By DJ Phekt
Martha Cooper is a curious woman with a captivating smile. Cameras accompanied the 79-year-old photojournalist throughout her life. Her father owned a camera and equipment shop in Baltimore. She took the first pictures of her at the age of three.
In the 1960s, Marty, as her friends call her, worked as a volunteer language teacher for the “Peace Corps” in Thailand and then traveled alone by motorcycle from Bangkok to England via Afghanistan, Iran. , Russia and Europe. After successfully completing her studies in ethnology, she ended up working as a photojournalist for “National Geographic” and “New York Post” in the late 1970s. And this is where she begins her story as one of the earliest observers of the subculture which is now a defining part of international pop culture under the term “hip hop”.
On the streets of the Bronx
During her travels through sometimes very poor regions of the world, Martha Cooper sharpens her eye for the essential. For example, she observes Haitian children making trash toys and finds similar scenes in New York in the 1970s. The city was bankrupt at the time, entire neighborhoods like the South Bronx were neglected, and as self-contained open spaces, they were at the same time an ideal breeding ground for creative development and experimentation.
By chance, he meets a little boy who watches his HE3 alter ego squirt. Fascinated by his sketchbook and his creativity, an underground world practically inaccessible to strangers opens up at this moment. Because HE3 offers Martha to introduce it to Dondi, the “King of styles” of the graffiti scene of the time.
Sally Levi
From the subway tunnel to the tunnel
Martha Cooper quickly gains the trust of initially rather skeptical graffiti artists. What does this curious white woman with the short haircut want? Are you from the police?
But his high-quality photos of subway cars and painted walls (which he gives to artists) are highly coveted in the scene, which usually only captures their works with cheap disposable cameras. Martha Cooper stages the sprinkled images in a suggestive way, in front of buildings, on bridges and with people in front of them. She not only documents the sprayed works, but she also portrays the lifestyle of New York City at the time. And she immortalizes in her photos of her young people, some of whom later become world-famous superstars as performers or artists.
Martha Cooper / Prestel
“Spray Nation” by Martha Cooper and Roger Gastman with 410 unpublished color illustrations from the photographer’s archive was published by Prestel Verlag as a hardcover in English.
Martha becomes a confidant who learns from the first source that she painted what, when and where. And she gets advice on when some trains will pass where. Additionally, she is taken to various illegal graffiti actions in the underground tunnel system and thus she gets a first-time insight into the techniques and tricks of the scene. She knows the people behind the mysterious colorful word creations and witnesses the stage where Manhattan’s art galleries suddenly show an interest in colorful graffiti art.
In 1984, Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant published the book “Subway Art”, which is now known as the “Graffiti Bible” and which is partly responsible for the fact that graffiti has spread around the world.
Through his photos, which provide a behind-the-scenes look at the scene, young people around the world were suddenly able to see a large-scale spray painted image being created. The cultural implications of this internationally published publication did not become apparent to Martha Cooper until many years later.
New photos from the archive
One can only imagine what a vast photographic archive Martha Cooper has created since that time. Thousands of unpublished images slumber in their folders. This is exactly what Roger Gastman, a curator, author and director specializing in graffiti art, has now taken a closer look. Together with Martha Cooper, this led to the book “Spray Nation”. A collection of photos from the early 1980s, now shown for the first time.
With the help of breathtaking images, leafing through the book becomes a journey through time in a New York that we know only from hearsay, with partly desolate infrastructure, fashion, architecture and old billboards. Plus, there are great graffiti artwork and portraits of the people who made them. Artists who were relatively unknown at the time, such as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat or Madonna, also appear in these images as part of the party crowd.
Still active
Martha Cooper is still active and constantly travels the world with her cameras. For example, she accompanied the infamous 1UP graffiti team on illegal graffiti campaigns for a week (there is a video about this) and she published the book “A week with 1UP”. At over 70, she is probably the oldest woman who has ever been secretly in subway tunnels at night with young masked men. Fearless but always focused to capture the perfect shot.
