City as Canvas: New York City Graffiti -USED

A visual account of the birth of graffiti and street art, showcasing as-yet-unseen works collected by preeminent artist Martin Wong.

Referred to by the New York Times as an artist “whose meticulous visionary realism is among the lasting legacies of New York’s East Village art scene of the 1980s,” Martin Wong (1946-1999) was firmly entrenched in the NYC street art world of the late ’70s and ’80s. City as Canvas chronicles the most important chapter in the street art movement and the artists involved. Showcasing Wong’s enormous graffiti art collection, the book contains artwork, photographs, black books, letters, postcards, posters, and flyers made by Wong and his artist friends.

The book contains previously unpublished art by famous street artists such as Futura 2000, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Christopher “Daze” Ellis, LA II, Lady Pink, and Keith Haring, to name only a few. City as Canvas traces the origins of urban self-expression and the era of “outlaw” street art in New York, which primed the floodgates for graffiti art to spread worldwide.