About
The Exhibit
Art vs. Transit, 1977–1987 (September 25, 2019 - March 8, 2020) is the first major retrospective of photographer and filmmaker Henry Chalfant (b. 1940), renowned as the most significant documentarian of subway art. His photographs, along with the 1983 film he co-produced with Tony Silver, Style Wars, and the essential 1984 photography book, Subway Art, co-authored with Martha Cooper, immortalized this ephemeral art form and helped launch New York City’s graffiti movement into the international phenomenon it is today. Curated by graffiti writer SUSO33 as a tribute to Chalfant, the exhibition was originally presented in the fall of 2018 at the Centro de Arte Tomas y Valiente (CEART), Madrid and titled Art is Not a Crime.
Now, The Bronx Museum has brought the exhibition to the entirety of its first-floor galleries. It is the ideal venue for a show exploring an art movement born in the Bronx and upper Manhattan. Many of the subway writers still live in the Bronx, and Chalfant has an ongoing involvement with the borough’s artists and alter- native spaces.
The subway cars featured in Chalfant’s photographs, were painted by teenagers and kids as young as twelve. The graffiti movement was part of a massive cultural explosion, along with hip-hop and break dancing. Chalfant’s photographs allow us to reflect on these transitory, massive paintings, and the visual sophistication of this transgressive art.
Chalfant’s interest in subway art developed in the 1970s, as he began to explore the uptown stations where trains ran outside on elevated tracks. By 1977, he had developed a technique of capturing exposures in rapid succes- sion on his 35mm camera from different positions on the platform, documenting the entire train in multiple, overlapping shots. It is Henry’s photography from this period, 1977-1987 that is celebrated in Art vs. Transit, 1977–1987.Henry Chalfant
Starting out as a sculptor in New York in the 1970s, Chalfant turned to photography and film to do an in-depth study of hip-hop culture and graffiti art. One of the foremost authorities on New York subway art, and other aspects of urban youth culture, his photographs record hundreds of ephemeral, original artworks that have long since vanished. His archive of over 1,500 photographs is represented exclusively by Eric Firestone Gallery, New York and East Hampton. He co-authored the definitive account of New York graffiti art, Subway Art (Holt Rinehart Winston, N.Y. 1984) and a sequel on the art form's world-wide diffusion, Spray Can Art (Thames and Hudson Inc. London, 1987). Chalfant co-produced the PBS documentary, Style Wars, the definitive documentary about Graffiti and Hip Hop culture and directed Flyin' Cut Sleeves, a documentary on South Bronx gangs, in 1993. He produced and directed Visit Palestine: Ten Days on the West Bank in 2002. His film From Mambo to Hip Hop was featured in the Latino Public Broadcasting series, Voces in 2006-2007, and won an Alma Award for Best Documentary.
SUSO33
SUSO33 (Madrid, 1973) is a Spanish graffiti and street artist who works across several different fields: action painting, installation, video art, performance and set design. He is one of the foremost Spanish artists involved in the contemporary graffiti, urban art and muralism movements.
In addition to his practice as an artist, SUSO33 has curated the exhibitions: Art is Not a Crime 1977–1987 (CEART, Madrid, 2018) and Henry Chalfant: Art vs. Transit 1977–1987 (Bronx Museum, NY, 2019), which are both dedicated to the work of photographer and filmmaker Henry Chalfant (United States, 1940), who is considered one of the most important documentarians of graffiti art worldwide.
In 2015, SUSO33 was the subject of “ONe Line. Una retrospectiva” (CEART, Spain). An exhibition curated by Susana Blas accompanied by a catalog that examines three decades of the artist’s oeuvre.
SUSO33’s work is part of important public and private collections including: the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Caixa Forum, Thyssen-Bornemisza, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, among others.
"The walls speak, they are like a way of life."
–SUSO33