Wild Style in East Hampton

With [Exit Through The Gift Shop] releasing nationwide, Jeffery Deitch backing [Shepard Fairey](http://www.nypress.com/blog-6537-shepard-fairey-bombed-and-bombed-and-bombed-again.html), recently published books by [Swoon](http://cityarts.info/2010/06/16/june-books/) and [Poster Boy](http://www.nypress.com/blog-6948-a-look-inside-posterboys-book.html), and Jim Joe a commonplace, almost comfortable aspect of New York City life, it can be easy to forget the roots of these Street Art maestros.

“People are into that whole scene, but if you ask 100 people who Blade or Coco or Mare 139 is, 99 of those people wont know,” says Eric Firestone, bi-coastal gallerist and curator.

At [Firestone’s East Coast gallery in East Hampton], New York, a showing of work from the classic graffiti artists of old New York City called Down By Law goes on display Aug. 4, and Firestone believes it’s a chance for Street Art enthusiasts to look to the past.

“I think there should be a strong degree of homage,” he says. “It makes a lot of sense to go back to the womb, so to speak.”

The show was curated—as all Firestone’s shows are—in 60 days, “guerilla style.” Down By Law includes rare photographs of graffiti of the 1970s, as well as canvases by the aforementioned Coco, who earned the title in his heyday as the Duchamp of graffiti. Also hanging will be rarely seen, early paintings by Dondi White, who, at the age of 22, had already had had seven solo exhibitions. Viewers will also get glimpses at original designs for The Beastie Boys, Run DMC and other early hip-hop iconography.

But, although the show canvases the graffiti movement from the early ’70s onward, Firestone contends it is far from retrospective.

“I don’t think that’s fair, especially to so many of the early artists,” he says. “Until there is a full-on museum collection of this type of art, there won’t be a full understanding of its impact.”