Swatch’s Blackbook; A Closer Look
While looking through my favorite photography site I stumbled upon images from Bronx, New York native Swatch’s black book. At closer inspection it appeared to me that his black book was covered with tags from nothing but legends (a word I don’t use loosely). Having spent many years writing on walls, trains and much more Swatch has accumulated quite a collection in his personal black book that features such writers as Lee, Cope, Martin Wong, Zephyr, Futura 2000, Andre Charles, Fuzz One, Iz The Wiz (RIP), Phase2 and believe me the list goes on. Mega props goes out to Swatch for allowing me to share this all with you.
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Excerpts from Swatch talking about his black book:
“well theres no real story on the tags, its from a few different blackbooks. im 39 so its all from around early&mid 90’s when i went to lots of graff shows and did alot more graff. my real early blackbooks were lost in time, moves and maybe stolen.”
” flickr stream is mostly retro stuff, i have a beef with the idea of so called urban explorer graffiti street art experts walking around disneyland nyc taking pictures of pretty graff and wheatpastes. my early background was more warriorsnyc in a wasteland of empty lots and abandoned bldgs and bombed trains.”
“and had lots of beef with other writers for the pleasure of dissing, shit was always beef and watching your back in the old school, hanging out on the bench cuz i was down with the bx and had friends and trooped around nyc like it was in a zombie apocolyspse movie not because i painted pretty pictures or hooked up every crew.”
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