A Look Inside "The History Of American Graffiti"

July 21 marks the 40th anniversary of what we can call graffiti journalism. To celebrate, we've got the authors of "The History Of American Graffiti" talking about their book. Check it out.

July 21, 2011

Image via Complex Original

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Today marks the 40th anniversary of "Taki 183 Spawns Pen Pals", one of the first articles ever written on graffiti, published in the New York Times on July 21, 1971. The piece profiled a 17-year old kid already known by his peers as a king: Taki 183who said in the article, “You don’t do it for the girls, they don’t seem to care. You do it for yourself.

Taki 183 will be at The Hole Gallery tonight celebrating the big 4-0. With him will be Caleb Neelon and Roger Gastman, the authors of The History of American Graffiti, the definitive story behind the art form, with a forward by Taki 183 himself.

Co-author Caleb Neelon has painted walls in over 20 countries on five continents, has written a few books, including Graffiti Brasil and Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome, and was editor-at-large of Swindle magazine. We caught up with him on the eve of the big party to hear about his newest book. Check out this preview and read his commentary on the pages.

The Hole Gallery event takes place tonight, July 21st, at 312 Bowery in NYC, from 7 to 10 PM.

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Coney Island, 1975

"A gem by one of graffiti's greatest style masters, PART, done before I born. PART hasn't fallen off, either - he probably got down on a wall yesterday and blazed it."

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Late 1970's

"LEE! Are you kidding? How amazing is this train?!"

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Boston, 1983

"These visiting New Yorkers came up to Boston for the premiere of Wild Style in December of 1983. Fab Five Freddy has hip-hop in a headlock, painting while carrying a boom box, and since it was winter in Boston, L.L. Bean boots."

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Chicago, 1987

"Some photos just encapsulate everything we love about graffiti, and this was one of them! We had a feeling this writer wouldn't remain 'unknown' for long after the book was released—sure enough, we learned it was SCANDAL, photo by his friend TSEL. Mystery solved!"