R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art

by Martha Cooper, Joseph Sciorra

Traces the development of memorial graffiti in New York City, shows a variety of painted walls, and discusses the public role of the painted memorials

Genres: Art

Paperback

First published July 1, 1994

About the author

She is perhaps best known for documenting the New York graffiti scene of the 1970s and '80s. Her most known personal work began while working at the New York Post. On her return home from the Post she began taking photos of children in her New York city neighborhood. One day she met a young kid named Edwin who helped expose her to some of the graffiti around her neighborhood. Edwin helped to explain to her that Graffiti is an art form and that each artist was actually writing his/her nickname. Edwin then proceeded to tell of the Graffiti King and asked if she would like to meet him. This is when Martha met Dondi, the first one who allowed her to accompany him; while Dondi was tagging she would take photos of his art. In the 1980s she put together a book of photos illustrating the Graffiti subculture called Subway Art. She has degrees in art and anthropology.
She was a photography intern at National Geographic Magazine in the 1960s, and worked as a staff photographer at the New York Post in the 1970s. Her photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian and Natural History magazines as well as several dozen books and journals. She is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. Cooper lives in Manhattan but is working on a photo project in Sowebo, a Southwest Baltimore neighborhood.
In the 1980s Martha worked briefly in Belize photographing the people and archaeological remains of the Mayan culture. Two sites that received publication in National Geographic were Nohmul & Cuello, both under the direction of Dr. Norman Hammond.

[From Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau]

Memorial wall art from Harlem, the Lower East Side, the South Bronx and Brooklyn. Tragic reminder of the violence many (mostly young) people face in the inner city. Back stories are provided...makes you wonder if we will ever learn that violence only breeds violence. A lesson I hope we all learn one day.

[Loren]

This book beautifully reproduces the full-color murals that commemorated the dead of East Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in the 1990s. The murals probably sprang out of the tradition of roadside crosses and spontaneous shrines built at the sites of accidents in Catholic countries.

Originally created by graffiti artists to remember their friends, memorial murals became a lucrative business. Some of the artists grew out of the graffiti underground; others had degrees. I wish more attention had been given to the painters. In several cases, “rival dealers” have defaced the murals. It would seem to me that the artists take their lives in their hands to commemorate victims of drug or gang violence at the scene of the crime. This isn’t recognized in the text.

Mural imagery runs a wide spectrum. My favorite is a collection of similar gravestones, each inscribed with a nickname: Scarface Gee, Lil Jakwan. I like the can of spray paint rising on wings and the devotional candle burning atop a bottle of Bacardi Breezer. A series of scary paintings show baby-faced figures toting automatic weapons. Among the traditional religious imagery is a bulked out Christ bench-pressing a plain wooden cross. Another mural depicts a pink-faced god in dark glasses and gold rope casting lightning bolts from his hands. In contrast, a memorial to members of the Ching-a-ling Nomads sports headstones licked by the flames of Hell.

The major disappointment of this book is the number of photos that sink into the gutter as they cross pages. In some cases, memorial poetry becomes unreadable because of the fold. Whoever designed this book is an idiot.

One of the best things is the amount of effort the author put into tracking down families and friends responsible for funding the murals. The slightest information, sometimes little more than the cause of death, humanizes people who would otherwise only be names on walls. The dead were victims of AIDS, asthma, blood clots, runaway cars, firework accidents, and falling masonry, in addition to gunshots, drive-bys, and knife fights. Several women were killed by their boyfriends. By putting the murals in this context, they speak to an audience larger than their neighbors.


This review originally appeared in Morbid Curiosity #2.

[Kyrie]

It's an interesting look at what I considered to be "good graffiti". I like the spray painted murals that look like someone or something, as opposed to random words or gang signs.
The accompanying text was really sad - everyone died so young.
I confess, I also liked the glimpses of life going on around the murals - the people, the businesses, and I couldn't get over how much garbage was all around.
I really have no clue what it's like in the inner city.

[Robert Davies]

Interesting survey of mostly vernacular memorial wall painting in New York City during the early 1990s. I was particularly impressed by the authors' explorations of the roots and iconography of the artworks considered, and their emphasis on the chronic social problems that created the necessity for all these memorials in the first place. I did find myself wanting the discussions to broaden out beyond the limited geographical context of one city though, and think this would have made a strong basis for a much longer book.

[Joana Diniz]

The description of the images and their texts are very good contextualized.