1950s. Briefly, Hipsters are always-already set up against the Squares; Hipsters are cool and do not support the totalitarian state where Squares are conformists who prop up the totalitarian state.