Autograf. New York City's Graffiti Writers
Peter Sutherland

Hardbound , 7.5" x 10.25", 120 pages
134 four color and 23 black-and-white illustrations
2004, powerHouse Books
Text by REVS and Stephen Espo Powers

A controversial art form and provocative cultural phenomenon, graffiti has inestimably influenced our entire environment - from music and fashion to advertising, architecture, and graphic arts. Yet it is an illegal activity, which makes its practitioners wanted criminals. Motivated by a desire for self-expression and recognition, the act of marking one's territory is done at the risk of severe consequences including fines and jail time. Graffiti writers are outlaws, unknown artists whose faces are known only to their peers. Treated as criminals by the law and dismissed as artists by the establishment, writers are perceived as either alluring anti-heroes or loathsome vandals, and usually remain anonymous to their audience. But not to photographer Peter Sutherland. With an eye for style, Sutherland captures all of the gritty glory and glamour of the graffiti world and its warriors. Collected for the first time in Autograf: New York City's Graffiti Writers, Sutherland presents a never-before-seen chronicle of the people and places that populate New York¹s famed graff scene. Featuring old-school legends FUTURA, STAY HIGH 149, LADY PINK and DOZE, as well as COPE 2, KAWS, CYCLE, CLAW, VFR, KR, EARSNOT, SERF, RATE, SACER, UFO, and DSENSE, among many others, each one of the fifty-three portraits is authentically tagged by the individual writers using the same paint markers that brought them fame. Complemented by over fifty landscape photographs and featuring handwritten text by legendary recluse REVS, Autograf is the only book to showcase New York City's graffiti scene as it was created and defined by some of the most prolific artists of our time.

About the Author
Peter Sutherland is a filmmaker and photographer who was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1976 and raised in Colorado. A move to NYC in 1998 prompted his first feature documentary, Pedal, a film about NYC bike messengers that is currently airing on the Sundance Channel. Sutherland also worked as director of photography on Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator, a documentary about Gator, a famous skateboarder who was convicted of murder in 1991. Directed by Helen Stickler, Stoked premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and was released theatrically by Palm Pictures in August 2003. Sutherland is a contributing photographer to magazines including Vibe, Tokion, Nylon, paper, and XLR8R, and has done commercial photographic work for Nike and Vice Records. He has shown his work at the Rivington Arms gallery and at 255 Elizabeth Space, both in New York. Sutherland lives and works in NYC.

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