Artist profile

Al Diaz

American, b. 1959

Al Diaz is an influential first-generation New York City graffiti artist whose practice has evolved across more than five decades. Emerging from the city's early subway-writing culture in the 1970s under the name BOMB-1, Diaz developed an enduring interest in language, public space and urban communication.

Diaz is perhaps best known as the co-creator, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, of SAMO©. Developed in the late 1970s, SAMO© appeared across Lower Manhattan as a series of cryptic, satirical and socially charged statements that helped shape the visual language of Downtown New York.

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