BY LINO RODRIGUEZ
The subterranean mass transit system of mid-1970's to late 1980's New York City saw an indifferent yet divided citizenry at odds over what arguably has been the significant artistic contribution of our time emblazoned across its cars-graffitti. Both fashion and blue-collar sensibilities demonized,diminished, and dismissed the mural and full-train piece as a menace to public order and as amateurish.Contrarily, I believe it was one of the hungriest and most aesthetically enhancing forms to emerge from the drowned-out voice of urban meaningfulness.
Graffitti brightened a dimly lit, urine-saturated train ride.Of further note was the stench many a straphanger braved when braving the aged & dried up 2nd Avenue F Train, or an E Train from which its cars warehoused the unwashed homeless. From its cement to its putrid, cavernous mouth, daily commuters were slapped in the face by the odor that arose from these train stations.Graffitti was yet another in a litany of complaints by its people that the city politicos seemed unable to resolve.It was less of an issue than the feline-sized rats that still inhabit the city today, and more pleasing to the eye. It is a shame that the current legacy that graffitti enjoys as a respectable medium was not present during its most prolific time, that of the 1970's & 1980's. Back then, it was widely reviled as ghetto filth.
No backdrop, pro or otherwise, has impressed me quite like the graffitti of that time. An elemental distribution of both convergent and contrasting brilliance pleads to the artist's audience that his or her or work will endure, because what was created was done so with the purest of motives- to be heard- and not for the marketing bottom feeders that engineer a caricature of its spirit today.I will miss that original chemistry which connects hunger, style, and symmetry.
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