Graffiti is any sort of words or drawings, scribbled or painted on awall or other surface? without permission. That's why most peopleconsider it vandalism. But to others, including photographers HenryChalfant and Martha Cooper, it's a form of art. A 1984 book featuringmore than 200 of their images of the graffiti on New York City subwaycars documented this urban subculture. Now, a 25th anniversary editionof is out with additional photographs.
When colorful spray-painted names - or tags - started to appear on thesides of New York City's subway cars in the 1970s, they grabbedphotographer Henry Chalfant's attention and curiosity. "I wasdrawn to the art and to the fact that it was mysterious, done byunknown people for free just putting their artwork up," he says. "I wasintrigued."
Another photographer, Martha Cooper, wasalso intrigued by the images. Both Chalfant and Cooper risked arrestand injury, sneaking into the transit system's train yards and subwaytunnels, setting up their cameras on rooftops to capture the earlygraffiti masterpieces on the trains. The 1984 collection of theirphotographs, called , sold more than half a million copies.
"My pieces are the trains, which are taken out of context, sort ofclose-up pictures of trains," Chalfant says, "whereas Martha tookpictures of the trains in the background of the urban setting. She alsotook the pictures of people are painting and entering the yards."
TheNew York City Transit Authority did not appreciate having its trainsre-decorated. Defacing public property is illegal, and the city did allit could to stop the graffiti writers and clean up their art. SteveOgburn, who was only 15 when he started tagging railcars in 1972 usingthe nickname BLADE, remembers always keeping an eye out for the police.
"Tryto imagine being 15 years old, and you're going out with your friendsin the middle of the night, 2, 3 in the morning," he says. "You wouldgo to these trains and - just the excitement, the adrenalin rush ofpainting them! It's exciting! But of course the fear, all the time; youdon't want to get arrested, because if you get arrested back in theday, the police are gonna slap you around, and then they're gonna callyour parents."
That's why the young graffiti artists weresuspicious of Henry Chalfant when he began photographing their work."They thought that since I was twice their age," he says,"that I wasprobably a cop, taking pictures as evidence and that I was going tostage an enormous bust as soon as I had them all together."
After a few months, though, he says they started to trust him, and they helped him take better pictures.
"Webegan to collaborate in a way, because they would tell me when they hadpainted something, which would give me a great chance to go up and getit and I'd know where to find it," he says. "This was very importantbecause these are ephemeral works of art, they don't last long. Thetransit authority was cleaning them as fast as they could. Even in thefirst couple of days, they would probably clean the windows, whichwould leave holes in the artwork. So the trick was to go out reallyearly and get them while they were fresh."
Chalfant and MarthaCooper captured dozens of colorful sketches, tags and abstract images. The centerfold of their book features a 1979 work by Steve Ogburn. Thehuge, almost 3-dimensional letters B-L-A-D-E seem to tumble crazilyalong the entire length of a subway car.
"It justlooks like the letters would be swinging back and forth," Ogburn says."They are in all the colors of rainbow like Skittles [candy] and youhave these little characters [painted] on the end of the train that arejust these little happy characters. And when you did trains back in the70s, everything was like this upbeat fun thing to do. This was just away to go out and be teenagers and have fun.
Ogburn says his "Swinging Letter Blade" is the most recognized subway train that was ever painted.
By1989, though, the graffiti works on New York subway trains were gone.The Metro Transit Authority bought new cars, developed new interiorpaints and surface materials that were easier to clean, and put heaviersecurity around the rail yards and other sites the taggers had used astheir outdoor studios. Eventually, photographer Henry Chalfont says,these young graffiti artists had to move on with their lives.