THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BENCH: THE NEXT GENERATION
The culture didn’t disappear. The conditions changed—and another generation came behind it.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BENCH: THE NEXT GENERATION was recreated from an original photograph taken by Harlem photographer Shawnee Tatum and reinterpreted through my visual language as JECK ONE.
The title goes back to the graffiti culture surrounding the bench at the 149th Street subway station. During an earlier era, the bench became a gathering place for known writers and artists. They would meet there to watch the trains come into the station, talk, and critique the pieces moving through on the subway cars. The surrounding walls carried tags, and evidence of the writers who had gathered there the night before was often still around.
By the time I became part of graffiti culture and started tagging in and on subway cars, that era was coming to an end.
Many of the pioneering writers were older and had begun moving on with their lives. At the same time, New York City was becoming increasingly aggressive about removing graffiti from the subway system. Train yards became more heavily secured, subway cars were cleaned and repainted, and creating the large, elaborate pieces that once traveled across the city became increasingly difficult.
That changed what was possible for my generation.
The burners and full pieces that had defined the sides of subway cars became increasingly rare. Writers from my generation were often left with the opportunity to get our names up through tags and throw-ups—work that could be executed quickly enough for the environment we inherited.
The bench changed too. It was cleaned up. Fewer writers gathered there because fewer painted trains were coming through the station to watch and critique.
But graffiti hadn’t ended.
Another generation had arrived.
That’s where THE NEXT GENERATION comes from. It represents the writers who came into the culture after that earlier subway era had begun disappearing—young artists finding their own way to leave a mark within a changing New York City.
Through Shawnee Tatum’s photograph and my reinterpretation of it, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BENCH connects those generations and preserves a piece of the culture as I experienced it.
Original photography by Shawnee Tatum.
Reinterpreted by JECK ONE.
JECK ONE — Graffiti Contemporary.
Framed Poster Details
Printed on thick matte paper and presented in a lightweight black wood frame with an Acrylite front protector.
- Ayous wood .75″ (1.9 cm) thick frame from renewable forests
- Paper thickness: 10.3 mil (0.26 mm)
- Paper weight: 189 g/m²
- Lightweight construction
- Acrylite front protector
- Hanging hardware included
- Blank product components in the US sourced from Japan and the US
- Blank product components in the EU sourced from Japan and Latvia
Made to Order
Each framed poster is produced after your order is placed. On-demand production helps reduce unnecessary inventory and overproduction while allowing each piece to be created specifically for its destination.
