Nation of Graffiti Artists

By Chris Pape, Michael Lawrence [photo.], Beyond the Streets. First Edition limited to 400 copies. Text in English.28,5 x 21 cm.  152 pages. Condition : Excellent.

250€

NOGA, the Nation of Graffiti Artists, was an artists’ studio located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and later, the Bronx. It was the utopian vision of Jack Pelsinger, who begged the city for a studio where children of all skill levels could develop their interests in the arts. The 1970s was a time in New York history when a demand like this could be met, the city rented a dilapidated storefront to the band for $1 a month in 1974. Like moths drawn to a light, children showed up, hundreds of them.

A ragtag group of teenagers helped him clean the trash from the space and build it up (while covering it in tags and scraps, of course). For some of them, it was the first time they had held a paintbrush or a spray can. Some had painted a few trains before, and soon some of the biggest names of the day became regulars (SCORPIO, BLOOD TEA, ALI, STAN 153, SAL 161 and CLIFF 159).

Photojournalist Michael Lawrence documented the experience from 1974 to 1979. NOGA’s goal was to teach neighborhood children how to paint, blending the boundaries between studio and radical political think tank as children learned bring their artwork to local events, sell their paintings at street fairs, and exhibit murals on buildings. It was a lesson in creative capitalism, but for most participants the real payoff was finding their voice.

NOGA couldn’t exist in today’s world, but Michael Lawrence’s photos serve as an excavation for hidden history, allowing us to step back in time to when New York was still rough around the edges. , and better for it. Here, the story of the experience is told by the surviving members of the workshop and through Lawrence’s extraordinary imagery.