Jon Naar: The Birth Of Graffiti

Good evening, welcome to book passage, my name is Steve, and thank you for coming and supporting independent book stores we really appreciate that, and if you have a cell phone, if you can turn it off now that would be a great thing to do. If you are going to get a copy of Jon's book tonight, we ask that you purchase it in advance, and ____[ 0:00:35] treat tonight, it looks like some good photos, I don't know if you had a chance to look at the book, but they really did a nice job there, little bit about the book and little bit about Jon, over a two week period during the Winter of 1973, Jon Naar roamed the streets and sub ways of New York city documenting its booming writing culture. The writers and their tags and pieces, he took more than 3000 photographs, 39 of which have made their way into the now classic book, "The Faith of Graffiti" published in 1974. In essence become a collector's item and is often referred to as "The Bible", by Graffiti Aficionado's. Now in the "Birth of Graffiti", Naar an acclaimed photographer with a dozen books to his name returns to that period of the early 1970's incorporating the photographs from his earlier book along with more than a 100 100 never before seen pictures from this archives to provide a new look at Graffiti's glory days in New York city. Jon Naar's work has appeared for more than four decades in publications including the New York Times magazine, Vogue, The London Times, and has been exhibited at New York's metropolitan museum of arts and museum of modern art. His books of photographs include the "Faith of Graffiti" and "Getting the Picture". Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome Jon Naar Thank you, great to be here on the West coast, the pictures I am showing from my book, "The Birth of Graffiti" and as Steve said they were all taken in a very brief period. The in December of 1973 in New York city where I was living at that time and it was the first professional photographer to - I was the first professional photographer to document this new phenomenon that was just sort of exploding all around us and since I had time, my original book "The Faith of Graffiti" has gotten quite a reputation as Steve said is known as the "Bible of Graffiti" and many people assume incorrectly that I am some how a historian and a specialist in Graffiti, so I want to begin by showing you where I was coming from when I took these pictures and how how they emerged and we will get into discussion perhaps of of where Graffiti is is today because it it has become a world wide phenomenon but in in 1973 it appeared in New York city where I was living on the sub way trains and on buses and in many public places but I will show you some of the pictures that I was taking before I got to to document Graffiti and you will probably see a certain connection between these photographs and and my Graffiti pictures and that I am a city person, I was born in London, went to school in Paris and lived in Cairo, Munich and Vienna. Always in in - pretty much always in cities, in large cities, and after World war Two I moved to New York and lived there for more than 50 years and so I was taking and - I became a photographer in 1964 at a relatively advanced stage but before then I was doing weekend photography pretty much around New York and other places I visited and so these are some of the images that I I did at that time. Signs and - curiously I wasn't aware of this picture that I took, some of you may remember the year that McGovern ran for for President of the United States it was in 1968 well 70 70 right. 72. Oh, 72 okay yeah, in any event, if you look down on oh sorry - I will come back. I wasn't aware there there was some Graffiti in this picture, I have much more interested in this image and in the overall photograph but but that must have been sort of somewhere talked away, this picture which I I actually took in 1959 but has a date as you can see of of '57 I took in in Grinich village, where I was living at that time is actually a graffiti of a gang, so it was again prophetic of of what I would be seeing in almost 20 years later and of the interest and the interesting thing about this it is done pre spray can and so it was just painted painted on this brick wall, white paint - so this is the book I mentioned earlier. My first book came out in 1974 that has 39 photographs some of which are in the new the new book and we will see, we will also notice that Norman Mailer wrote the introduction to this book and gave it - because of his name, a great amount of publicity, and also I lot of people have thought and by the way Mailer in his introduction call this "Graffiti art" and I I don't necessarily consider it art but I love that. This this was my original this are the the English version - British version of of the book which had my title long watching my name go by that I I felt it was a better title because it - it told you more what Graffiti was about, namely identity of of the people writing their tags and now we get into the images from this current book "The Birth of Graffiti" so I mentioned the sub way trains because most of the graffiti was done by very young people, young writers. On day one when I set out to to do this book, I I went to a 155th street train station a subway station, on the eighth train - and on the platform were these kids who came up. I had two cameras a Leica and another one a Nikon. And one of them came up to me the the butler hair this head, looked at my cameras and it was a - I think a Thursday afternoon, they should have been at school but anyhow he he said oh those are nice cameras and I felt particularly threatened, these are ten, eleven or twelve year old kids. So he said "what are you doing?" so I said - oh I believe in telling the truth, so I said well "I am doing a book on graffiti" and he said "graffiti?" so I said "yeah" so they started they all started laughing and I said "well what's so funny about graffiti?" and they said " well we are all graffiti writers" and they said "would you like to see some real graffiti and we will show you some masterpieces" and for the next ten days they took me around and eventually I introduced them to the Norman Mailer, they were absolutely wonderful. And the sad part was that when the book came out, we tried to locate them and oh just a - a foot note on this this is a very important picture because I took it on day one and I said to these kids well I will put you on the cover of the book which I intended to do but the American publisher - there was three editions, the American publisher and the UK publishers refused to put this picture on the cover because they said "oh the parents of these children will sue us" so I said you got to be joking, these kids don't have parents in the way we do they don't live you know in in regular homes, they and and they they were children of the ghetto and and in fact I I recently asked - I called out with, not one of these but one of the very first early graffiti writers, I said "well why did you do it?" and he said "well I did it to escape the pressures of the ghetto" which I thought was a pretty good answer. So anyhow we are getting into the pictures that I took at that time, this is a backyard of the 155th street station, this picture is particularly significant I think because when you think about it, these kids had never been into an art museum, they never studied art, so where did they figure out how how to do the the spray can graffiti writing and I I think it was a major influence of of advertising. Now this of course was the advertising that was was going on in New York at that time, we don't have to be Jewish to like Levis Jewish rye bread and I think this is quite significant. Central park, Valmont skating room. This is 126th street in Holland, next art of fire station, you can see the red door there, the bus stop in the Bronks, stay high was was and is considered - I learned this afterwards - one of the great early masters of - he is still around, I have - I have never actually met up with him, I supposed to meet him three times but he he has never turned up but his his style is supposed to be one of the very best. This is a - we will come back to to that stay high he was all over the place. This this is a [0:13:21] ____ court and on the upper west side in in New York. I think in a school a school yard, this this picture is considered by graffiti historians and one of whom Jack Stewart have wrote of a a submittal PHD thesis. He said that this was oops alright - you see these two names, Eva and Barbara 62 down end what is called outlining and that particular style this 62 by the way is it was the number of the street that they lived on, the outlining of their names and the numbers was as I say barely the first time you know this was ever done and and so this photograph has special historic meaning in in the history of graffiti. I wasn't aware of any of these when I was taking the pictures because I was basically on the run myself because at that time police were really chasing you - anybody not only doing graffiti but but even photographing it. This is a a very elegant concept that people have said was pretty sophisticated, particularly the [0:15:12] ____ and then the one there basketball court, that was in the El Barrio East Harlem of New York. So another school, these were not the kids who did the graffiti but you know they they were very happy to have that picture taken with the graffiti. "K 161" is also very famous all time, he was he is considered to be one of the great graffiti writers 161 being on 161st street probably on the on the west side and he is still around but I am - again met up with him - oh he was the one he was the one who - whom I introduced actually to Norman Mailer and Mailer said he could never do a book, that was called watching my name book by because it could [0:16:14] ____ and is what slay him if he used that title so I referred to to Mailer because he got paid $35,000 for writing that introduction and so I said to Mailer "well you are getting paid all that money, you come up with a better title" so he phoned me a couple of weeks after I had taken the pictures and said "well I have I got the title" he said I said "what is it?" he said "well I tell you K161" - got the title for me and already Mailer said he is talking about his book on Graffiti which is a kind of interesting, and I said what it is and he said oh "The Faith of Graffiti" and I thought originally he said - I said do you mean Face F-A-C-E, he said no no no- F A-I-T-H, Faith and so that's we live with that. The book was set by oh it had quite an influence shortly after it came out because the Graffiti writers in Amsterdam and the Netherlands apparently were doing the wrong style of Graffiti and some book - one of the somebody send my book - Mailer a - my book to to Amsterdam, "The Faith of Graffiti" was used as a manual so that the Dutch Graffiti writers could actually do it properly. So this is more of that era, of the great beetle and again the advertising which in people say Graffiti as vandalism, some of us as I pointed out to Mailer and he does mention that in his introduction, he close me saying well the the advertising is vandalism as well because it's invasion of of property, and because we had we had figure out advertising in those days. This is in the Bronx, I I found out a lot of these locations recently when I did meet up with some of the New York old timers and they they know all the locations a lot better than I do. That this one is in Brooklyn I remember, it's a very it's a famous photograph because in part I would like to think because of my photography but also this this van was shot and what today is hallowed as writers corner, this is in Washington heights on the upper west side of New York and Graffiti efficient artists still still go there and I remember once a year they - more of that - they have they have get-togethers and meetings there at writers corner. This picture I think is also quite significant because it it was on the underpass of the coming of the FTI east way drive and it leads very close to Gracy mansion where the mayor of New York City lived or used to live - current mayor of - owns a town house and not far from here but he doesn't live in Gracy mansion but at that time, the mayor was John Lindsay who - who was a very good mayor and I haven't have known him personally but but he he really had declared war against graffiti and had the - not only the transit police but the regular city police and with police dogs and whole apparatus to - but this way in a way a message I think from the - again from the ghetto writers you know twelve - the kids who lived in the ghettos more up town moving into the fancier of parts, they they wanted and that's why they put their messages of course on the on the sub way trains and buses because they got much more distribution of their of their identity, their tags. This was one of the yards where the trains were kept over night, very hard to get in there increasingly guarded and and one of the kids actually this is the transit police arresting - I am I am not quite clear if they are actually arresting a graffiti writer, I didn't hang around to too long to find out. This young man is not doing graffiti but he is actually, he was caught and here you can see he is actually cleaning up, now whether he is cleaning up his own graffiti or somebody else's I never I never found out that. Particularly fond of this picture because again it's political in the sense that that this was the Nixon - Nixon - now who was Nixon - opposing at the no that - yeah but Carter no? McGovern oh the same year 90 yeah right right but what is interesting - oh what's interesting to me was the the static's of it that the spray can - the writers picked up the colors from the poster and and so you have got the the red and black and white and the the taxis to reflect that, whether the again was unconsciously or not but it's certainly struck me that they are you know pretty interesting and this one of the series of silk sprays that that were done from the book Cony island which is now about to be pretty much demolished in favor of high rise condominiums and and Donald Trump like towers, so again this is an era that won't be around much longer, so we are back to the the red - famous red devils of of the seventh avenue sub way line and back to the beginning of the book, so I would like to get into some questions and try to answer them for you if