BLADE – KING OF GRAFFITI

Writing down New York’s most important writers from the 1970s and 1980s, who became part of the graffiti folklore, BLADE will most definitely pop up on everyone’s list. In KING OF GRAFFITI together with Chris FREEDOM Pape he tells his story in twelve chronological chapters beginning in 1957.

From his start as a writer in 1970, to the legendary The Crazy Five crew, his partnership with COMET, stories about his funk band, or his step into the art world: Each part combines piles of photos from sketches, panels, concept wholecars or even one man double wholecars by Martha Cooper, Henry Chalfant, Keith Baugh and Jack Stewart among others, with insights into the person behind these iconic pieces.

The given title KING OF GRAFFITI might result from a fact, that separates BLADE from most of his companions or even from later so called kings: While other writers headed to perfection with logical perfect 3D-blocks, thought out letter forms and super clean lines, BLADE always managed to keep an original 70s flavour in his pieces, canvas works or even in legal pieces. It is hard to name any other famous NY writer who transported that unique authenticity of naïve, fun, creative, experimental and free ideas in his style over decades.

The 256-paged hardcover is a must for everyone who is interested in the origins of stylewriting and could even be worth checking out for fans of the naïve or anti-style, which had a renaissance in the mid 2000s. Or as the foreword says: “…BLADE may well be most graffiti artists’ favourite graffiti artist.”

256 pages, 22,2 cm x 28,5 cm, hardcover with red metallic highlights on cover
Language: English
Written by BLADE and Chris “FREEDOM” Pape
Editing by Roger Gastman
Release date: 2014
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing