"I started to take pictures of graffiti in 1976 when I could no longer contain my curiosity and my enthusiasm for the flourishing and rapidly evolving art that I was watching on the NYC subways."
"I started to take pictures of graffiti in 1976 when I could no longer contain my curiosity and my enthusiasm for the flourishing and rapidly evolving art that I was watching on the NYC subways. I was a sculptor, unknowingly on the verge of a career change. Art critics were talking about the exhaustion of form something that had begun to infect my own motivation to create, and at the same time I was seeing a kind of expression so new and fresh coming to life under the radar. I said, somebody ought to be documenting this stuff. I took up my camera when I figured out that the trains ran outside (I was from Pittsburgh). Eventually, I met graffiti writers. I became a sort of unofficial archivist of their art. They supplied me with information which became an invaluable aid to my efforts to photograph the best and most beautiful pieces while they were still fresh."
© Henry Chalfant / © Speerstra Gallery
