Atari will host a graffiti-thon street festival on August 24 to promote the release of it graffiti-based game “Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure” by designer Marc Ecko. At the event, held August 24th on 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues from 12:00PM – 8:00PM, 20 artists will spray-paint 48 by 8 foot replicas of New York’s blue-bird subway cars.
A lineup of graffiti artists, from the notorious COPE2 to T-KID, who first started writing on trains as early as 1974, will spend the day doing full color murals on the vintage trains. Other participating graf writers include Dash, West, Ces, Sonic, Iz the Wiz, Min, Duro, Wane, Wen, Dero, Cycle, Smith, Lady Pink, Doc, Kel 1st, Mare139, Crash, Daze, Ghost, and the Tats Crew.
Predictably and as he’s done before on this topic, Queens Councilman Peter Vallone, while trying to quell activities such as this, can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, thereby simply giving the event even more publicity. The New York Post reports Vallone wrote, in a letter to New York’s Street Activity Permit office, “This is akin to a demonstration of a thug pickpocketing a wallet or stealing a purse. The city should play no part in assisting an irresponsible company like Atari to promote a how-to manual for criminals.”
The Post also reports Vallone is talking out of two sides of his mouth having, in the past, commissioned graffiti artist Lady Pink to do murals in Queens. No doubt the event will spark controversy and Adrants will be there to cover it with reports from our counter-culture controversy correspondent Bucky Turco.
