Thomas Christ: Instant Recognition

Subway/Urban Graffiti. New York/Basel 82/83

• Photos and texts: Thomas Christ

• Design: Thierry Furger

• Interview with Thomas Christ: Rémi Jaccard

• 400 pages

• Hardcover

• size 280 x 240 mm

• thread-stitching

• various texts and interviews (only in English)

• 328 photos of which approx. 200 unpublished photos

• Publisher: Thierry Furger, Rémi Jaccard and Nonstop Publishing.

• ISBN 978-3-033-09702-5
  

In the early 1980s, New York is the epicenter of the graffiti and street art scenes, from which a global cultural revolution emanates. In the middle of it all is Swiss art historian and lawyer Thomas Christ with his camera.

He follows the painted subways to the Bronx to photograph them and meets there young sprayers who want to escape the precarious conditions: They join together to form criminal gangs, which, however, do not strive for money but for fame. After his return, Christ presented his precise paintings and his lucid reflections on the background of illegal graffiti in the publication "Subway Graffiti" (1984) and in an exhibition at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Basel.

Shortly thereafter, in the follow-up publication "Urban Graffiti" (1987), Christ also deals with the work of Richard Hambleton and Keith Haring and is thus one of the first to address the relationship and difference between graffiti and street art: In contrast to Subway Graffiti, the artistic appropriation of public space here takes place with the knowledge of art as an operating system.

A new publication brings together and expands upon these two contemporary documents about a crucial high period of graffiti and street art in New York in one volume. "Instant Recognition" includes "Subway Graffiti" and "Urban Graffiti," supplemented by never-before-seen photos and documents from Thomas Christ's private archive. In a new text and an interview, Christ looks back on the events of the time and recounts his memories and impressions.

«Graffiti an der Line in Basel 1985–1990»

• 2. updated edition

• with 16 additional pages

• new cover

• 448 pages

• hardcover

• offset printing

• thread stitching

• text about the history of the Line (only in German)

• with quotes from contemporary witnesses

• over 500 photos by various photographers

• self-published

In 1985, young people gave themselves fantasy names like "Scorpio", "Steve" or "Zois" and sprayed their first letters on the walls of the Line, which had just been built at the time. That was the starting signal for the graffiti movement in Basel at the Line. What exactly drove the young people, who called themselves "Homeboys" and "Flygirls," back then is hard to say in retrospect.

You can still see the easiness of many of the pieces from those early days. People sprayed without thinking about where it would all lead. And there was room to try things out. The Line was a perfect place for graffiti: kilometers of walls, in the middle of the city, and yet a non-place made of concrete, track ballast and rails. Apart from sprayers and railroad workers, no one stays there. During the day, when the trains come in and out of Basel SBB, the walls present themselves as the perfect medium for entertaining the passengers.

The book documents as objectively as possible the first 5 years of the Line. The book contains over 500 photos that have been assigned by location and by layer. Also the book gives a small view into the 90's at the Line. In addition, some texts published about the Line during this period are included.