Title: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection [music]

Alison Stewart: In the 1970s and '80s, Painter Martin Wong developed a reputation as a collector of New York City graffiti artists. He established the Museum of American Graffiti, and he handwrote a statement. It says, "We as an institution do not condone any illegal activities. We believe in the healing force of art and the rehabilitation through painting."

When Wong was diagnosed with HIV in 1994, he decided to donate his entire 300-piece collection to the Museum of the City of New York. Wong sadly passed away in 1999. Now, a new exhibition featuring many of those large, bold and colorful works traces the evolution of graffiti artists from the trains and the streets to museums titled Above Ground. It's organized into several sections highlighting the origins of graffiti, its broader cultural impact and its post-graffiti scene. You can see canvases from Lady Pink, Hayes, Fab 5 Freddy, and some from our several guests, including Lee Quiñones. Above Ground: Art from Martin Wong's Graffiti Collection opened late last year, 30 years as the 30th anniversary of Wong's donation. The show's on display through Sunday, August 10th, so you have time to see it. You have here to discuss with me is Sean Corcoran, the curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York. It's nice to see you in person.

Sean Corcoran: Great. Nice to see you.

Alison Stewart: Also joining us, Lee Quiñones, or just Lee, artist and actor whose work is featured in the show. Nice to meet you.

Lee Quiñones: Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to know some of your favorite graffiti artists, and to all the graffiti artists out there, what does graffiti mean to you? What do you think the future has to hold for street art in New York City? If you've visited the Museum of the City of New York, Above Ground Exhibit, what pieces or stories about Martin Wong or the art that stood out to you? Give us a call, our phone lines are open. 2124-3396-9221-2433, WNYC. You can join us on air, or you can send us a text, or you can hit us up on social media at All Of It, WNYC. Sean, why did now feel like the right time to showcase some of these pieces from Martin Wong's collection?

Sean Corcoran: As you mentioned, it's the 30th anniversary of the gift so it seemed the perfect time. We initially explored the collection 10 years ago so it felt like the next step was to talk about how art came off the streets and into the galleries.

Alison Stewart: How did his donation influence the Museum of the City of New York's commitment to preserving graffiti art?

Sean Corcoran: Well, the collection is really expansive, and it's paintings made on canvas that were intentionally made to show in gallery spaces. There's also sketchbooks which illuminate the creative process. Then there's also the photographs and the ephemera around the culture. I think over the years, we've come to see the growing value of all those different aspects of the collection.

Alison Stewart: Lee, you knew Martin Wong?

Lee Quiñones: Yes, I did.

Alison Stewart: Good. Can you share any personal anecdotes about your interactions with Martin Wong?

Lee Quiñones: Well, first and foremost, he was one of the most generous, benevolent, very and at the same time rambunctious artist that I knew. He came from a point of so much history. He had so much love for just the expression of art, and he took this as the true expression of an American art movement and America's biggest, craziest city. Right?

Alison Stewart: [chuckles]

Lee Quiñones: I knew him very well. I lived with him for a year as two artists that shared ideas, and just future plans. I helped him also acquire some of the collection just through consulting, letting him know that this is a good piece right here, this is a very valuable piece.

Alison Stewart: What was unique about the collection?

Lee Quiñones: Well, just like Sean said, it has all these different moving parts of a movement that's still to a certain degree, controversial. All these tools of the trade, the fact that these young individuals would grab these art tools that are available in art supply stores, with the exception of the spray can which is made for industrial use, that there was a process creating drawings and schematic sketches. That right there shows that there's a process to creating something that you're going to be very proud and loud about.

Martin was very, very locked in into the Black books, which were very instrumental to keeping your drawings underhand, creating them, developing them, whether it was just to have them as a display and exchange, and just sharing ideas, but also primarily to have them as, like I said, schematic blueprints to masterpieces that were done whether on the subways, on walls, on the exterior, or then canvases.

Alison Stewart: He's bringing up an interesting point that this collection seems to be really helpful in understanding graffiti's evolution.

Sean Corcoran: Yes. The earliest pieces in the collection date back to 1971, 1972, collections of tags gathered by a writer known as Wicked Gary. He brought these little cards around with him as he traveled the city and had guys tag on them. Those became a catalog of who were the early writers. Then he did collect some photographs of the early era writers. Then as you progress through time, you can see different developments of style from bubble letters to wild style.

Alison Stewart: I've heard there's pieces in this show. Well, I saw the show, but there are pieces in this show that people haven't seen before.

Sean Corcoran: Yes. In fact, I would say 95% of the show is new to the walls of the museum and maybe one or two of them had been shown at Martin's gallery in Bond Street in 1989, but they haven't really been seen since then.

Alison Stewart: Tell me about Bond Street, Lee?

Lee Quiñones: Wow. That was quite adventure. I thought Martin-- some of the most genius artists are the craziest.

[laughter]

Lee Quiñones: He had this idea of preserving this movement that he was very fond of. He wanted to have a place, a sanctuary for it for people to do exactly what they're doing now with this existing show at the Museum of the City of New York is to go and actually have that benefit of the doubt. Like, let's just study the inner workings of a movement by young people, not kids. I don't like saying kids. Young people that want to change not only their inner circles and their city, but ended changing the world. He wanted to have a space that people could come and actually connect the dots and start to see these artists, these young people as real functioning artists that have ideas, and they have aspirations, and they're pushing the envelope forward. It's just not for argument's sake, for just to invade municipalities just for the fun of it. This was a municipality that was in dire straits in the early '70s, as we all know now. It's not only genius and conceptually genius that what was happening on the subways at that time is the fact that so many young people took the other lane. They made that hole in the fence that was always fencing them in and said, "We're going through that fence at our expense, and we're going to develop the world's greatest art movement."

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. This is Brian calling in from Crown Heights. Hey, Brian, thanks for calling, All Of It. You are on the air.

Brian: Well, hey, thank you so much for having me. I just want to say I think it's a great New York culture, just the street bombing or graffiti in general, whether it's on the trains or the streets or anywhere, obviously making it to the art world. Different crews starting with the TED, the Ebony Dukes from the Bronx, starting the early '70s all the way to one of my favorite crews, Smart Crew from Queens, which is basically been a Queen staple for the last 20 years. They've crossed into different planes of it, but have always had a great name and good reputation in the streets. I guess for me, different styles. Everyone's first introduction is through Wildstyle, books like Subway Art, Martha Cooper, and Henry Chalfant's book. Then when you go back an era into the early '70s, it's much more funner and childlike and very raw as well, a little cruder, but basically seeing the evolution, I guess what you guys were saying earlier, just the evolution of style, whether it's the way they bubble their letters or just even simply put an arrow, and how that evolved over the years in generations in New York, it's great.

Alison Stewart: Thanks, Brian, for calling. Let's talk to Jim. Hey, Jim, thanks for calling in. You live in Harlem, what do you have to say?

Jim Bae: Yo, yes. Hi, Alison, it's Jim Bae. Hi, everybody.

Alison Stewart: Hey.

Lee Quiñones: Hey.

Sean Corcoran: Cool.

Jim Bae: Hey, what's up? What's up? I'm so excited when I heard this. Yes, I heard this, and when I went to art school, went to SVA, same school as Keith. We missed each other within the year I went there, he graduated. The thing is, I used to do stuff inside the subway like him on the black blank advertising signs, but he used chalk but I used colored pastel. We used to communicate with each other. He would draw something, and I would draw something, so he would draw a response to it. It's so funny. We never met, except one time I saw him in front of the New York Public Library doing a piece on the sidewalk and I photographed him. I was just passing by but we never spoke, like interacted. Wow, this is my favorite art outside of Salvador Dalí, but-

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling in, Jim.

Lee Quiñones: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: We are talking about exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. It provides a window into the vibrant subculture of graffiti artists. It's called Above Ground: Art from Martin Wong's Graffiti Collection. It's on display through August 10, 2025. Joining me now are Sean Corcoran, the Curator, and Lee Quiñones an artist in Studio. If you would like to join the conversation, we want to know who are some of your favorite artists? To all the graffiti artists out there, what does graffiti mean to you? Is it art? Is it self expression, something else? 2124-3396-9221-2433, WNYC. Now, if you've visited MCNY already and seen the exhibit, tell us what pieces or stories have meaning for you. 2124-3396-9221-2433, WNYC. Lee, for your artists, when you are artists, what do you seek to accomplish with your work?

Lee Quiñones: First and foremost, self preservation. Creating self-worth, creating an atmosphere that I felt that I needed to be really entrenched in because I thought outside of myself, this form of art was bigger than myself and that there was this need and this urgency to showcase not just art per se, or even a name, but to tell a story. To tell the stories that people are uncomfortable telling. The truths that are uncomfortable for most people.

It was very important for me to move the needle and the movement forward, maybe even possibly around the whole circumference because I just felt at one point there was a stagnation. I wanted to create something that would be against all odds by creating entire subway car murals and entire murals on handball courts outside, which is the time that I really felt I arrived as an artist because it was something as a neighborhood prescription to me, these walls. It was a very challenging time. I just felt that what I was doing then, just because it's all right now doesn't mean that it was the wrong thing back then. The wrong thing was that there were all these things that were being thrown, all these theoretical limitations set upon a very young sect of people that were very creative, very much in tune with what was going on, not just in the city, but around the world.

I'm a product of post Vietnam, wondering what that's about. The political structure at the time, the racial climate at the time, pretty much the way we are now. I felt that that was my storybook that I wanted to create. To me, graffiti was a state of mind. It wasn't a thing. It was a state of mind. How to apply it and bring it to the masses, that's a whole other thing. That's when you say the mother of invention, necessity. Right?

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Towards beginning of the show, Sean, you highlighted a group called UGA, United Graffiti Artists, which was formed by a 22-year-old CCNY student named Hugo Martinez in 1972. What were his goals with starting this group?

Sean Corcoran: He was seeing interesting writing around the city and he wanted to provide a larger platform. That platform initially started within the walls of City University, but he very quickly obtained opportunities for the group at places like Razor Gallery, which was a gallery in Soho. Legitimacy. He was trying to give them some legitimacy. They collaborated with the Twyla Tharp Studio for a production called Little Deuce Coupe, where they spray-painted on stage while the dancers danced. It was about opportunity, legitimacy, pushing creativity forward.

Alison Stewart: When did museums and other art institutions begin to understand about the value of graffiti as an art form?

Sean Corcoran: I think, actually, the Europeans happened to be first. Maybe this is somewhat controversial, but maybe they had just a greater more casual understanding of what art could be, and they were more accepting. Maybe it was because they didn't have it in their face every day, too. That's a possibility. European galleries and museums particularly were amongst the first to show the work. Then there were alternative spaces like the New Museum in New York in the early 1980s that were showing it, and other alternative spaces like Fashion Moda-

Lee Quiñones: The Fun Gallery.

Sean Corcoran: -the Fun Gallery, ABC No Rio. Places like that would put the work on display.

Alison Stewart: Was it importantly for the artists to promote themselves, or did that not matter much?

Lee Quiñones: In the art world sense?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Lee Quiñones: I think we were all trying to figure it out at that time. It was all so very new to us and to the art world. I think the art world-- I always like to joke that the art world was going through an intermission at that time, and they were trying to find a new platform to work with. That platform consisted of these young people that were trying to figure out their own status. It was a lot of moving parts, as I always like to say, and yes, at that point, you come into cocktail society, the lights come on, and you're not in the tunnels anymore. You have a responsibility to not only what you create, but how you behave and how you trust the system. It's a very complicated place, but art is very complicated. The act of art in itself is a political act in itself. Yes, there was a lot of figuring out to do.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "I saw it twice in exhibition and was fortunate to be at the opening where most of the artists alive were present. Priceless." Let's talk to Steph 161. Hey, Steph 161, you're on the air.

Steph 161: Hey, how's everybody?

Alison Stewart: Doing well.

Sean Corcoran: Great. Great to have you.

Steph 161: Okay.

Lee Quiñones: What's up? [laughs]

Steph 161: Okay. You know me, buddy? [laughs]

Sean Corcoran: Yes, of course.

Lee Quiñones: Of course.

Steph 161: [laughs] Very interesting, from my perspective, that people discuss graffiti writing. Oh, graffiti art, really, in the context of galleries and museums and stuff, or whatever, exhibitions, which I'm all for that type of thing. It's interesting coming from the early birth of it and seeing how it manifested into this "art form." In my time, the whole motive, role of a writer, which is a term that people who tagged and wrote on walls without permission called themselves writers.

Sean Corcoran: Exactly.

Steph 161: I think that you got a couple of divisions in the whole culture. One being writers, the other being graffiti artists, et cetera, like that. Then you have street art, too. I do tours and workshops with our studio. I worked out in Bushwick in street art tours and workshops. It's interesting with people, how they look at street art and grafitti as the same thing, [chuckles] and that's-- [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: You know what, Steph? I'm going to ask you to hold on for a second. Would you explain to folks who Steph 161 is and what the difference between writing and-

Sean Corcoran: Sure. Steph 161, he's one of the original school writers. He was there at the earliest days.

Lee Quiñones: Yes, he's one of the founding fathers that I acknowledged when I came on the scene and some of his old works were still running and possibly one of the first painters that brought caricatures and an atmosphere to the trains like no one else has had. I just pointed him out to my son the other night. I said, "This is a Steph 161 tag in Brooklyn here." I was like, "That's Steph. That guy goes way back. He's one of the-- he's a living legend right there."

Alison Stewart: Steph, thank you so much for calling in. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests in studio are Sean Corcoran, he is a curator. Lee Quiñones is an artist. We are talking about Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong's Graffiti Collection. You can see it now at the Museum of the City of New York. Lee, we're going to talk about your piece, A Life Takes a Life. Could you tell us the story behind it? People can go see it at the museum.

Lee Quiñones: Well, in some ways, it's a vivid window to the experiences that I grew up around having to deal with in the Lower East side in the early '70s. I grew up in a very loving home, but right outside our door was many bad options. I just felt I needed to express that because I couldn't believe that I actually had seen that, heard that, felt that in so many ways. I just felt that it's more than just painting about something of a witness mark or something. It's more about like bringing some sentiment to the human condition. Like A life Takes a Life, the title right there says it all. That a life can be changed and go in the wrong directions and then decide to take another life. My titles and my paintings have always been very paramount to me. Before I make paintings, I make titles. I write them on the walls of my studio.

Alison Stewart: Interesting.

Lee Quiñones: When they come to me very vividly or spontaneously, and then by that title, the painting becomes something, and then vice versa too. I'll make a painting and I don't have a title, and then I'll find something that's written in my studio walls, say, there it is, you connect the dots. It's a very dark piece, but I think that sometimes when you're in the dark, you can actually bring light to your darkness by expressing about that darkness. It's a way of reversing it, just being hovering over you and being heavy on your shoulders. If you can express it, it's like a form of purging, and there hence, is the movement. You're purging a feeling, a vibe. Not necessarily ideas, but a vibe. That to me is not an idea. Why would I want to paint about something like that, but it had to come out, and there's many throughout the history of art, there have been many paintings that are very dark by many different various artists from various movements. Whether it's personal or general public thing, it's something that just needs to be purged.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Sam who is calling in from Ridgewood, Queens. Hi, Sam. Thank you so much for calling All Of It. You are on the air.

Sam: Hey, how are you doing? I hung out with a lot of writers, I think it was the '90s, but to speak to the confusion of the art world back then. I remember being at a group show. It was in Chelsea when there were a lot of new galleries there and it was like some of the guys from AOK, some big writers. There was there was wine. There was a lot of people in the room. I remember someone just leaned out the window to have a smoke and looked down, and two vans pulled up from the Vandal Squad, and everyone was like, "Oh, dip." Unfortunately, everyone got away down the stairs and stuff. We were like, "Wow." People were really looking at this work, and it's cool but as far as New York City was concerned, the NYPD, that was a crime. They thought they were going to round up everyone. I think everyone got away, but that gallery emptied out, fast.

[laughter]

Sean Corcoran: Right. The work that they made on canvas may have been legitimate, but their history traveled with them.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Mia. Calling in from the Manhattan. Hi, Mia, thanks for calling in. You're on the air.

Mia: Hi. This is Mia in Manhattan. I just love the last story that was told, and I think it's important for people to realize what he said. It's really what was going on. Well, anyway, he said it. I don't have to repeat it, but what I wanted to say, I was very young when graffiti was first arriving on the trains, and I absolutely loved it. In my opinion, I labeled it as art right away. I thought it was great. There was no doubt about it. Some people might have had differing opinions, but I just thought it was great and continue to love it all through the years.

I wanted to say thank you for all the artists who are living and those who are not. It was great. There's one thing I don't think anyone brought up in the interview, which might be interesting to your viewers, particularly younger ones, which is at that time, in the '70s, the city was really having some tough times. It was struggling. Just to be able to ride the trains and see this explosion of color and this artistic output, it was so inspiring. It just gave you a good feeling in a way. I don't know. I can't explain it. It was great. It was a great time to see it and enjoy it. It was like art outside of a museum. It was just wonderful.

Sean Corcoran: Sure.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask the '70s and '80s, how did that play into it?

Lee Quiñones: To her point, thank you very much for that. Claes Oldenburg said the trains coming into the station, dark stations at that were like a banquet of flowers that just sprung out. It was one of the most beautiful expressions about something that comes out. Where does art start? Where does art begin? Who owns the right to make that art and harness it? That's a big question. Art comes from the strangest places in the most obscure circumstances, and this was it. Like she said, the city was in dire straits. Fiscal crisis never before seen. Young people took the initiative on their own with tools of no trade, something from World War II, and expressed their-- they created their own personas and their own pyramids. That's such an amazing feat that opened the doors that were always shut.

Alison Stewart: Yes, Lady Pink said in an interview, "I feel we were an important part of the last quarter of the 20th century." Sean, what effect do you think that graffiti artists have had on the nature of art form in 2025?

Sean Corcoran: I think they're ever present in our popular culture today. I think you can't be in an urban space without their presence being known. Not just in urban spaces, but in the clothes we wear and the sneakers we wear. In every aspect of our lives, they're present, those artists, whether they're graphic designers, fine artists, or designing album covers. They're everywhere.

Lee Quiñones: If I may add a point, thinking about Lady Pink, and Eva, and Barbara, 62 and Little Love then, is that this movement in a great way has found a way to democratize, to bring so many women into the picture that have a lot to say as well. Very powerful paintings, some of them that would burn us right off the map, as we say. I'm really proud that they're part of the conversation now as opposed to many movements that have always shunned women away and their voices. This is one powerful force, whether it's illegal or not, that's been able to bring people into the roundtable, as I like to say.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Alex calling in from Brooklyn. Alex, you're on the air.

Alex: Hey, thanks so much. I just wanted to call in and say I really appreciate that you're having these people on and that graffiti is being taken seriously. Just wanted to shout out to the, like, late '80s, early '90s sort of wave of huge names, I guess they were tags that were everywhere, and I'm thinking of in particular Revs and Cost. I couldn't believe how big these guys made their letters and their tags. It felt like all over the city, and not so much any art technique, but the scope and the geography that they covered. Thanks a lot. Really appreciate it.

Alison Stewart: What do you see as the influence of graffiti in today's contemporary art world? What do you think?

Lee Quiñones: Wow, you couldn't have graffiti without [unintelligible 00:28:48]. You couldn't have graffiti without the futurists. Those are controversial art movements, and just the circumstances of the times.

Sean Corcoran: In terms of working artists today, I think the spray can and the line are at its core something, the figurative the line drawn with the spray can. Think of people like Christopher Wall, people like that, who have really internalized the basics of graffiti writing. It doesn't look anything like graffiti writing, but there are definitely a lot of contemporary artists who are absorbing what has happened over the last 30 years.

Lee Quiñones: Right. People like Cy Twombly. You can go the list of people that over the years have in some way, it was always there, but you have to remember this young new crowd of painters were not referencing art history at all. Some of us did not know anything about art history. We were making art history and that's what's very unique about this movement.

Alison Stewart: Got a great text. "I wrote in a couple weeks ago recommending this incredible exhibition. They are all kings and queens of the art form. Lee is bigger than just an artist. He has a heart bigger than his chest. Dondi was my adopted older brother, as was the style master general, as stated by Zephyr. Another king who is another of my adopted brothers." The name of the exhibition is Above Ground: Art From the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection. It's on display through Sunday, August 10th, 2025. My guests have been Sean Corcoran, The Curator, and Lee Quiñones. More than just an artist. Nice talking to you.

Sean Corcoran: Thanks for having us.

Lee Quiñones: Thank you for having us.

[music]

Alison Stewart: An exhibition at the Gordon Parks Foundation Gallery showcases the little known photography work of writer Ralph Ellison and his collaborations with the foundation's pioneering namesake. Coming up, we'll talk about it with the program director. That's next.

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