Collection: Taki 183
The living legend of New York graffiti returns from the shadows
A graffiti icon, Taki 183 is unofficially considered by his peers to be the precursor of New York tagging. Raised in 183rd Street in Upper Manhattan, the then-young Greek immigrant was bored stiff in the Savage Nomads Gang, a cosmopolitan neighborhood dominated by Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican communities. Along with his friend Greg, Dimitrius, whose first name is on his passport, realized a seemingly trivial but ultimately enormous idea: to write a very common Greek diminutive, Taki, and his street number, 183rd, wherever he could.
Walls, subways, pubs, election posters, Taki leaves his mark with every move he makes in the city. Tracked by a New York Times reporter, Taki makes his debut in the July 21, 1971, edition of the newspaper with a headline that remains in everyone's memory: "TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals." The first of the Legends is born. The most imaginative rumors announce that the bad boy from the Upper East Side had tagged the Statue of Liberty and a US Secret Service car. The fame and the procession of fantasies he arouses only half please him. Just like the relatively relative gentrification in which his first art settles. A son of the street, Taki 183 throws away the can, enrolls in mechanics classes, and decides to build a family life away from the emerging graffiti scene. 40 years of silence from which he has decided to emerge today.
