The Urban Commons
Portraying New York City’s ramshackle subway system as both a public canvas and public policy battleground, the film portrays a number of the young artists at work, juxtaposed against the official positions of Mayor Koch, the police and other city officials contending that graffiti is vandalism. A loving portrait of street culture and the spatial politics informing this early 1980s culture, the film ultimately leads to a climactic head when graffiti is “discovered” by the art market and moved inside to galleries. Providing a visceral, visual and auditory chronicle of the first wave of NYC gentrification and the forces of economic “revitalization” which rocked the city and transformed its cultural landscape, Style Wars won the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the 1983 Sundance Film Festival.
