Crash (John Matos)
A contemporary of Keith Haring and a modern-day master of this present day art form, shoots his metaphorical arrows into art galleries, subway cars and dizzying flashes across concrete walls. His is a lavish gift to the eyes and a statement in time and space that celebrates the movements and change of an ever changing world. His work is a direct descendant of the Roman wall-scribes but he has evolved this inherited gift back to its simplest form: “tagging,” leaving his name. Great artists sign their names on the paintings they leave behind, in this new/old incarnation the artist leaves just his name. A reduction of unadulterated form; or “refined” art.

Even in its newly evolved forms, far from its beginnings on subway cars, the message of graffiti has been “decorate this.”

Stuart Pivar
Founder, the New York Academy of Art