Gris, Picasso lead way in record London39 auction THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014

(Above) This photo shows -covered subway cars parked in a rail yard. Graffiti art (Right) This image shows Lee Quinones’ 1988 oil painting “Howard the Duck,” a copy of the artist’s massive handball court , created 10 years earlier, at highlighted Corlears Junior High School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and since in NYC exhibition destroyed. — AP photos

pray-painted at night on a Lower East out of the subway and into the mainstream. said its creator Lee Quinones, also known by Side handball court, the “Howard the So it’s only fitting that a canvas recreation of his tag LEE. “This was a movement that need- SDuck” mural showed the comic book that mural (the original was painted over ed a visual manifesto. . I wanted to bring that character peeking from behind a trash can around 1988) is a part of a major exhibition on conversation that was so elusive in the sub- with the words: “Graffiti is a art, And if art is a graffiti art opening Tuesday at the Museum of ways above ground, to a context almost simi- crime, Let God forgive all.” That 1978 work the City of New York. lar to a museum.” Only 18 at the time, helped propel the illicit graffiti art movement “It was the shot heard around the world,” Quinones became known among his genera- tion for covering a 10-car subway train. He and an artist named Fab 5 Freddy were among the first to earn gallery recognition with a 1979 exhibition in Rome. What makes the New York “City as Canvas” exhibition unique is that it focuses only on works from the city that were collected over the years by East Village artist Martin Wong, who befriended and mentored many of the graffiti artists, including Quinones, and pro- moted their once-renegade art form. Wong’s collection of more than 300 such works was donated to the Museum of the City of New York before his death in 1999. About 150 are in the exhibition, which runs through Aug. 24. In addition to the “Howard the Duck” oil canvas, which Quinones made for Wong, other highlights include a compilation of ink-drawn tags col- lected by Wicked Gary, founder of the first graffiti writing club, the Ex-Vandals, and a member of a collective of writers called the United Graffiti Artists who were the first to exhibit their work in a gallery setting. This photo shows “Wicked Gary’s Tag Collection,” 1970-72, showcasing ink-drawn “tags,” or signatures Graffiti exploded in New York in the 1970s used by more than 64 graffiti artists. because of the subway - an expansive canvas for the young renegade artists. The seminal ful artists today - who succeeded in connect- est in the elusive British street artist 1983 documentary “Style Wars” and other ing the subculture to a broader audience by and the outcry over the recent white-wash of media attention contributed to its spread virtue of their artistic talent. a New York City’s hotspot to aerosol art known beyond New York. But only a handful of the Wong “had the foresight to scoop all this as 5Pointz. largely teenage graffiti artists were “doing stuff up when no one else in New York was “Graffiti-influenced art is on the verge of a what we would call masterpieces, blanketing thinking about it seriously,” said Sacha new breakthrough,” Quinones said. “We’re on This undated image provided by the Museum of the City of New York shows whole sides of trains,” said the exhibit’s cura- Jenkins, a writer and filmmaker who has writ- the crest of the wave . there’s a number of “Untitled by Sharp,” 1990 by Aaron Goodstone, known as “Sharp” who began writ- tor, Sean Corcoran. They included DAZE (Chris ten extensively on the graffiti movement. As artists, and not necessarily those who painted ing graffiti as a teenager and achieved international recognition at the age of sev- Ellis), CRASH (John Matos), FUTURA 2000 evidence of graffiti’s growing credibility as an on subways” who are embracing the style and enteen, when he exhibited his work at Art Basel. (Leonard Hilton McGurr) and LEE - all success- art form, Corcoran pointed to the public inter- being signed by blue-chip galleries. — AP Beyond the Object

Visitors pose for pictures with artwork during a photo- call for an exhi- bition by US artist Dale Chihuly entitled ‘Dale Chihuly: Beyond the Object’ at London’s Halcyon Gallery. — AFP photos