Retired Graffiti Artists Get Creative Without Criminality at 5Pointz

Though the contemporary art museum P.S.1 lures art tourists to Long Island City, Queens, its post-modern façade pales in comparison to the kaleidoscope of graphics that cover the abandoned, block-long warehouse across the street.

The block at Jackson Avenue and Davis Street has evolved into 5Pointz, a living graffiti installation overseen by internationally acclaimed aerosol artist Meres One.

In Saturday’s warmth—ideal graffiti-writing weather—my eyes wandered from the E train to these fluorescent brick canvasses where Meres and his closest friends share weekend writing sessions. Masters of the renegade art form, the artists have given up the fast life of “bombing,” writing in public spaces, to work at 5Pointz and gain gallery exposure.
However, these artists still treasure the risk-filled careers of their youth. One writer, Munk, remembers his subway writing, while Charm, a current gallery artist at Alphabeta in Brooklyn, reminisces about his underage days when the threat of being arrested could not curb his creativity.

Unlike so many of his friends, Meres hasn’t quite retired from the thrill of “bombing.” A native of Queens, he began tagging at the age of 13 and is still the most satisfied by projects that “last the longest and that no one has thought of,” thus demonstrating the symbolic value of a graffiti piece’s placement. For Meres, aerosol work is akin to Egyptian hieroglyphics and prehistoric cave paintings, as it marks the artist’s presence. Egos reign supreme, according to Meres. The “ultimate goal is [to see] who can get up the most.” His friend Charm agreed, stating, “our identities here are public.”

Yet at this point in his life, Meres seeks a different kind of publicity as he focuses on gaining gallery exposure and working with a carefully chosen crew to create “pieces,” large works that coexist together on a wall to form murals. Meres’s unique style, a hybrid of chunky-lettered New York aesthetic and the more flowing LA technique, has caught the attention of the New York Knicks and Swatch as well as record companies such as Def Jam and musical artists including Matisyahu and Joss Stone, whom he body-painted for her album cover. “At first I did it [graffiti] because I wanted the rush—I never thought that I would get to know the best of the best and meet people,” Meres said.

Meres’s cultivation of freedom of expression at 5Pointz does not cater to a commercial purpose. “I wear different hats: tour guide, teacher, security guard, curator,” he said as he nodded at the building, calling his project a “pivotal point in graffiti making.” Allowing both creators of Rembrandt reproductions and novices to work at his space, he seeks to propel the art form into the next generation, offering weekly summer classes to aspiring local artists.

Rebuffing the media’s negative stereotypes of graffiti, Meres aims to transform the place into a museum. According to Meres, “You can’t say it [graffiti] is not art because then you have to classify what art is.” Fortuitously positioned across the street from P.S.1, Meres’s aerosol cloud nine uses graffiti’s competitive spirit to challenge the definition of art on a colossal scale.