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This Space Has Been Invaded

It was 1982 and it was just an ordinary night in the Bronx, Don with his wife Annie and I were sitting around talking and listening to music at their apartment. When the end of the record was over, Don got up to flip the side over. He suddenly turned toward us and we just stared at each other without saying a word. In this brief moment of silence, the future had just arrived. No, it wasn’t the sound of Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Grandmaster Flash or even the Clash. From the darkened bedroom next to us, came the sounds of smacking lips and bursts of ecstatic exclamations from Don’s kid Anthony and his stepbrother Danny. With bits of dribble and droll and tongues poking out from the corners of their mouths, they were feverously huddled in their pajamas staring at the screen of a Commodore 64 computer. It was 8-bit, hypnotic and all encompassing. The moths were caught in an overbearing and hypnotic light. The invasion had begun.

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Don’t Forget Fashion 时装 Moda МОДА

Almost completely left out of the Jeffrey Deitch-organized Art in The Streets at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art and minimally referenced in its exhibition catalogue and other recently published surveys of graffiti and street art, the historical importance of Fashion 时装 Moda МОДА has been lost to a generation of artists and graffiti-lovers. It’s time for that to change.

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Happy Earth Day … from the Archives, 1983

Artist John Fekner recently found this previously unpublished photograph of a subway billboard street art piece from 1983. This work transforms a Newsday newspaper poster in the Ely/23rd Street subway station in Long Island City, Queens, into a more ominous scene. Unlike street art interventions today, Fekner’s work disappeared soon after it was created — he estimates that it survived for a week or two at most — and it did not have an afterlife online … until now.

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Support a New York History of Street Art & Graffiti!

There are only four days left to support a very unique street art project that will create a multi-faceted street art exhibition at the former Donnell Library on 53rd Street in midtown Manhattan, which is across the street from MoMA.

In an era where street art and graffiti is becoming increasingly scarce in Manhattan, this project, PANTHEON: A history of art from the streets of New York City, will explore the heritage of street art and graffiti across the street from the high temple of Modern art.

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Earth Day Is As Relevant As Ever

On the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, Fekner revisited one of his classic videos from 1981 titled “Toxic Waste From A to Z,” and has inserted a new soundtrack. While the original work was inspired by the environmental disaster that was Love Canal, this latest remix is part of an effort to stop a potential disaster in the making, Wastebed 13.