
Mayor John Lindsay declared war on New York’s graffiti in 1972. It was a curious move, even in an era known for unwinnable conflicts. Many residents hated graffiti, of course, but it didn’t lack for fans in high places. The previous year, the Times had published an admiring profile of Taki, a teen-ager who scribbled his tag, TAKI 183, on walls and subway cars across the five boroughs. In 1974, Norman Mailer wrote a long essay for Esquire in which he compared Taki et al. to van Gogh. But the Mayor had spoken, and for the rest of the seventies the M.T.A. spent millions of dollars keeping the trains gray, which mainly seemed to encourage people to gussy them up again. By 1982, the year of Keith Haring’s career-making solo show at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, there was nothing groundbreaking about the idea that graffiti could be real art.
Denne historien er fra March 11, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra March 11, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Techniques and cIdiosyncrasies

FEAR FACTOR
How the Red Scare reshaped American politics.

PLAYTIME
The old film studios had house styles: M-G-M’s was plush and sentimental, Warner Bros.’ stark and intense.

TIME AND PLACE
“Tatlin: Kyiv” explores a Russian Constructivist’s Ukrainian identity.

MOURNING BECOMES HER
Akram Khan’s “Gigenis: The Generation of the Earth.”

TEXAS ROUNDUP
How Greg Abbott made his state the staging ground for Donald Trump's mass-deportation campaign.

HOUSE CALL
To rent or to buy is the eternal question.

INDESCRIBABLE
The human disaster of the Irish famine.

Louisa Thomas on John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu"
The original idea was an assignation. On a dreary Wednesday in September, 1960, John Updike, \"falling in love, away from marriage,\" took a taxi to see his paramour.

LIP SERVICE
Zyn and the new nicotine gold rush.