Graffiti: From the Streets to Museums
Experts and artists come together to explore the rise of graffiti as an art form and the ways that art in public space shapes community and culture. This conversation is the first in a series of programs that examine how graffiti imagery has permeated our culture and evolved over time.
This program is presented alongside the exhibition OSGEMEOS: Endless Story, the first US museum survey and largest US exhibition of work by identical twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, known globally as OSGEMEOS—Portuguese for “the twins.” The yearlong, full-floor presentation brings together approximately 1,000 artworks, photographs, and archival materials to highlight the trajectory of their collaborative multidisciplinary practice, including the roots of their fantastical artistic language, inspired
by their upbringing in urban Brazil.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Dr. Rafael Schacter is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at University College London and head of the Material, Visual, and Digital Culture subsection. Schacter works on public art and global art, curating and writing widely in both areas. His fourth book, Monumental Graffiti, was published by MIT Press in October 2024.
Martha Cooper is a documentary photographer who has specialized in shooting graffiti and street art for over thirty-five years. Her books include Subway Art, a collaboration with Henry Chalfant, R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art, Hip Hop Files 1980-1984, We B*Girlz, Street Play, New York State of Mind, Tag Town, Going Postal, Tokyo Tattoo 1970. One Week With 1UP and Spray Nation.. She lives in Manhattan but can frequently be found at street art festivals worldwide. You can follow her travels on Instagram @marthacoopergram.
Chris “Daze” Ellis (b. New York City, 1962) began his prolific career painting New York subway cars in 1976 while attending the High School of Art and Design. He remains one of the few artists of his generation to successfully transition from the subways to the studio. His first group show was the seminal Beyond Words at the Mudd Club in 1981. His first solo exhibition was held soon thereafter at Fashion Moda, an influential alternative art space in the South Bronx. A year later, the Sammlung Ludwig in Aachen, Germany, acquired the first of several paintings for its permanent collection. He has since exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions in cities such as Paris, Monte Carlo, Singapore, Beijing, Florence, and Buenos Aires, including at Sidney Janis Gallery, New York City (1984); Galleria del Palazzo, Florence, Italy (1998); Palais Liechtenstein, Feldkirch, Austria (1999); Musée d’Art moderne, Nice, France (1999); Fortune Cookie Projects, Singapore (2010); Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (2014); Museum of the City of New York (2016); Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion at Columbia University (2018); and P P O W Gallery, New York City (2018). Ellis’s work has also been included in many group shows and museum surveys internationally. He has completed many public art projects, including a mural for the Star Ferry Terminal in Hong Kong (1993); a train station design, alongside artists Lee and Crash, in Hanover, Germany (1995); a mural for the Dreamland Artist Club, Creative Time, New York City (2004); and a commissioned mural for the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Washington, DC (2018). He served as art consultant for Baz Luhrmann’s Netflix series The Get Down (2017). Ellis has collaborated with students since 1994, working in communities in New York City; Seoul; Baton Rouge; Rio de Janeiro; Palaia, Italy; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; and Andover. He is a regular contributor to the Leap Arts Program and Thrive Collective in New York City. His work can be found in many private collections, including those of Eric Clapton, Natalie Imbruglia, and Madonna, as well as the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and Museum of the City of New York; Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; and Addison Gallery of American Art.
Caleb Neelon is a Massachusetts-based artist and writer. In 1990, as a thirteen-year-old, he traveled to Berlin, where the sight of the newly opened Berlin Wall, covered in graffiti and murals, was a revelation. By the mid-1990s, Neelon was immersed in the global graffiti scene under the name SONIK. Traveling constantly, he developed a vivid, homespun, raw style of mixed-media painting in cities from Kathmandu to São Paulo and freely crossed boundaries among graffiti, murals, and what would soon be referred to as street art. As a teenager, he also wrote in-depth articles for graffiti fanzines, documenting the art, artists, and history of his global community. He met OSGEMEOS in 1997 along with Allen Benedikt, and together they wrote the 12ozProphet article that first revealed the Brazilian graffiti scene to the wider world. Neelon’s broad range of activity in the past decade includes studio and commercial artwork; cultural diplomacy projects through the US State Department; curatorial work at museums; projects bringing artwork to hospitals, libraries, and schools; documentary film production; and painting for fun in the street. Neelon has authored or collaborated on more than two dozen books, including coauthoring Graffiti Brasil (Thames & Hudson, 2005) and writing several works with frequent collaborator Roger Gastman, such as The History of American Graffiti (HarperCollins, 2011).
