Lee Quiñones: Fifty Years of New York Graffiti Art and Beyond

This vivid collection traces the creative evolution of Quiñones, who’s best known for his political graffiti in 1970s and ’80s New York City. In an introductory section, visual artist William Cordova notes that Quiñones saw subways and other public spaces as “platform[s] for ‘public address,’ ” where he could track people’s real-time reactions to his art. The collection showcases his 1979 “Stop the Bomb” subway car graffiti, such early drawings as 1977’s Jesus Christ Superstar (Heaven is Life Earth is Hell), and later gallery work that melded political messaging with futurist themes. Despite the hit-or-miss commentary from other artists interspersed throughout (Quiñones’s paintings “will forever ride high in the skyways like a shooting star racing as quick as a flash across the misty blanket of a New York night,” rhapsodizes Odili Donald Odita), the collection offers both an up-close view of the artist’s career and a window into a vibrant period of New York City art history. This captivates. (Apr.)