Craig Castleman – NASTY STUFF

Interviews and Graffiti Archive

In 1978 Craig Castleman worked as an English teacher at the Manhattan High School of Art and Design. Together with his students he started working on a publication on the topic they were most interested in: New York subway graffiti. The outcome was a small run publication called NASTY STUFF. It focused the work of graffiti writers and experiences he made taking photos and diving deeper into the local scene. The known ethnologist Margaret Mead pushed him to further investigate the topic which lead to the finalization (1979) and publication of his doctoral thesis in 1982: Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York. To this day Getting Up might be the most important scientific work in the field explaining the social and cultural circumstances and rules of namewriting. Antagonists like the MTA or the transit police are part of the content as well as first attempts to establish graffiti in the art world.

In 2019 Castleman donated his archive to the Spanish associations INDAGUE and Contorno Urbano. After a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2025 the publishers did put together three publications aiming to honour his research and making material accessible that slept in Castleman’s archive for over 40 years: NASTY STUFF, Levantarse otra vez and Black & White Archive.

NASTY STUFF is a 370-paged book which extensively has Castleman’s original research in focus before Getting Up was released later on. Back then the publishing house had no interest in showing full colour photographs or add the complete interviews the author led. Almost 50 years later the hardcover realizes what was not possible in 1978: the original text pages, photographs and interviews are now accessible for the public for the very first time!

Besides introductory words from the publishers Castleman contributed an introduction and shared more never before seen photographs from 1973-1984. In chapters like THE WRITERS, FAME, STYLE, FORM, SOCIALIZING, FEMALE GRAFFITISTS the author describes the graffiti phenomenon understandable and on point. Works from VINNY, BLADE, FUZZ, CAINE I, BOT707, TRACY168, PART 1, ALE, CLIFF, SLAVE, MONO, LEE, SAMO, MITCH77, PJAY, FUZZ, and others have been added to the content.

But the most interesting part might be the appendix including five interviews with transit police offers (also legendary Hickey and Ski) and extensive talks with JAE5/2MAD, ADOM, DAZE, SLICK, SON, CARMEN, KENO, CHINO MALO, BAMA, WICKED GARY, MITCH, RAT, CANDY and LEE. Their unbiased and authentic insights into the 1970s New York scene are invaluable documents of scientific importance to understand the origins of namewriting as well as today’s graffiti.

We recommend getting all three titles to complete your collection of important New York namewriting publications. These are real must-haves!

370 pages, 24,5 x 30,7 cm, different papers, hardcover with silver foil embossing
Language: Spanish/English
Release date: June 2026
ISBN: 978-84-09-796298-8
Publisher: INDAGUE & Fundación Contorno Urbano