Martha Cooper’s Street Art Chronicles

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I sat down to profile Martha Cooper and found myself stumped. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out an angle. It’s not like I was hurting for material. This past January, Cooper bolstered her reputation as graffiti’s most tireless documenter with Going Postal, a photo anthology of postal sticker street art. She marked the release a month later with a wildly successful show at Brooklyn’s Ad Hoc Art Gallery that showcased artists from the book. And she’d thoughtfully answered a slew of my big, abstract questions on everything from independent publishing to the state of international street art. In other words, there’s plenty to say about Cooper. But her work kept resisting my attempts to shape it into a tidy hook.

Cooper might be happy to hear it. She’s spent more than 30 years doggedly photographing the many permutations of graffiti and graffiti culture, including niches—like tagging—that others won’t touch. Before this, she worked as a photojournalist, and her slow, methodical approach is, in part, her own reaction against the pressure of the news hook. “Photojournalism,” she explains, “often means shooting elbow to elbow with a pack of other photographers and news crews. I dislike fighting for position with other photographers. I prefer to shoot subjects over time and not worry if there’s a ‘news’ angle.” So she quit to pursue solo projects at her own pace. Lucky for us, because the decision has birthed collections like her seminal record of early New York graffiti, Subway Art, along with more recent books like Tag Town and Going Postal.

Cooper’s commitment to long-term observation lends her photos a depth of insight that’s rare in treatments of graffiti. You can hear it in the way she likens tagging to “classic calligraphy” and lauds sticker artists’ ability to create styles that are both flexible and recognizable: She respects her subjects as more than passing fads. She accordingly approaches her work in the spirit of preservation “so that they can be seen and appreciated by future generations.” Some of her projects have fulfilled this mission quite successfully. Subway Art, for instance, has become a bible for graffiti fans, and an expanded 25^th anniversary edition is slated for release this April.

To describe Cooper’s work solely in terms of longevity, though, would be unfair, because her photos are also gorgeous. Going Postal is no exception. It’s marked by bold, saturated colors, and animated by a palpable enthusiasm for its subjects. Cooper clearly sees beauty in the work she shoots, and her photos quickly convince you to adopt this excitement. You find yourself admiring the deft curve of a signature, marveling at an ingenuous color combination, and, once you’re back out on the street, scanning mailboxes and signposts and trashcans for local sticker art iterations. This collection, like her others, encourages its audience to consider the artistry and craftsmanship in work that’s more often ignored.     

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