Alison Buxton, the co-owner of Brooklyn’s Ad Hoc gallery is perhaps the nicest, most open-minded, welcoming person you’ll ever meet. Her gallery business card lists her as “Co-founder, Cat Wrangler and Problem Solver,” and one can only imagine her handling these duties with love and the utmost of human respect. In that light, there couldn’t have been a better venue than her avant-garde gallery for two great heroes of Graffiti culture, Daze & Crash, to show their latest collaborative retrospective.
“It’s a funny kind of reunion,” Daze remarks about the current show with Crash currently showing at Ad Hoc till June 14th. “We’ve shared a studio together for 17 years, so it almost seems like it’s just another day at the office. But actually, this is the first time we’re showing together in a gallery in about 10 years. We did a lot of that in the ‘80s but we needed to step away from that and establish our own individual identities some more. But it feels good working together again, because whenever we work together on the same canvas there’s a special dynamic that happens because we’re so different, and it’s those differences that come together and make it special.”
Daze’s story of emerging from the streets of NYC to becoming a world-renowned artist proves the magic of art as a totally transformative force. “In the beginning [the late ‘70s], Graffiti wasn’t really the cool thing to do. You never really wanted anyone to know you were a Graff-artist, only the other people who did Graffiti. And then it grew into this valuable art form that’s shown in galleries and taken me all over the world.”
The conversation with the Daze ends on an advisory note that artists of today will do well to heed. “Everyone is talking about how bad the economy is these days,” Daze remarks, “but this could actually be a great thing for art because it could weed out the people that aren’t really serious.
He continues, “Because when you look at Hip-Hop and Graffiti and anything that came from that realm, you’re talking about people that made something from nothing, and I’m looking forward to see what happens from this current climate.”
A profound quote from the owner Alison Buxom serves as the perfect bookend. “I think everyone in life is part of an ongoing collaborative art piece, and we’re all just playing our part,” she wistfully states.
Live, Love and Create people – there’s really no better way to live.
Words by Geo Hagan, photos by Joel Sheakowski
