Fab 5 Freddy

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Fab 5 Freddy, 2009

Frederick Brathwaite (* 1959 ) , better known as Fab 5 Freddy , or F5F for short , is an American artist , musician, film producer, television presenter and hip-hop pioneer. He was part of the New York art scene in the late 1970s and 1980s and a regular guest on Glenn O'Brien's show "TV Party". He linked graffiti artists from the Bronx with gallery owners in downtown and thus influenced the establishment of graffiti as visual art . Today, Freddy focuses on his work as a visual artist in New York and is often interviewed as a contemporary witness for graffiti and hip-hop documentaries and exhibitions.

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Contrary to other representations, Freddy was not a real graffiti writer , but rather achieved his breakthrough as an artist through graffiti. Even during high school, he developed a keen interest in contemporary art in New York museums such as the Metropolitan Museum or the Museum of Modern Art . Graffiti covered the subways and streets of New York as early as the mid-1970s and, for Freddy, had the same artistic value as the pop art works in museums.

In 1978 he met the writer LEE and joined the crew The Fabulous 5ive as Fab 5 Freddy . Together with LEE he painted his first piece in 1979, the "Campbell's Soup Car", a Wholecar that refers to Andy Warhol and puts graffiti on a par with Pop Art. After a joint advertisement in the Village Voice , Freddy and Lee were contacted by the art dealer Carlo Bruni and in 1979 they realized the first graffiti exhibition in Europe , in the Galleria la Medusa in Rome , which was both Lee and Freddy's first art exhibition.

In the early 1980s several exhibitions followed in New York, for example Graffiti Art in October 1980: “Success for America” exhibition in “Fashion Moda” (Bronx) or 1981 in the Mudd Club . Although he had only done graffiti for a very short period of time, he was immediately perceived by the public as a writer and exhibited along with LEE, Dondi , Futura 2000 , Lady Pink , Rammellzee and other writers.

He worked with Afrika Bambaataa in its early days and introduced him to the uptown hip-hop scene. Through the 1981 hit Rapture by Blondie , Freddy became known throughout America with the line "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly". In the video for this song, he worked as an actor by portraying himself in a graffiti action.

In 1982 he accompanied the Rock Steady Crew , "Afrika Bambaataa", the "McDonalds Double Dutch Girls", several DJs and other graffiti artists such as Phase 2 , Futura 2000 and Dondi on the Roxy Tour , which was hosted by Europe 1 . It was the first international hip-hop tour that took her to the European cities of London and Paris, among other places. In Charlie Ahearn's film Wild Style! , which arose out of his idea, he worked as an actor (again representing himself) and musical director.

In 1988 he was host of the MTV telecast Yo! MTV Raps and is therefore considered the first hip-hop VJ . In 1986 he played a supporting role in Nola Darling (She's Gotta Have It) and in 1991 in New Jack City as a DJ in Nino Brown's discotheque Spottlite.

Die Toten Hosen recorded an English-language hip-hop version of the song Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder with him.

In 2013 he hosted Max Herre's MTV Unplugged Kahedi Radio Show .

Web links

literature

  • Chalfant, Henry; Cooper, Martha: Subway Art. London 1984.
  • Chalfant, Henry; Prigoff, James: Spraycan Art. London 1987.
  • Coming from the subway, New York Graffiti Art. History and development of an extraordinary movement; Exhib. Cat. Groninger Museum, Oct. 4, 1992 - Jan. 10, 1993. Erlangen 1992.
  • Deitch, Jeffrey (Ed. :): Art in the Streets. Exhibition catalog, Museum of Contemporary Art, LA Apr. 17 - Aug. 8, 2011; Brooklyn Museum, NY Mar. 30 - Jul 8, 2012, New York 2011.
  • Thompson, Margo: American Graffiti. New York 2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Margo Thompson: American Graffiti . 1st edition. Parkstone Press International, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-78042-528-3 , pp. 70 ( google.de [accessed on February 17, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Jeffrey Deitch (Ed.): Art in the Streets . New York 2011, p. 48 .
  3. ^ Margo Thompson: American Graffiti . New York 2012, p. 52 ff .
personal data
SURNAME Fab 5 Freddy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES F5F (stage name); Braithwaite, Fred (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American graffiti artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1959