Wall of Confusion

Graffiti's most enduring legend and its most dedicated documentarian discuss the art form's hazy origins at the 215 Fest.

by Shaun Brady

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Published: Oct 2, 2007

CAUGHT IN THE HUSTLE: Soul Food from Jon Naar's The Birth of Graffiti. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

"I've been accused of making vandalism beautiful," admits Jon Naar, and perusing his new book, The Birth of Graffiti, it's a hard point to argue. Vivid and alive, the collected photographs, expanded from Naar's 1974 book The Faith of Graffiti, capture a moment in time when graffiti exploded onto the New York consciousness. The work on display isn't as elaborate or monumental as much of what we've gotten used to in the ensuing three decades, but it's far more ubiquitous, an art form that seems to have spread virally over the city.

Taken over a two-week period in December 1973, Naar's graffiti photos became hugely influential when 39 of them were published, with graphic design by Mervyn Kurlansky and an introduction by Norman Mailer. "I know that The Faith of Graffiti was sent by graffiti writers from New York to Amsterdam," says Naar, "and was used as a manual in the mid-'70s and early '80s. Graffiti writers there were told to use my book as their manual because they were doing it wrong. So it's had influence far beyond what I would have imagined."

That influence will be celebrated as part of the 215 Festival Friday night, as Naar will be joined by Darryl "Cornbread" McCray to explore the birth of the art form. A Philadelphia legend, Cornbread is considered by many to be the "father of modern graffiti." And while beginnings and influences are always hard to pinpoint, he was certainly present at the start, earning his fame by tagging not only walls but the Jackson 5's jet and an elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo. Naar will present a slideshow, followed by a screening of Sean McKnight's documentary Cry of the City Part I: The Legend of Cornbread and a discussion between the two.

Naar was already in his early 50s when he shot these images — certainly not part of the inner-city environment he was documenting, but a "city person" nonetheless. Born in London in 1920, Naar was educated in France, began his career in Munich, Germany, and later moved to New York City (he's now settled in Trenton, and takes the train to Philly frequently, camera in hand). When he began shooting graffiti, it was a way of documenting a phenomenon he saw growing up around him. "I don't want to sound arrogant," Naar says, "but every time I take a picture, every click of the shutter, I feel could end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There's always that element of catching the zeitgeist or documenting my time. I think that should be in the mind's eye of every photographer, because that's what photography does better than any other art form."

His unique insight into the culture, then, was largely due to his visual sense, but also to a stroke of luck: On his first day out, he was approached on a train platform in Harlem by a group of curious kids who turned out to be graffiti writers. "For the next two weeks, they were my constant guides," recalls Naar. A photo of the group graces the title page of his new book, a more privileged position than they were allowed in the original. "I told them I'd put them on the cover of the book, but when I eventually got a publisher, they were afraid and said, 'The parents of those children will sue us.' And I said, 'You've gotta be joking. Those kids don't have mothers and fathers the way we do.'"

As that statement shows, Naar always considered these photos to be as much about social context as about the artwork itself. "When I asked Cornbread why he did this, he said, 'Graffiti was my way of escaping the pressures of the ghetto,' and to me that is a powerful social statement," Naar says. "I think that's what attracted me to it then. My original title for the first book was 'Watching My Name Go By,' because these children put their names on the subways and buses to be seen and heard from the ghetto."

These days, Naar is somewhat ambivalent on the topic. "I still take pictures of graffiti," he says, "but I find current graffiti more puzzling than the graffiti that I documented. Contemporary graffiti comes closer to mural art, which I like, but much of it is illegal, and as such has to be condemned. I certainly wouldn't want it on my house, but I understand where it's coming from. Many parts of our cities are pretty bleak and depressing and graffiti, if channeled in the right way, can be used as a way of brightening and improving the visual environment."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Fri., Oct. 5, 8 p.m., free, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 118 N. Broad St., 215-222-2432, www.215festival.com.

 

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