OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, September 24th, 2020 from 6 PM – 9 PM

Panel Talk: Friday, September 25th, 2020 from 6 PM – 8 PM
“In Dialogue with Al Díaz and Charlie Ahearn, director, and producer of Wild Style”

Exhibition: Friday, September 25th, through Saturday, October 3rd from 1 PM – 6 PM
Following all CDC’s and government guidelines, please register directly through our Eventbrite for the events)

http://oneartspace.com/2020/09/15/prepare-4-turbulence-al-diaz-updated-sep-24-oct-3-2020/

Veteran Graffiti/Street AL DIAZ (Bomb-1, SAMO©…WET PAINT) presents his exhibition “PREPARE 4 TURBULENCE, AL DIAZ – UPDATED” his latest narrative and mixed-media work. A new collection of wry, pithy, and sometimes poignant commentaries on life during this stormy period we are experiencing. The use of previously unexplored materials and surfaces make this show very different from his past exhibits.

Al Díaz’s career spans five decades. Born and raised Puerto Rican in New York City, he was known by age 15 as a prolific and influential, first-generation subway graffiti artist. During the early 70s, his popular and recognized name was “BOMB-1.” After high school and the SAMO©… period, Díaz began to practice musical percussion and created recordings, including a performance on Basquiat’s collectible 1983 early hip-hop album, Beat Bop which also featured Rammellzee and K-Rob. After being “on the scene” during the 80s Avant-garde art boom, for many years Díaz honed his craft as a foreman/lead carpenter in the New York building industry.

Currently, Díaz works with signage used throughout the NYC MTA subway system. After cutting out individual letters to create clever-sounding, surreal and poignant anagrams, he hangs the finished messages in City subway stations. In 2016, he resurrected the SAMO©… writings, and contemporary fans appreciate his frequent use of Instagram (albert_diaz1), where the satirical images are shared widely. Recently, Díaz released to the public his private collection of photographs of Basquiat as a teenager, with several more currently unrevealed.

Díaz resides in Brooklyn. His work has been shown and privately collected internationally, including in Beyond the Streets (Los Angeles, 2018), Zeitgeist: The Teenage Art Scene of Basquiat (Howl Arts, Inc., New York City, 2018) the World Trade Center (69th Floor Art4WTC, 2017), Urban Arts Fair (Manhattan, 2017) WestchesterArts (From the Streets White Plains, 2017), Art Miami, Scope, The Bishop Gallery (Brooklyn, 2017) and the 21st Precinct Street Exhibit (NYC, 2014). Díaz is featured in film productions (Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, BBC’s American Masters—Basquiat: Rage to Riches, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child), and magazine and book publications, such as Jon Narr and Normal Mailer’s The Faith of Graffiti, 2Create: Art of Collaboration by Yoav Litvin, Street Messages by Nicholas Ganz and most recently, Aljazeera America, art.net, GQ Korea and Vogue UK among many others. Díaz has been a highlighted speaker and artist for a variety of panel discussions, including at the Brooklyn Museum, The New School, Christie’s Education, The Museum of the City of New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, the London Barbican, Art Basel (Switzerland) and NOLA Arts Festival. A notebook that he made with Jean-Michel Basquiat and friends during his teens is currently held in the private collection of the Yale University Beinecke Library. In 2018, Díaz authored SAMO©… SINCE 1978, a book meant to clarify, elaborate, and illustrate the history and meaning behind the historical SAMO©… writings.

Charlie Ahearn is an American film director and producer for Wild Style(1982), it is regarded as the first hip hop motion picture that capture hip-hop culture and graffiti art. Charlie is a creative cultural artist living in New York City. Although predominantly involved in film and video production, he is also known for his work as an author, freelance writer, member of Colab, and radio host.