Martha Cooper

Henry Chalfant

Two gifted photographers have documented every aspect of this extraordinary urban subculture, complete with 239 full-color photographs.

Subway Art

In Name Tagging, graffiti photography legend Martha Cooper presents a dizzying array of "Hello My Name Is" stickers adorned with tags, the origin of graffiti and today's street art cultures. Cooper's introduction, artist interviews and photographs make clear how artists famed and anonymous take advantage of the accessibility and practicality of nametag stickers. From CLAW MONEY and NECK FACE to TWIST, SURE, FAUST, COSBE and many, many more, Cooper's camera has captured the artistry and audacity of these artists and their distinctive tags. Name Tagging captures the variety and innovation of tags, crediting the form's history while demonstrating how old school methods breed some of today's most exciting graffiti.

Name Tagging

In 1975, New York City was bankrupt. Crime was at an all-time high, street muggings were commonplace, buildings were crumbling, entire neighborhoods were abandoned by landlords as residents fled to the suburbs and the government could care less. Here is a documentary of the embattled but irresistable urban mecca.

New York State of Mind

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

Memorial Wall Art

R.I.P.

Collection of Cooper's photos documenting the birth of hip-hop in New York; includes interviews with Cooper, her subjects, and other participants in the scene.

Photographs 1979-1984

Hip Hop Files

During the 1970s and 80s, photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant captured the environment and the imagination of a generation by documenting the burgeoning New York City graffiti movement. Now 25 years and more than a half a million copies later, their bestselling book Subway Art is available in a large-scale, deluxe format heightening the visual impact of their classic images. With 70 additional photographs, and a fresh introduction and afterword, this collector's edition illustrates the passion, creativity and resourcefulness of unlikely kids inventing an art form destined to spread worldwide and spawn the present-day street art movement.

25th Anniversary Edition

From the archives of the bestselling photographer who brought the world the Hip Hop Files and Subway Art comes this fantastic never-before-published collection of images charting New York culture before the Hip Hop era. While working as a staff photographer for the New York Post, Cooper habitually drove through the poor neighbourhoods of the Lower East Side that had the richest street life. The photos in Street Play document the creative and indomitable spirit of city kids who were determined to make the best of their inhospitable environment.

Street Play

Julius Cavero

Recounts the artist's life from the early 1960s to 2005 through his written accounts and artwork, including images of painted trains, walls, canvases, drawings, and sketches produced over the last thirty years.

The Nasty Terrible T-kid 170

Because they are freely accessible in large quantities, postal stickers have long been a preferred substrate used by street artists to get up, without having to risk too much time executing their work in public places. With ample time to draw and tag on these stickers in the privacy of their own homes, these sticker artists achieve great feats of diverse artistry, not to mention exposure. Able to covertly apply a sticker to a lamppost in broad daylight in bustling city centers, or scale a billboard with a pocketful of already tagged stickers, the artists that use stickers minimize risk and maximize effect. Of course, because stickers from the US Postal Service, UPS, DHL and FEDEX are so readily available, so many of these stickers get lost in the fray. Thats where graffiti photography legend Martha Cooper comes in. Shooting the origins of hiphop and graffiti cultures since the late 1970s in New York City, and later all over the world, Coopers well-trained eyes know how to recognize deft sticker art. Here then is a collection of more than 200 photographs of some of Coopers favorite handmade postal stickers from her travels. Always armed with a camera when walking around a city, Cooper offers this personal collection of stickers that caught her attention, whether done by some of the scenes better-known artists or the anonymous, but no less astounding. Going Postal documents how an old-school method has burgeoned into another rich facet of the worlds graffiti cultures.

Mailing Label Street Art

Going Postal

Every graffiti writer began his or her writing career with a tag. For those who learn to read tags, a world of aesthetic expression and communication opens up. Tags are a universal language - the jazz of lettering. The photos in Tag Town, dating back to the 1960s, introduce readers to the origins of New York style graffiti, containing rare photos of work on the street by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. Accompanying text is based on interviews with New York graffiti pioneers Blade, Part I and Snake I.

Martha Cooper

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