The RAMM:ELL:ZEE

The RAM:ELL:ZEE
Battle Station, 2011
Courtesy of The Estate of Rammellzee and The Suzanne Geiss Company

Installation at Art in The Streets, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

One of hip-hop's most enigmatic figures, RAMMELLZEE was a graffiti writer, rapper, and sculptor. Born in Far Rockaway. Queens, RAMMELLZEE began a brief graffiti career on the A train in the mid-1970s. By the early 1980s, he was creating paintings and three-dimensional sculptures of letters, many of which were shown in galleries and museums. RAMMELLZEE viewed lettering as a form of weaponry and believed graffiti could liberate the mystical power of the alphabet, as a theory put forth in the manifestos "Ikonoklast Panzerism" and "Gothic Futurism". A reclusive artist, RAMMELLZEE all but stopped exhibiting his work in public and spent much of the last two decade of his life in his TriBeCa loft he called the Battle Station, where he was rarely photographed without wearing one of his handmade, science fiction-style masks. He died in 2010 at the age of 49.

Directors: Andy Bruntel & Felipe Lima
Producers: Bret Nicely & Jett Steiger
Camera: Larkin Donley

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• rammellzee
• MOCA
• art in the streets
• deitch
• battle station
• gothic futurism

[TheAmericanObserver]

equation r. art style wild. brain cycle. in.

[lifegreatvoid]

Oh! Shit! Never saw this before. Dope!!!!!

[guitar16]

...the realms beyond the ''WILD STYLE~>

xRxIxPx

[beatnuts1uk]

Damn! Thanks for posting this. Really wish I had been able to go and see this exhibition...

[aRMe5s]

My top #1 inspirational artist to the fullest