By Elena Martinique
No photographer has documented the emergence and development of street art and hip-hop culture as honestly as Henry Chalfant did. One of the foremost authorities on the New York subway art and other aspects of urban youth culture, his photographs and films immortalized hundreds of ephemeral, original artworks that have long since vanished. These archives remain a remarkable work of visual anthropology and one of the seminal documents of American popular culture in the late twentieth century.
The work of this pioneering photographer is returning to the Bronx – the place where it all began – for the first U.S. retrospective at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Titled Henry Chalfant: Art Vs. Transit, 1977–1987, the exhibition will take a look back at the Bronx-born beginnings of this rebellious art form launched amid a tumultuous time in New York City history.