Martha Cooper
MARTHA COOPER: DOWN BY LAW
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Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton
August 14–September 26, 2010
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Martha Cooper is a documentary photographer born in the 1940s in Baltimore, Maryland. She began photographing in nursery school after her father gave her a camera. She graduated from high school at the age of 16, and from Grinnell College with a degree in art at age 19. From 1963-65, she taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and then journeyed by motorcycle from Bangkok to England where she received an ethnology diploma from Oxford. She was a photography intern at National Geographic Magazine in the 1960s, and worked as a staff photographer for the Narragansett Times in Rhode Island and at the New York Post in the 1940s.
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Martha is perhaps best known for documenting the New York graffiti scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. While working for the New York Post she began taking photos of creative play on the Lower Eastside in order to use up the remaining film in her camera each day before developing it. One day she met a young boy named Edwin who showed her his drawings and explained that he was practicing to write his nickname on walls. Edwin offered to introduce her to a graffiti king. This is how she met the great stylemaster, Dondi, who eventually allowed her to photograph him in the yards at night while he was painting. In 1984, with Henry Chalfant, she published Subway Art, a landmark photo book that subsequently spread graffiti art around the world.
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In addition to publishing more than a dozen books, Martha’s photographs have appeared in innumerable magazines including National Geographic, Smithsonian and Vibe. She is the Director of Photography at City Lore, the New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. She still lives in Manhattan but is currently working on a photo project in Sowebo, a Southwest Baltimore neighborhood.
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Cooper will be exhibiting four silver gelatin prints from her early b-boy documentary work in “Down by Law” at the Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, opening on August 14, 2010. She has graciously agreed to speak about her work here.
Doze Green, Rock Steady Park, Photograph © Martha Cooper
New York in the 1970s and 1980s was a city bursting with originality, innovation, and experimentation. Please talk about how you see the relationship between your early work as a photographer and the environment in which it took hold.
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I’ve long been drawn to anything made by hand perhaps because my parents always encouraged creative play. In 1977 I began working as a staff photographer for the New York Post and the job required that we cruise around the city all day in our cars with two-way radio contact to the news desk in case there was a breaking assignment. When not on assignment we were supposed to look for feature “weather” photos. My favorite neighborhood for photos was Alphabet City on the Lower Eastside where I could almost always find kids making something from nothing.
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It has recently been suggested to me that the term “graffiti” is marginalizing, and loaded with negative connotations. How do you feel about the use of the word in general, as well as application to your work?
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Writers probably enjoy being associated with “negative connotations”. Being bad can be cool. Of course the term graffiti has been around much longer than markers and spray paint. In NYC, it’s most fitting for tags but less appropriate for sophisticated spray painted walls. Words and their connotations change over time. Just let me know what you want me to call it and I’ll be happy to oblige. If you prefer the term aerosol art, I’ll go with that stilted though it may be.
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As a working photographer over the past three decades, you have seen first hand how the art world—from galleries and dealers to museums and collectors—responds and reacts to contemporary American art. What are your thoughts on the differences (and similarities, if applicable) between the US, European, and Asian markets?
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As a documentary photographer I’ve always been more interested in publishing my photos in books and magazines than showing them in galleries. I never paid much attention to the art market until very recently. Collectors in Europe and Japan seem more eager to collect “graffiti” (should I say aerosol?) related work. I’m just happy that people anywhere enjoy looking at my pictures.
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Who are your artistic inspirations, and how have they influenced your ideas, aesthetics, and actions through the course of your career?
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My dad was an amateur photographer and he used to take me on “camera runs” with the Baltimore Camera Club so my first experience with photography was just going out looking for pictures and that’s still my approach today…
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I’m from a generation of street photographers who never studied photography. I grew up seeing photojournalism magazines like Look and Life and National Geographic and wanted to become a professional photographer so that I could travel the world. I was always more interested in thinking about what I wanted to photograph than how I was going to shoot it. It was never my intention to make art.
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For “Down by Law” you will be exhibiting your silver gelatin prints of Rock Steady Crew members Frosty Freeze, Ken Swift, Crazy Legs, and Doze Green . Please talk about your work documenting the b-boy movement, and the way in which these photographs—in particular that of Frosty—have become historic markers of the culture.
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I first encountered b-boys by chance in 1980 in Washington Heights and was so impressed that I contacted Sally Banes, a dance writer, to help me document them. It took us a year before we had enough material to publish a story. We asked Henry Chalfant to help us find dancers. He was organizing an event with graffiti, rapping and DJing and thought dance would be a great addition. Through his graffiti contacts, we met Crazy Legs.
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The resulting story in the Village Voice in April 1981 with Frosty Freeze on the cover introduced breaking and Rock Steady to the world. Because NYC is a media town, magazines and film crews quickly covered the “new” dance. Henry filmed them for his movie Style Wars as did Charlie Ahearn for Wild Style. The words “Hip Hop” were not in general use at the time but as people became more aware of the culture, breaking was included as an integral part and the Rock Steady Crew became worldwide celebrities. As far as I know my photos are the earliest documentation of b-boying.
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There has been a wide array of artists to emerge from the early graffiti and Hip-Hop movement. How have your earlier experiences documenting b-boys, young writers in the yards, and trains running along the lines influenced you ideas about art, and in what direction would you like to go?
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I don’t think a lot about art. Still photography is a wonderful way to document. In a fraction of a second the camera can capture and preserve a million details. I’m interested in using photography for historic preservation. I want people to look at my photos and get a sense of what life was like at a specific time and place.
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I’ve seen New York City change radically over the past 30 years and my photos are appreciated because they are a record of a different time. For the past 4 1/2 years I’ve been documenting a difficult neighborhood in Baltimore with a vibrant street life. My hope is that in thirty years these photos will similarly be enjoyed.
Frosty Freeze, Photograph © Martha Cooper
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