BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
In a decisive nod to the city that shaped him, legendary graffiti artist DAZE (Chris Ellis) has unveiled two new large-scale murals at 550 Madison Avenue, transforming the building’s soaring street-level space into a canvas that bridges worlds. Painted live in public view, these works are part of “Above Ground Midtown: MCNY x DAZE.” With their vibrant forms, layered textures, and intuitive energy, DAZE’s murals draw from the pulse of New York City, the geometry of Philip Johnson’s iconic building design, and the surrounding garden oasis that gently appears in midtown Manhattan.
To fans of New York graffiti and street art, DAZE needs no introduction. A member of the second wave of graffiti writers in the late 1970s and early ’80s, he began painting subway trains as a student at the High School of Art and Design, developing a signature style marked by wildstyle lettering, surreal characters, and a painterly sense of movement. Over the decades, he has nurtured a career, evolving into a fine artist while continuing to honor the raw urban energy of his roots. “I think of these pieces as a continuation of a language I started developing underground,” DAZE tells us. “Only now, we’re bringing it out into the light—quite literally.”
Curator Sean Corcoran of the Museum of the City of New York sees this installation as an extension of the museum’s current exhibition, Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection, which includes early works by DAZE and many of his contemporaries. “This project is about visibility—making sure the public understands graffiti not just as something from the past, but as a living, evolving art form with deep ties to the city’s history,” he says. “Having DAZE create these murals in real time, for anyone to see, reinforces the idea that this movement was always meant to be in dialogue with the street—and with the people of New York.”
BSA asked DAZE and Corcoran a couple of questions about the project:
Brooklyn Street Art (BSA): DAZE, these new canvases feel like they’re in direct conversation with the city itself — its architecture, movement, street energy, and natural elements. How do they reflect your biography as a New Yorker and a writer who came up in the 1970s and ’80s?
DAZE: In creating these two paintings I wanted to capture the feeling of someone somehow say, in a taxi, going uptown and watching how the cityscape changes from one neighborhood to the next. At the same time I wanted to inject certain natural images within the painting. Even though we all live in a city that is noisy and congested, there are still areas where one can find a nice park to sit and have a quiet moment. I felt like that side of the city had to be represented too.
BSA: You created these pieces live, in a high-visibility Midtown space, a far cry from painting trains in the dark. What does it mean to you to create something so public and above-ground in the heart of a city you’ve been documenting and writing a visual diary for over 40+ years?
DAZE: I was very aware of the architecture of the building and its history. One of the unique things about the space is that the ceilings are so high. It’s an interior space, however, you feel as if you’re outside, which is quite unique.
It was amazing to create something large scale in an area of New York City that receives both many tourists and people who are working there. It exposes my work to a new audience.
BSA: Sean, DAZE’s career spans the early days of illegal train writing to significant institutional recognition — how does his presence here at 550 Madison, and possibly in the Martin Wong Collection, help tell a fuller story of graffiti’s evolution in New York?
Sean Corcoran: Daze’s career is an excellent example of the trajectory of a number of the artistically ambitious writers who emerge from the “train writing”’ era movement that developed a long and impactful studio career that helped export the regional subculture to a worldwide phenomenon. Martin Wong, the Lower East Side painter and generous donor of the majority of the Museum’s collection of more than 300 paintings and 60 black books, was interested in telling the story of this a youth culture that largely sprung up in New York City.
He wanted to trace the youthful rebellion of you people painting on subway trains and public spaces, but he was equally interested in the communication and artistic inclinations as well, and he actively encouraged and supported this by not only buying canvases, but by being a friend and sometimes mentor.
BSA: The title Above Ground for the Martin Wong Collection—and this above-ground exhibition by a writer known for his work on underground trains—suggests a subculture being brought into the light. In curating this collection today at the MCNY, what conversations do you hope it sparks about the place of artists like DAZE in both the art world and the cultural history of the city?
Sean Corcoran: Above Ground is intended to loosely trace the early efforts of train writers as they moved out of the tunnels and layups and into the studio. The exhibition notes the importance of several transitional moments in this history – The United Graffiti Artists (founded in 1972), Sam Esses Studio in 1980, the advent of East Village galleries like Fun and 51X soon after in the early 1980s, and then the jump to blue chip galleries, including Sidney Janis, and opportunities in Europe. These are all examples of the long road these artists took in developing their careers. The paintings in the gallery reflect both Martin’s collection and the various paths the artists took, from maintaining a letter-based art to moving into abstraction and figuration. The exhibition ends in the early 1990s just as the “train writing era” ends, but we all know that that was just the end of the beginning of the story…..
