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culture
Henry Chalfant
Running The Line
"I like the current trend to paint more than just the name. Street art is a natural child to graffiti and carries cultural expression in public spaces to another level with social and political meanings and using parody and humor to great effect." Henry Chalfant
Running the NY streets with camera in hand during some of the graffiti movements first tentative steps into real style, flair and increased technical ability, Henry, a former practicing artist himself, became one of the key documentarians, along with Martha Cooper, to present this growing cultural and artistic movement. His focus was on accurately representing and preserving the artworks, which would entail taking multiple shots of any given piece and then meticulously stitching these together to complete the image. Henry also played an instrumental role in the graffiti film Style Wars working closely with Tony Silver.
With Subway Art celebrating it's 25th year the book has been re-released in an all new oversized format. It re-introduces us to both the burgeoning graffiti movement and also re-highlights the dedication and hard work that both Henry and Martha put in. 25 years on and Henry's passion towards the scene hasn't diminished with him currently digitising his entire catalogue of photographic works in preparation for a special release.
With Subway Art celebrating it's 25th year the book has been re-released in an all new oversized format. It re-introduces us to both the burgeoning graffiti movement and also re-highlights the dedication and hard work that both Henry and Martha put in. 25 years on and Henry's passion towards the scene hasn't diminished with him currently digitising his entire catalogue of photographic works in preparation for a special release.
Having the 25th anniversary of such an important book to both graffiti and street art culture as a whole reproduced in such an exciting new format must be a pretty proud moment for both you and Martha. How has your relationship with this collection of photos changed over the years?
In the beginning, I just took pictures for fun and out of curiosity. As the photos accumulated and I began to meet graffiti writers, I began to take what I was doing more seriously. My photography became a collaboration with the writers in the sense that documenting their work was valuable to them and their information about when and where they had done pieces greatly facilitated my ability to get the pictures. Photography became the primary means for the culture to spread beyond New York and Philadelphia. For me, the photo collection has been a sort of passport to communities of artists around the world. The albums which I kept in my studio were for many years a source for people to come to study style
I closed my studio in the mid nineties. I am now in the process of digitalizing all my trains and cataloguing them in order to make them available once again on a DVD set.
You make quite a strong point in your afterwords in the 25th anniversary edition of Subway Art to mention that both yours and Martha's neglect of the works occurring on lines such as the BMTs and INDs was not deliberate but was rather a matter of both circumstance and the ability to find desirable shooting spots with a good outlook and lighting conditions. If you could go back would you try to remedy this lack of coverage given to other lines?
Sure. The first time around, I had no thought of creating a definitive and all inclusive survey of the artform. Knowing now how important this movement has become I would try to be more thorough if I had a chance to do it again. I missed a lot of great pieces. But no single person can do it all. The good thing now is that there are lots of people documenting every painting that ever gets done.
How have the environments that you used to photograph in in the Bronx, Harlem and the Upper West Side changed today? Do you think that there has been any development in the way that these neighborhoods accept creativity and ephemeral art forms on their streets compared to the 70's and 80's? Do you think there is a greater understanding from the public at large in New York as to its value or is it still very much an outsiders art-form from your perspective?
There always was an appreciation of the works of art graffiti artists created in the neighborhoods. Shop owners gave people permission to paint walls, school principals allowed artists to paint handball courts. While most people in the neighborhoods dislike the profusion of tags and throw-ups, they appreciate the artists who are doing pieces and there are still a number of places in the city where artists get together to paint. However, the authorities are becoming ever more intolerant and new legislation has made it a felony to deface public and private property.
You mention in your forward that after your first experience with New York graffiti you bought Jon Naar's The Faith of Graffiti. What was the impact of this book on you? When you and Martha came together to find a publisher had you approached Jon on any possible advice as to how to publish your own works?
I bought a copy of The Faith of Graffiti when it first came out. I was glad that someone was documenting graf. But when several years went by without the appearance of any more books, I began to feel a serious urge to try to document the trains myself. I met Jon when Tony and I were making Style Wars and we needed to show some old school photos. By that time, Marty and I had a book deal with Thames and Hudson and I never had to ask Jon for advice. Many publishers in New York, however, used The Faith of Graffiti as an excuse to turn down Subway Art when we were looking for a publisher. They said there was already a book on graffiti, even though it was almost 10 years old and graffiti had evolved a great deal since that time.
How do you feel about graffiti and the broader world of street art in all its forms currently? Does it still excite you? Are there any particular artist that you follow or whose work you've recently seen and enjoyed?
I like the current trend to paint more than just the name. Street art is a natural child to graffiti and carries cultural expression in public spaces to another level with social and political meanings and using parody and humor to great effect. I love the work of Banksy and Blek le Rat. I'm completely blown away by the work of Blu, especially the animated films he's made painting on walls.
You liken the experience of catching a burner to the thrill of 'stalking big game'. Is their any piece that you can remember to this day that got away?
So many great pieces eluded me. My biggest disappointment was getting several of Lee's whole cars a day too late, after the windows had been buffed. The Silver Surfer and the Hell Express come to mind. Both these were beautiful whole car murals with important elements painted over the windows which were destroyed when Transit buffed them.
The process of splicing your photographs together was a critical method for documenting the pieces when a location wouldn't allow for a single complete shot. How laborious was this task and did it ever become your preferred method of capturing a piece allowing for larger more detailed photos?
I almost always used the close-up method of shooting on the run and then splicing in the studio. I left the field of shooting trains like a photographer to Marty. It was a laborious method but from my point of view, it was worth it because it highlighted the art in a detailed straight-ahead way without distortion. Cutting and splicing is now replaced by digital stitching, which is also laborious, but once done, preserves the image forever (I hope).
With technical advancements abound in both cameras, photo-manipulation and editing what is your current preferred method of working today? How if at all have you incorporated new technologies into the way that you work?
In addition to stitching the photos in Photoshop, I work a lot in video and I use Final Cut Pro.
Like Martha your currently a part of an exhibition taking place in New York at the Helenback Gallery titled the Whole In The Wall what is your involvement with this exhibition and what works of yours can we expect to see there?
I'm exhibiting images of vintage trains by the American artists participating in the show: Crash, Blade, Quick, Lee, Sharp, JonOne and Daze.
The images are printed on aluminum panels and I'm very happy the way they came out. The Gallery has also enlarged a Blade train to 35 feet in length. Very nice!
The dilemma of any sort of anthropologist is that more often than not the very act of being an observer can move beyond that of passive documentarian and can result in altering the direction of the culture to varying degrees. With this in mind have you ever wondered if what we now see as a world wide phenomenon would have reached the heights that it has without this book and the notoriety that it garnered?
Graffiti was getting around slightly before our Subway Art came out in a few videos like Buffalo Gals by Malcom McLaren and through music tours of groups like The Clash who took along Futura as a resident artist, or trips taken by Rock Steady in which Doze painted scenery for the performances. But I think the book really was the vehicle that reached critical mass and kicked off the world wide movement. At least judging from what so many people have told me, who said it was the book that inspired them.
What advice would you give to anyone that is interested in following in either yours or Martha's footsteps by becoming involved in documenting a particular cultural movement?
The best advice I could give is to take the time to get to know the movement from the inside as much as possible. Marty and I became part of the family, so to speak, because we were as valuable to the writers as documentarians as they were to us as sources of information. If we had come to them without having established our role and coming to know everybody over a couple of years time, I don't think we would have been able to enjoy the generous cooperation we got from people when it came time to do the book. It helped that we had been around the scene for a while without any agenda. At first it was just fun. Only later did we think about making a book.
Finally any shoutouts or last words?
The book represents for me more than just a project. When I was young I was always torn between being an artist and an activist. In a way, by finding a role as documentarian through photographing graffiti, I found my own synthesis for those two impulses in my life.
I want to remember Shy and Dondi, two friends who passed away during the 25 years since the first edition of Subway Art.
Back
In the beginning, I just took pictures for fun and out of curiosity. As the photos accumulated and I began to meet graffiti writers, I began to take what I was doing more seriously. My photography became a collaboration with the writers in the sense that documenting their work was valuable to them and their information about when and where they had done pieces greatly facilitated my ability to get the pictures. Photography became the primary means for the culture to spread beyond New York and Philadelphia. For me, the photo collection has been a sort of passport to communities of artists around the world. The albums which I kept in my studio were for many years a source for people to come to study style
I closed my studio in the mid nineties. I am now in the process of digitalizing all my trains and cataloguing them in order to make them available once again on a DVD set.
You make quite a strong point in your afterwords in the 25th anniversary edition of Subway Art to mention that both yours and Martha's neglect of the works occurring on lines such as the BMTs and INDs was not deliberate but was rather a matter of both circumstance and the ability to find desirable shooting spots with a good outlook and lighting conditions. If you could go back would you try to remedy this lack of coverage given to other lines?
Sure. The first time around, I had no thought of creating a definitive and all inclusive survey of the artform. Knowing now how important this movement has become I would try to be more thorough if I had a chance to do it again. I missed a lot of great pieces. But no single person can do it all. The good thing now is that there are lots of people documenting every painting that ever gets done.
How have the environments that you used to photograph in in the Bronx, Harlem and the Upper West Side changed today? Do you think that there has been any development in the way that these neighborhoods accept creativity and ephemeral art forms on their streets compared to the 70's and 80's? Do you think there is a greater understanding from the public at large in New York as to its value or is it still very much an outsiders art-form from your perspective?
There always was an appreciation of the works of art graffiti artists created in the neighborhoods. Shop owners gave people permission to paint walls, school principals allowed artists to paint handball courts. While most people in the neighborhoods dislike the profusion of tags and throw-ups, they appreciate the artists who are doing pieces and there are still a number of places in the city where artists get together to paint. However, the authorities are becoming ever more intolerant and new legislation has made it a felony to deface public and private property.
You mention in your forward that after your first experience with New York graffiti you bought Jon Naar's The Faith of Graffiti. What was the impact of this book on you? When you and Martha came together to find a publisher had you approached Jon on any possible advice as to how to publish your own works?
I bought a copy of The Faith of Graffiti when it first came out. I was glad that someone was documenting graf. But when several years went by without the appearance of any more books, I began to feel a serious urge to try to document the trains myself. I met Jon when Tony and I were making Style Wars and we needed to show some old school photos. By that time, Marty and I had a book deal with Thames and Hudson and I never had to ask Jon for advice. Many publishers in New York, however, used The Faith of Graffiti as an excuse to turn down Subway Art when we were looking for a publisher. They said there was already a book on graffiti, even though it was almost 10 years old and graffiti had evolved a great deal since that time.
How do you feel about graffiti and the broader world of street art in all its forms currently? Does it still excite you? Are there any particular artist that you follow or whose work you've recently seen and enjoyed?
I like the current trend to paint more than just the name. Street art is a natural child to graffiti and carries cultural expression in public spaces to another level with social and political meanings and using parody and humor to great effect. I love the work of Banksy and Blek le Rat. I'm completely blown away by the work of Blu, especially the animated films he's made painting on walls.
You liken the experience of catching a burner to the thrill of 'stalking big game'. Is their any piece that you can remember to this day that got away?
So many great pieces eluded me. My biggest disappointment was getting several of Lee's whole cars a day too late, after the windows had been buffed. The Silver Surfer and the Hell Express come to mind. Both these were beautiful whole car murals with important elements painted over the windows which were destroyed when Transit buffed them.
The process of splicing your photographs together was a critical method for documenting the pieces when a location wouldn't allow for a single complete shot. How laborious was this task and did it ever become your preferred method of capturing a piece allowing for larger more detailed photos?
I almost always used the close-up method of shooting on the run and then splicing in the studio. I left the field of shooting trains like a photographer to Marty. It was a laborious method but from my point of view, it was worth it because it highlighted the art in a detailed straight-ahead way without distortion. Cutting and splicing is now replaced by digital stitching, which is also laborious, but once done, preserves the image forever (I hope).
With technical advancements abound in both cameras, photo-manipulation and editing what is your current preferred method of working today? How if at all have you incorporated new technologies into the way that you work?
In addition to stitching the photos in Photoshop, I work a lot in video and I use Final Cut Pro.
Like Martha your currently a part of an exhibition taking place in New York at the Helenback Gallery titled the Whole In The Wall what is your involvement with this exhibition and what works of yours can we expect to see there?
I'm exhibiting images of vintage trains by the American artists participating in the show: Crash, Blade, Quick, Lee, Sharp, JonOne and Daze.
The images are printed on aluminum panels and I'm very happy the way they came out. The Gallery has also enlarged a Blade train to 35 feet in length. Very nice!
The dilemma of any sort of anthropologist is that more often than not the very act of being an observer can move beyond that of passive documentarian and can result in altering the direction of the culture to varying degrees. With this in mind have you ever wondered if what we now see as a world wide phenomenon would have reached the heights that it has without this book and the notoriety that it garnered?
Graffiti was getting around slightly before our Subway Art came out in a few videos like Buffalo Gals by Malcom McLaren and through music tours of groups like The Clash who took along Futura as a resident artist, or trips taken by Rock Steady in which Doze painted scenery for the performances. But I think the book really was the vehicle that reached critical mass and kicked off the world wide movement. At least judging from what so many people have told me, who said it was the book that inspired them.
What advice would you give to anyone that is interested in following in either yours or Martha's footsteps by becoming involved in documenting a particular cultural movement?
The best advice I could give is to take the time to get to know the movement from the inside as much as possible. Marty and I became part of the family, so to speak, because we were as valuable to the writers as documentarians as they were to us as sources of information. If we had come to them without having established our role and coming to know everybody over a couple of years time, I don't think we would have been able to enjoy the generous cooperation we got from people when it came time to do the book. It helped that we had been around the scene for a while without any agenda. At first it was just fun. Only later did we think about making a book.
Finally any shoutouts or last words?
The book represents for me more than just a project. When I was young I was always torn between being an artist and an activist. In a way, by finding a role as documentarian through photographing graffiti, I found my own synthesis for those two impulses in my life.
I want to remember Shy and Dondi, two friends who passed away during the 25 years since the first edition of Subway Art.
Back
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