List of artists

BANDO
Born 1965 – French
Bando returned from a trip to New York in the early 1980s with visions of aerosol art and graffiti dancing in his head. He started tagging in his neighbourhood, from Boulevard Saint Germain to Rue du Bac in Paris, and quickly extended his playing field to a vacant lot under Stalingrad metro station. Co-founder of Bomb Squad 2 with Scam and Graff2, Bando is a designer of the written word who claims the street as his own, writing "Graffiti is not vandalism but beautiful crime" on the walls of Paris. "I like the simplicity and efficiency of graffiti. It’s harder to paint with two or three colours," he says. Weary of his controversial role as the Godfather of graffiti, Bando turned to music production in the 1990s with the Pure Records label, first in Paris then NYC. Not that this has stopped him from producing innovative calligraphy on a daily basis. Nothing ever will…



BLADE
Born 1958 – American
Blade is one of the world’s best-known graffiti pioneers (1972). The man who bombed more than 5,000 New York subway cars without ever getting caught is also a "man of letters." An expert at bubbles, clouds and geometric shapes, he was also the first to introduce 3D contours while painting his name in gigantic letters on subway cars (known as a blockbuster or top-to-bottom). Blade’s artistic pursuits have included a number of mural frescoes, and he is now a worldrenowned graffiti artist and muralist.



BO130
Born 1971 – Italian
Illustrator, graphic artist, street artist, BO130 prefers to avoid labels. This Italian from Milan uses a variety of media to convey his ideas. Graffiti has been a major source of inspiration for him since 1986, and his style draws on different forms of street art, from stencils and tags to elaborate lettering. His canvases are like wall surfaces that have taken on the sheen of layers of tags and city grime. The modern graphics he paints on them fuel the movement’s continued renewal.



CRASH
Born 1961 – American
Born in 1961 in the Bronx, Crash became part of the graffiti movement at an early age. He bombed his first trains at the age of 13, and organised his first exhibition at 19. He had his first gallery showing at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1983, before entering the NYC Museum of Modern Art collection. With vivid colours, glamorous figures on spray-painted backgrounds, highlights and bubbles, his paintings have a comic-strip feel and a strong affiliation with Pop Art, as his work in the collection shows. Crash is undoubtedly one of the artists who is most at ease in working both on the street and on canvas.



IZ THE WIZ
Born 1958 – American
Iz The Wiz is one of the artists Henry Chalfant referred to as burners. He became the NYC Transit Authority’s public enemy number one as of 1974 for making subway cars his speciality. He has an inimitable style with bright colours and simple lettering. Immersed in the hip-hop culture of the 1970s, he also takes inspiration from rock and soul music, to which he has paid tribute with numerous frescoes. He has teamed with Seen, PJay and Quik. Iz the Wiz remains a symbol of the street and the energy that emanates from graffiti.



JAY ONE
Born 1967 – French
Provocation isn’t the aim of this artist, whose sensitivity comes through with each aerosol blast. At the origin of the Stalingrad metro vacant lot in Paris that became the "Mecca of hip-hop culture" in the 1980s, Jay One is a purist who wields words and lettering in a world of his own. Like rap lyrics, his work is rooted in the streets but isn’t afraid to dream. "Graffiti is a language like so many other art forms, based more on rhythm than representation, hence the almost exclusive use of words and letters. This magnification of rhythm is found in words and certain texts, like poetry, haiku and rhyming," he explains. A key figure on the French graffiti scene, his public appearances have now grown rare.



NUNCA
Born 1983 – Brazilian
An established Brazilian graffiti artist before the age of 30 (he exhibited on the front of the Tate Modern in London during the summer of 2008), São Paulo-born Nunca is one of the most promising artists on the international street art scene. Like many Brazilian graffiti artists, he has a bird’s-eye view of the street, having scaled buildings several dozen storeys high to leave his signature (a specifically Brazilian graffiti known as pixação) as skyward as possible. He has also developed his figurative work, influenced by the geometric motifs and colours of South-American Indian paintings. The tea-sipping giant he painted on the Tate Modern expresses the paradox that Nunca intends exposing through his art: a civilized world in which the brutality of nature prevails.



PSYCKOZE
Born 1969 – French
Psyckoze is a loose cannon who for more than twenty years has graffitied every possible environment, from tunnels and catacombs to vacant lots and legal walls. The catacombs remain one of his favourite stomping grounds. This "graffiti museum" holds two decades of Psyckoze’s sculptures in the stone of these abandoned Parisian quarries. Powerful to the point of provocative in his street work, he develops a more personal form of writing on canvas with characters that are spray-painted in one continuous line, like a tag. An active exponent of graffiti as a major art movement, he set up several collectives including Le 115, a production space for urban artists of all disciplines and a residence for foreign artists. He signs his graffiti and canvases with the same motto: No Limit.



QUIK
Born 1958 – American
Quik began painting back in 1972. He was one of the major protagonists in the graffiti wave that inundated New York in 1979, producing fabulous colour creations with Seen, Dondi, Blade, Lee, and others. He broke into the art world in 1982 and now sells his works worldwide. A unique and charismatic figure who shares his time between the US and Europe, equally at home in a train depot or at a fancy art opening, Quik’s vibrant, colourful paintings are haunted by ghostly figures that reveal an obscure and complex personality, as is the representation of graffiti today.



SEEN
Born 1961 – American
A living graffiti legend, Seen has never stopped being an artist since the late 1970s. An Italian- American known for his creativity and innovative lettering, he has bombed hundreds of New York subway cars. He is one of the artists featured in the 1982 documentary Style Wars by Henry Chalfant and Tony Silver. With his tattooed body, silver mane and carefully trimmed beard, an astute businessman and a respected artist, Seen is an American graffiti icon who is admired across the generations.



STAY HIGH 149
Born 1951 – American
Some images will remain permanently etched in the collective unconscious of graffiti, and Stay High 149’s joint-smoking, haloed character, taken from the TV series The Saint, is one of them. Highly prolific in the 1970s, this boy from the Bronx also used graffiti as a form of protest, signing his street pieces with the words, "Voice of the ghetto." Stay High was actively involved in the United Artists collective founded by Hugo Martinez in 1974, then retired from the graffiti scene for around twenty years. Since 2000, he has shown his work on canvas in various international galleries.



TAKI 183
Born 1959 – American
The first graffiti artist to gain media attention with an article in The New York Times in 1971, Taki 183 wrote his tag around the streets of New York where he worked as a foot messenger. This propagation of tags, like marker on canvas, summed up the entire approach to graffiti in the decades to come: to inundate the city’s walls with your name in a declaration of freedom of expression and subversive intent.



TOXIC
Born 1965 – American
Toxic was born in 1965 in the Bronx. His immediately identifiable style uses letters that seem to loose themselves in highly colourful works. He was close to Basquiat and Rammellzee; together they founded the Hollywood Africans (also the title of a famous painting by Basquiat from 1983, at the Whitney Museum). Toxic also worked for many years alongside the late A One, and spent more than ten years in Paris, where he painted a wall for the set of the film Taxi. Toxic’s work has been shown in numerous galleries, first in New York then Europe. Toxic still shares his time between France and Italy.



And also:

POPAY (France) - LAZOU (France) - SHAKA (France) - GILBERT (France) - MARCEL (France) - JONONE (USA) - MYRE (USA) - KONGO (France) - UNO (France) - BACOU (France) - VISION (France) - JAY one (France) - ILLIES (France) - DESZIO (France) - PBOY (France) - LACRIZ (France) - PSYCKOZE (France) - ASH (Denmark) - SKKI (Holland) - MOZE (France) - HORFE (France) - NASCIO (France) - DARCO (France) - ECHO (France) - ALEXONE (France) - LEK (France) - TANC (France) - SUNSET (France) - TEURK (France) - T KID (USA) - CREN (Germany) - JACE (France) - COPE 2 (USA) - ZEKY (France) - L’ATLAS (France) - NATIVE (USA) - ZEN 2 (Germany) - DASH (USA) - WEN (USA) - LOOMIT (Germany) - ZEBSTER (Germany) - WEST (USA) - DOC arabica (USA) - KET (USA) - ASKEW (New Zealand) - PART 1 (USA) - WANE ONE (USA) - SHARP (USA) - MARKO 93 (France) - ATOME (Australia) - TRAFFIK (Australia) - EMI (Japan) - OTHER (Canada) - SWEN (France) - KEA (France) - MEAK (France) - KAYONE (France) - NEL (France) - JAYA (USA) - BABOO (France) - TAKE 5 (Canada) - MICROBO (Italia) - QUIK (USA) - WYRE (France) - DAZE (USA) - RAMMELZEE (USA) - LADY PINK (USA) - SHOE (Holland) - LADYK (France) - EZO (USA) - DURO (USA) - KEL First (USA) - REVOLT (USA) - CRASH (USA) - ZEDZ (Holland) - MIN (USA) - BLADE (USA) - FENX (France) - DIZE (France) - TRAN (France) - EYONE (France) - IZ THE WIZ (USA) - CES (USA) - KOOR (USA) - SMITH (USA) - CAP (USA) - STAYHIGH (USA) - MEO (USA) - RCF One (France) - TAKI 183 (USA) - PHASE 2 (USA) - RIFF (USA) - TEAM (USA) - TOXIC (USA) - SPIRIT (France) - BO 130 (Italia) - FIST (France) - NASTY (Suisse) - DEAD (Belgium) - FAUST (USA) - CYCLE (USA) - DEALYT (France) - RESO (France) - RAP (France) - GHOST (USA) - DELTA 2 (USA) - FREEDOM (USA) - SHOCK 123 (USA) - NOV (USA) - MIKE GIANT (USA) - CORNBREAD (USA) - ISBA (Iran) - REACH (Taiwan) - TRACY 168 USA) - JAYE (Austria) - BANDO (France) - NOC (USA) - NUNCA (Brésil) - FUZI (France) - SEEN (USA) - KASE 2 (USA) - MICO (USA) - COMET (USA) - BUTCH 2 (USA) - SHUCK (France) - MISS17 (USA) - AIS LAP (Chili) - DUSTER (USA) - SWIZ (France) - MAC COY (USA) - COCO 144 (USA) - FLINT 707 (USA) - SNAKE 131 (USA) - CREEZ (France) - CLAW (USA) - ROSY (Switzerland) - FRIDRICKS (Island) - AMAZE (USA) - VULCAN (USA) - MARE 139 (USA) - DOZE GREEN (USA) - UTAH (USA) - SLICE (France) - TEACH (United Kingdom)