Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City

by Ivor L. Miller

foreword by Robert Farris Thompson

University Press of Mississippi, August 2002

$30.00, ISBN 1-578-06465-1

New York City is renowned for its varied cultural kindling in art, music and theater. However, of the many artistic references that have come to represent and shape the city, none is more signature than its subway art.

In Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City, the art of painting on neighborhood subway cars is chronicled from its underground, interborough origins to its above ground, international recognition. Initially called graffiti -- and labeled vandalism by its detractors -- the work, which began as an underground way of communicating, captured the attention of both the public and the established art world.

In the introduction to Aerosol, Dr. Miller, a journalist and scholar of African and Afro-Cuban culture, explains that the "goal of the book is to document and consider the early history of these artist in New York City.

"Aerosol art is akin to jazz and urban blues music, created from a need to express shared urban experiences," says Miller. Indeed, one of the interesting aspects of Aerosol Kingdom is the unexpected cross-referencing to more established art meant to defend and define the art and artists, its culture, and the phenomena of "writing." The practice of "publically signing" the work or "tagging" subway cars, the book suggests, stirred elements of hip-hop culture.

Just as with most forms of creative expression, there is a historical context with a rebellious nature rooted in furtively painted images, messages and names on subway cars using a can of spray paint. Here, references to African customs and prophets, language, Jackson Pollock, Paul Robeson, along with Caribbean and Hispanic art all influence the creative process.

Aerosol Kingdom shows several color photographs of the bold, elaborate and slickly painted murals that decorated New York's subway trains from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. Unfortunately, there are not enough of them to illustrate the pervasive, global influence of the aerosol, or graffiti artists. Instead, the book's energy lies in its essays and interviews that give insight into the forces behind the vision, or in this case -- the visual.

Photograph (Man painting with a can of spray paint)