truly the class of 1958 seems to be checking out en masse. kind of disconcerting. say so long to iz the wiz.
iz was famous for a couple of things. first off: quantity over quality. he was no dondi or zephyr or futura artistically, but he was everywhere. that was central to the graff idea circa 1980. he "went over" people, taking special pleasure in ruining your masterpiece: he wanted graff to be a crime, not an art. he was the definition of kinging lines and going all-city. he's important in representing in pure form a particular idea about what graff is and what it means. he was the darth vader of the classic documentary style wars.
hey mikey: what's your email these days? i'm putting together a history of hip hop via mp3s and i want to know: which nas?
Posted by: crispy | July 07, 2009 at 07:45 AM
By the way: Geekriti
http://www.intomobile.com/2007/08/12/university-of-edinburgh-launches-spellbinder-invisible-graffiti-only-viewable-through-mobile-phones.html
Posted by: Mike Perinelli | July 02, 2009 at 12:27 PM
I found a DVD of style wars in Montreal that has a crap load of extra footage not on the original tape. It is spectacular.
That article covers him a lot differently than Style Wars. They mostly focused on his "darth vader" side, as you put it, and his cover-ups/over-bombs.
If you combine your definition or art and his thinking on graffiti, he was a true example of Art Crimes. IZ did what he did purely for the sake of doing it. There was a glorious selfishness to what he did. He bathed in the loathing other people had for him, at least as depicted in Style Wars. He was a true modern artist, harkening back to what Manson said at the Philly School of Art - "We cannot create new things, but only find new ways of destroying things." He was an artist mostly because he didn't view himself as one; he just did what he wanted because he wanted to, including not advancing his style to 'wild-style'. He embodied his own ideal - all-city destruction.
Posted by: Mike Perinelli | July 02, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Great writer. are eye pee IZ monster!
Posted by: alexi de sadesky | June 29, 2009 at 11:07 PM
IZ rest in peace.
We all get buffed sooner or later.
Posted by: Bracken | June 29, 2009 at 05:10 PM