Wall in the Bronx featuring Nixon posters and a CHARMIN 65 tag, 1973 (Photo: Jon Naar)
How can an object as seemingly unremarkable as a can of spray paint ignite a revolution? Wall Writers, narrated by the legendary film maker John Waters, is a new documentary that explores graffiti’s eruption into the mainstream during a period of social turmoil in the late 1960s and early ’70s, and its global impact as an artistic and cultural force.
Director and executive producer Roger Gastman follows the timeline from graffiti’s beginnings as urban street art to the sale of the first graffiti painting in 1973. The film uncovers the start of a movement whose pioneers were decried as vandals and praised as subversive visionaries, and that would grow to transform city life, public transit, public art, and ultimately, visual art the world over. Gastman introduces the film and leads a post-screening discussion.
Gastman, a Bethesda native, is a filmmaker and graffiti artist who chronicled the 1980s graffiti scene in the District in the documentary The Legend of Cool "Disco" Dan, co-curated the Art in the Streets exhibition at MOCA Los Angeles in 2011, and produced Banksy’s Oscar-nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.
He signs copies of the documentary’s companion book, Wall Writers: Graffiti in Its Innocence (Gingko Press), available for sale.
Other Connections
See the trailer for Wall Writers.
