CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/20/2026

Printed Matter presents Hugo Martinez, Danielle Becker, DIP, Octavio Zaya and Kevin Monaghan launching 'You Weren't There: ’90s Graffiti in New York'

Thursday, August 27, from 6–8 PM, Printed Matter presents the launch of You Weren't There: ’90s Graffiti in New York with a panel discussion featuring Hugo Martinez, Danielle Becker, DIP, Octavio Zaya and Kevin Monaghan, followed by a Q&A and signing. Focusing on the 1990s—a decade of unpredictability and innovation—this book traces graffiti’s evolution and its sensibilities within broader social currents. It includes contemporaneous photographs of the works in situ by Danielle Becker, James MacDonald, Olalla Novoa, H. Martinez, Phil Mansfield and Stephen J. Bell, alongside interviews conducted by Martinez with 25 artists such as Case2, Ghost, Nato, Rebel, Setup and Web 113.

Though the medium was born in the '60s, graffiti art reached a fever pitch in 1990s New York. After the widespread subway cleanup that ended the so-called “train era,” artists adapted, using the streets and urban architecture to combat alienation. Blending aesthetics with lifestyle, they reconnected art with the pulse of human existence. Edited by Hugo Martinez, owner of New York’s Martinez Gallery, You Weren't There is a snapshot of the art and artists of a pivotal city in a pivotal decade for graffiti art.

PREORDER HERE.
Please note: Preordered copies will be signed by COMET and a guest artist (while supplies last.) Preorders will be available for pick-up at the event on 8/27. If you elect to have your preordered book shipped, these will begin shipping beginning 8/28.

MORE ABOUT THE BOOK
Following the end of the subway “train era,” New York’s graffiti vanguard shifted its focus from subways to the rigid geometry of the urban grid. Writers transformed walls, rooftops, handball courts, and streetscape elements into sites of high-stakes aesthetic dialogue with architecture and power itself. What emerged was a raw, unfiltered response to socio-spatial alienation that would permanently reshape contemporary visual culture worldwide.

“After the subway trains were cleaned in 1989, graffiti didn’t die—it evolved into something more radical, more intimate, and more dangerous. You Weren't There captures that unpredictable decade when writers turned the entire city into their canvas, inventing new languages of resistance, beauty and freedom under constant pressure.” —Hugo Martinez

BIOS
Hugo Martinez (born 1951, Manhattan) is a New York-based gallerist, curator and theorist, is a pioneer who has been forcefully challenging the art establishment by legitimizing graffiti as contemporary art since the early 1970s. He founded United Graffiti Artists (uga) in 1972, the first graffiti writers’ collective to assert its legitimacy against institutional gatekeeping. Through uga he staged landmark exhibitions that confronted the art world’s exclusion of urban vernacular practices. His interdisciplinary work further defied boundaries between high art and street culture. As a writer and lecturer Martinez produced seminal theoretical texts that critiqued the marginalization of graffiti and reframed it as a vital artistic movement. His lifelong effort has been to dismantle hierarchical distinctions in art, preserving New York graffiti’s history while securing its place in global contemporary discourse.

Danielle Becker (born 1985, Queens) is the creative associate and editorial collaborator of Martinez Gallery. “Walking down the street, unaware that at any moment you can tap into a portal of camaraderie, treachery, thievery, imprisonment, glory, and legacy. Living in the now by illegal means to the highest possible potential. Consequences are known, but most of the time they don’t concern you. Through trial and error, a lucky streak, a cut off from society to recoup(imprisonment), or the lifestyle that once had its perks has played catch-up, and your time is diminishing—death or either in the right place, right time, you got away or maybe ‘they’ caught someone else; or, the wrong place/wrong time: a fatal injury, addiction, imprisonment, or death. The reader’s experience is guided the same way as they would walk through everyday life—enter the streets. You meet the Vanguard as they draw parallels for others and develop the foundation fundamental interconnections through art, lifestyle, and the potential for legacy.”

NATO (born 1975, Manhattan) — “Some have called me, ‘The 7-line rooftop guy.’ Others, ‘…an experienced toy.’ My mother coined ‘Notorious.’ But me? I’m a son, a father, and—at heart—a Queens kid till death do us part.” In the early 2000s he was the graffiti section editor at yrb [Yellow Rat Bastard] magazine; researching, writing, photographing and editing stories. nato also contributed articles to Mass Appeal, frank 151 and Stress magazines and co-authored graffiti nyc with Hugo Martinez.

Octavio Zaya (born 1954, Las Palmas) is a curator, critic and editor. He has curated approximately forty exhibitions internationally, including presentations at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1996), the johannesburg Biennale (1997), the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid (1999, 2000, 2018), Documenta 11 (2002), and the Venice Biennale (2013). The author of some forty books and catalogues, his work focuses primarily on contemporary Latin American and African art, advocating for the visibility and recognition of artistic production from outside the traditional centers of Western art.

Kevin Monaghan (born 1983, Dundalk) is the media content curator of Getnloose. He has organized exhibitions in Europe and the United States for Martinez Gallery, and worked extensively on their publications, websites and graffiti media documenting and amplifying voices from the international graffiti community.

DIP (born 1994, Portland, OR) — “I feel really optimistic about clothing.”

Printed Matter
You Weren’t There: ‘90s Graffiti in New York
The Stunt: Panel Discussion & Q&A
Thursday, August 27, from 6–8 PM
231 11th Ave, NYC
MORE INFO HERE