We kick off part two of this post with the golden age train writer Cazbee 53 from DSS Crew Da Sure Shots, from Ladbroke Grove piecing the outer wall of the MuTate Britain mechanical zoo….Many of Cazbees pieces rolled past this spot on trains,or were under the Westway itself.
Now he’s back 20 years later, along with oldskool steel writers Fuel, Skore, Mear, Crok, Don myself and a few of London’s more new skool to take the vibe back to the raw, enabling a potent and complementary mix of the hardcore underground vibes and tribes….
and back inside for another shot of me and Vibes….
……and onto the wild, diverse art within, here’s Jimmy South of War Boutique
Lyle Doghead, LRRY and friend
Elate, Obey
Anarchist Crockery by Carrie Reichart
In Dog We Trust by Jolly Good, made with real dollar bills…
Vera Bong
Dotmaster
The toilets…
New Arrivals…
What I have posted is a fraction of what is there, you really have to get down to this 12,000 foot space and experience the most revolutionary art happening London, probably even the world has ever seen.
Here’s some more pictures from the MuTate Britain Winter Show. I’m going to be adding a whole load more as a separate post at the weekend at some point as I need to rephotograph stuff to a half decent standard.
This has to be one of the best art exhibitions anywhere ever in my humble opinion and I’m very glad to have had a hand in it….If you like your surrealism apocalyptic your graffiti groundbreaking your grime genuine and your people straight up this is the place for you…..We kick of with Rubbish Fairy and House of Doll
Mear
Skore TRC
Crok
Achy
Towns
Fuel
Joe Rush
Elate Vibes Lyle Doghead and LRRY and Pakka
Lyle Doghead and LRRY and Pakka with plane by Sam Haggerty and Dotmasters
Teddy Baden
Joe Rush
Wreckage International
Joe Rush and others
Sam Haggerty
War Boutique
Joe Rush
Sam Haggerty and Joe Rush
Obey Giant
Wolf and PXL
Andy Seize
Elate Vibes
Dotmasters aka Bagsy
Sam Hagarty and Dotmasters
Liam Cordy
Joe Rush
Mutoid Dave and others…
Elate Cazbee
Pure Indulgence
Families are welcome to this multisensory extravaganza!.
Full dates and opening times below. We look forwarding to seeing you!
Opening times:
Opens December 4th to December 20th – FRI / SAT / SUN
Fri – 2pm -10pm Sat-1pm – 10pm Sun – 12pm-9pm
We are also open 2 Wednesdays for the Portobello Winter Festival on the 9th & 16th December – 6pm -10pm
Please note the ‘rant’ that previously accompanied this post has been removed for revision as it appears that some people completely misunderstood my point….
The Painting
In this painting I have gone back to the gritty roots of UK graffiti, to show where it all started, tags, throw-ups and early pieces on London trains.
The images from New York in the book Subway Art and the film Style Wars had radicalised fertile minds in 1984 where it incubated, mutated and developed through important years of early bombing. By 1986 London writers had become numerous and dedicated enough that most trains were running with live graffiti on them and confident enough to concoct identities and assimilate styles more independently of New York influence, by now using our own indigenous cultural references and attitudes.
This is when our scene really began in earnest as a uniquely London phenomenon rolling on the oldest underground railway in the world. Pieces got bigger more beautiful and more original, raising the bar higher and higher.
This painting is not meant to be a complete list of London’s graffiti pioneers but features many of London’s legends. I’ve painted it from my own personal memories with input from my pal Envy, one of my old bombing partners, and from my experiences of the yards (particularly Loughton) between 1987 and 1989.
Anyone who spent any time in the yards of London in the late eighties will instantly recognise the vintage rolling stock, layers of stains of old tags on the panels, empty cans on the gravel, and spookily quiet atmosphere in this painting.
It’s based on Loughton train yard. Check out the leaves around the outside and the trees to the left, it could be accessed through bushes and this was one of my favourite views of the fronts of the rolling stock as emerging.
I have put people’s tags and throw-ups in the places I remember them hitting wherever possible. I realise there are discrepancies that purists will notice, (I have included certain writers who didn’t actually hit that yard) but it’s not meant to be historically accurate more a ‘dream-yard’.
Featured writers are Robbo 484, Doze, Prime and PIC from WRH We Roc Hardcrew. Envy, Jano, Kis 42, Coma and Dsia from CD Criminal Damage, Elk and Drax from WD World Domination, Cast and Fuel (who kindly did his own F throw-up on the canvas) from Cold Crush Dukes, Chane and Grand from YDS Yardies, Tilt, Hit, Rate, Kez, Sham 59, Cop and myself, Elate.
If you look carefully at the ‘stainers’ of old tags you may be able to pick out a few others. …there are many more legends that are missing than there are included!! Massive respect to all….
Many of these writers were either better artists than me back then or more ‘up’ than me and did more pieces on trains than me but I was still there doing my thing on the trains for a good couple of years and I spent a lot of my best memories bombing with some of these guys, who showed me the ropes and took me to yards, the others I looked up to and emulated their work.
The early graffiti scene was however vital to my development and one of the biggest influences on what made me the artist I am today. I can almost feel the crunch of gravel under my feet, surge of adrenalin thumping in my heart and the sickly smell of the paint fumes…
I got the idea for this series of paintings as this was a time in history that most never got to see, so decided to try and get the vibe of those mad days across as well as I could. Anyone who wants to see photos from this era of London graffiti should check out Rocking The City.
Vera Bong
Dotmaster
