habit. He planned to paint ‘HEROIN’ with the I rendered as a syringe, while DONDI worked on ‘KILLS’. The lettering and palette of each word were slightly different, but compatible, and the break between the words was precisely where the centre doors opened. To the right was a notation that this piece had been produced as a ‘public service’. To the left was a red cartoon devil, not part of ZEPHYR’s original design, poking at ‘HEROIN’ with his pitchfork. This was Ahearn’s contribution. It was the ‘Hot Stuff’ devil from Harvey comics, which also featured Richie Rich and were intended for a juvenile audience. Ahearn’s appreciation for these characters was symptomatic of the taste for kitsch cultivated by some of the downtown artists with whom he associated, while writers like ZEPHYR and DONDI preferred comics for an older or countercultural audience, such as those by Vaughn Bodé or R. Crumb. Nevertheless, Ahearn’s devil worked well with the concept and design of ‘Heroin Kills’ and ZEPHYR considered his execution to be impressive, especially since Ahearn had no prior experience spray-painting trains.[93]
Graffiti 1980
ZEPHYR’s ability to bridge different social circles, as he did with the filmmaker Ahearn and the master writer DONDI, suited him to run a studio for writers established for two months in the spring of 1980 by businessman and art collector Sam Esses. It marked a breakthrough in writers’ sense of what they could accomplish. ZEPHYR said:
Every day at the studio turned into a colossal writer’s convention, a veritable ‘who’s who in graffiti.’ For two straight months, FUTURA and I excitedly greeted graffiti legends at the door – many of whom we had never met before… The studio stayed open all day, everyday, and sometimes late into the night… Serious networking took place and countless friendships were forged. Phone numbers were exchanged and late-night soirees were planned and executed… The subsequent early 80s subway renaissance changed the state of New York graffiti forever. Prior to that summer, many of us only knew each other through each other’s work. The Graffiti 1980 Studio changed all that. It was a wake-up call. We realized the power of ourselves and the miraculous community we were a part of.[94]
DONDI, Children of the Grave Again, Part 3, 1980. Aerosol paint on New York subway car. Destroyed.
Graffiti 1980, as Esses’ studio was called, was crucial to writers making a transition from the subway to painting on canvas: it was a networking opportunity at a time when communication among writers was difficult; it facilitated collaboration and professionalism; and it inspired a sense of ambition that prepared them for the opportunities offered by Fashion Moda and the Fun Gallery.[95]
As an art collector in the early 1980s, Esses supported promising young gallerists and artists. According to ZEPHYR, he had encountered graffiti at the home of Claudio Bruni, an Italian collector whose support of FAB FIVE FREDDY and LEE will be discussed later in this chapter. LEE had painted his terrace.[96] Preferring to develop his own relationship with graffiti writers, Esses met ZEPHYR and RASTA through his daughter who hung around with the Central Park writers in 1979. He invited them to his apartment, where they showed him photographs documenting their pieces. Impressed with their quality and dismayed that they would be scrubbed off the trains, Esses proposed that they organise a workshop where writers could work on permanent surfaces to preserve their efforts. ZEPHYR was interested in participating, and approached FUTURA 2000, with whom he worked in ALI’s Soul Artists collective. FUTURA was organised and able to see projects through, an unusual characteristic among writers who were mostly younger and less disciplined.[97] Esses enabled them to rent a working space on East 75th Street from March to May 1980, and provided spray paints and canvases.[98]
While writers’ collectives had been established before, notably United Graffiti Artists and more recently the Soul Artists, Graffiti 1980 had a unique aim: at the end of its limited duration, Esses would have a collection of graffiti paintings by writers selected on the basis of their reputations among their peers. The writers would benefit, too, by developing working relationships amongst themselves. It was difficult for writers to make contact for a variety of reasons, including concern about letting one’s identity become known to the police, the brevity of most graffiti writers’ active careers, an urban geography that was divided along school zones and subway lines, and simple lack of means of communication, since in the days before mobile phones access to telephones was limited to homes, where there was competition for the line, and public booths. The Esses Studio facilitated cross-borough introductions by providing a place where writers from all over the city could meet in person, whereas before they were known only by tag and reputation.[99]
Between them, ZEPHYR and FUTURA 2000 knew or knew of the most accomplished writers in the city. KEL and CRASH, members of the Rock on City (ROC) crew in the Bronx, had visited Soul Artists and thus were acquainted with FUTURA.[100] CRASH’s friend DAZE came to the Esses Studio and executed his first canvas there, which he considered ‘an experiment’ towards something he might do on a train. He later realised that his move to exclusively painting on canvas began at the Esses Studio.[101] Others from the ROC crew, KEL and MARE also worked there. The two had been part of DONDI’s CIA crew. DONDI arrived one day with ‘his photographer’, Martha Cooper, and eventually completed three canvases. SEEN, a white writer from the Pelham Bay neighbourhood in the Bronx, began to collaborate with MITCH, whom he met through the Esses Studio. Until then, he had worked in some isolation with his crew, United Artists. ZEPHYR was committed to establishing a cooperative, professional atmosphere among these competitive young men. At the end of two months, about thirty-five paintings on canvas had been produced and new working partnerships developed between writers who took what they had learned in the studio back to the train yards.[102] (Unlike United Graffiti Artists, Graffiti 1980 had no expectations that working in the studio would take writers off the subway.) In 1982, a selection of Esses Studio paintings was shown at the University Gallery at Santa Cruz alongside photo-documentation of graffiti trains by Henry Chalfant, to enthusiastic reception.[103]
Unknown, Untitled, 2007. Stencilled paint on brown paper. New York. Destroyed.
ZEPHYR, Untitled, 1980. Aerosol paint on New York subway car. Destroyed.
LEE, Tag, 1979. Aerosol paint on New York subway car. Destroyed.
DEZ, In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1984. Aerosol paint on wall. Manhattan, New York.
CRASH concluded his experience at Graffiti 1980 with mixed feelings. The paintings produced there were excellent, he thought. He enjoyed collaborating with his fellow writers, and the studio allowed people to attempt working on canvas who otherwise might never have had the opportunity. Still, he regarded Esses as having exploited the writers, who after all did not receive compensation for their paintings.[104] LADY PINK, a close friend of CRASH but not a participant at the Esses Studio herself, said that such experiences shaped the writers’ attitudes when they later pursued similar enterprises.[105] ZEPHYR felt that the writers received an education as compensation for working with Esses: they learned ambition, and the professional skills they required when Fashion Moda and the Fun Gallery began to feature their paintings. He disagreed that Esses was exploitative, and believed he was sincere in his desire to preserve on canvas graffiti that would be buffed from the sides of subway cars. Indeed, it would have been difficult to compensate the writers for paintings