This was absolutely beautiful. Thank you for creating work to help people remember artists who died of AIDS. This horrible disease robbed us of so many brilliant, wonderful people.
Omg,yes. So many wonderful artists of all genre's gone..including several dear friends of mine.Forever in my heart.💔Thank you for bringing attention to AIDS,still with us.🙏🙏🙏
I can't really explain how beautiful this video is to me. It ties together so many aspects of my life that I treasure - being Asian-American, growing up in nyc fixated on art and hip hop, being an unapologetic fetishist of the the city as it was in my youth...I'm in awe of this piece, and will revisit and share it often
It’s amazing how the last painting literally teleports you to that lost period of time, so undervalued in its ability to act as “historian”. The quote/mission statement he made regarding his museum summarizes the painting in written form imo. Remarkable frfr
its really touching to me that his friend would rather have martins picture put on the canvas, than the one they did together. i mean it must also be a memory that he has of their frienship. so giving that memory up, to keep martins vision alive is really great to me
It’s because he knows graffiti is a very temporary art. Sometimes you’ll go out and paint something amazing and it’ll be covered up with a gray patch of paint before you come back the next day to get a picture.
"the secret on the other side is a whole other universe" ... Thanks so much for showing us that other universe and some of the people who inhabited it.
I've been painting for 15 years, im 30 now. And the feeling i get when i see videos like this is so much happiness and sadness at the same time. I got at 14 yr old and a 1 yr old. I hope that one day they realize how much love i got for them and this art forum, and I pray they dont forget me or resent me for it. 💔
There was a beautiful exhibition of Wong's work in Amsterdam last year. I was really touched by him. Very distinct stages in his paintings. All beautiful.
I know Martin is surely up there in his art studio in the sky painting masterpieces like he did in his time on Earth! Martin Wong is a legend of NY graffiti! This video truly honored him as an artist and as a person!It is so amazing Sharp shared some words about Martin! Much love and kudos to Martin Wong!! May he RIP❤🔥
This is amazing. I had never heard of Martin Wong, and I'm really glad this popped up on my feed. The early hip hop/graffiti scene is such a great part of American art history to me.
watching this makes me feel like humans are special. unlike watching the news or most everyday life. true artist and original. thank you all involved for making this short doc.
These guys are incredible artists, in a much broad sense of art, beyond the market, the institutions. Thanks for telling us this art chapter, great documentary!
Never seen so many people cheer for graffiti in a comment section before, weird how that happens.. Respect to Martin Wong for seeing the beauty in graffiti and understanding it to implement it into his own art. I feel like the fact the focus wasnt on the graffiti side of the piece for years truly shows how society looks at graffiti. It's a culture and lifestyle that truly risks their life and jailtime to put their art out on societies grey walls.
Excellent history of a very special artist in time and space. I wonder if it would be possible to mount the work so it could be seen from both sides(?).
I loved this so much, and I'd like to think he didn't just paint on the back of it absentmindedly as Sharp suggested... that it was an "unemotional decision". I actually have no idea, but seeing how detailed and full of imagery all of his other work was in the video and how thoughtful he seems, to paint something as plain shutters with no tags or paintings on them feels significant. Graffiti will always be painted over again and again in the world, and a good spot will be painted on countless times and covered up continuously with new art. It's crazy the idea of just painting over good art, destroying and creating something beautiful at the same time, and by painting an inviting place to paint graffiti with no tag on it, it feels like he created a celebration of all that art that is lost, including the piece on the back of this canvas. It's like he created something for all street artists that will always live on when graffiti itself will always disappear... the perfect canvas, and sacrificing a piece he felt love for I feel like would have to be be part of that. God bless you Sharp. Still having his paintbrushes after all time shows how much you cared about him too
A lot of us who were young teenagers were heavily influenced by the OG’s just ahead of us no matter what city you grew up in. This is a very nice tribute to Mr. Wong. So nice to see his work being preserved
I don’t know why they didn’t display it as a double sided canvas. Sharp n Delta are historical artist in their own right. Imagining finding a painting you’d lost 40 years ago when you were a teenager Classic . They’re both apart of the Newyork landscape n heritage . Sharp came to our highschool 85-86 n showed his trains he’d painted he even showed us trains from Italy or Spain he’d painted on. He said he was the first! Also with his cool Graff portfolio!!! Westchester high Los Angeles, Calif.
Martin knew what he was doing, it is so fitting for a piece of graffiti to be on the back side of a painting of a roll down gate. A roll down gate goes with graffiti like butter on bread, it just makes sense. Sure, maybe he did need a canvas to paint this gate on but I have to imagine he had some intention behind choosing that specific canvas with Sharp's piece on it. Interesting too that Sharp's piece is intentionally dissed by Delta2.
Over on IG, you state that Wong asked "graffiti artists Sharp and Delta 2, to spray paint over it, tagging it like a real wall." Were you not able to engage Delta 2 and bring his perspective to the conversation?
someone has those 2 other pieces.... i hope they are found. this was awesome! when i was a budding journalist in the late 90s, i was a part of a new scene in art where graffiti was again being showcased. some of my first interviews were with futura and stash and lee was there, too, but he was so modest and quiet. and they were prob laughing at this petite girl talking to them about graffiti. this old new york graff scene is so so amazing. i hope more comes out about all of these artists.
I think the painting was intentional where the metal sliding gate with the small opening a peak and opening that sort of reminder of what was behind it. It could have easily been just the metal gate but he valued the other piece and wanted to make sure it still had air to breathe beyond the new piece and one day be rediscovered. Great story great artist, painters and graffiti artist alike ❤
"It is hoped in the future that additional grants will enable us to publish and document information crucial to the field before luck and the vagaries of time will have dispersed this." I love that the "The vagaries of time" are the enemy of what some in the art world consider(ed) vandalism and some vandals consider art. Either way, it shows that the human instinct to create, be it the top of the art world or the street level tagger is a battle against the threat of becoming insignificant over time.
i was a friend of Martin......i saw him last at the Metropolitan Muse. the day before I left NY to move to Hawaii....he was a guard there....they had hired him so that he would have medical coverage for his AIDS......very sad....but he was still smiling and joking about the job ....
This is so fuckin cool man. I wrote as a kid and then went on to do slaps, clothes, a bunch of shit. This was crazy to watch man, like a lost history of graff. I had no clue this dude knew so many of the early NY writers. Cool as fuck. I have a book of shit that I collected from other writers. Slaps, sketches people sent me, I even have stuff people sent me in the mail from other countries. It's nuts.
I thought for sure this video would end with a display of the painting so both sides are visible (thinking the back side would be partially visible in between the support structures...)
Great video ! What's going to happen to the Aerosol Art Masterpiece that was also with thr metal gate that reads sharp and delta2 ? Is the museum going to print that on Canvas and exhibit it with Credits to both Aerosol Artists as well .
Wouldn't it be wonderful if this canvas could hang suspended in the air or supported between glass so that both sides could be exhibited? (I don't know the engineering that it would entail - but it would be brilliant)
