Charlie Ahearn Photography

DJ Lovebug, Grandmaster Caz, Busy Bee at the Celebrity Club: Harlem, New York, 1980 by Charlie Ahearn, director of Wild Style (1982): A seminal early Hip Hop photograph featured as part of the exhibition: New York, New Music 1980-86: Museum of the City of New York (2021). Medium: Archival Inkjet Print on heavy-weight paper. Overall dimensions: 16 x 22 inches (Image size: 14 x 20 inches). Hand signed & numbered on the verso, from a limited edition of 10. Excellent overall condition. Provenance: Obtained directly from artist. Artist Bio: Charlie Ahearn, best known as the director of the classic hip-hop film Wild Style (1982), arrived in New York in 1973 to attend the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. Later he was joined by his twin brother, John Ahearn, and they became part of the artists' group Colab (aka Collaborative Projects, Inc). Ahearn showed his early films in an abandoned Time Square massage parlour that Colab had taken over on the corner of 7th Avenue and 41st Street (where Ahearn also lived from 1981 to 1993). Colab's 1981 art show - titled, "The Times Square Show" - is famous for introducing Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring among many others. In 1982, Ahearn directed Wild Style - universally hailed as the first hip-hop movie. Wild Style immortalized the birth of an underground hip-hop scene changing the face of music, fashion, art & popular culture forever. Ahearn's recent silkscreen paintings depicting hip hop culture’s seminal years were exhibited at PPOW Gallery in New York in 2017 and Beyond The Streets (2019 & 2020); with selections of his photography and film work most recently exhibited at MFA Boston...

Charlie Ahearn, "Rapture" (in motion) 1981: A rare historic Debbie Harry, Fab 5 Freddy & Lee Quinones photograph captured by Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn on the set of Blondie's "Rapture". Medium: Archival Inkjet Print on heavy-weight paper. Overall dimensions: 16 x 22 inches ( approx image size: 13 x 19 inches). Hand signed & numbered on the verso, from a limited edition of 10. Excellent overall condition. Provenance: Obtained directly from artist. Literature/References: Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation (MFA Boston). 'New York, New Music 1980-86': Museum of the City of New York (2021). More on Rapture: The music video made its U.S. television debut on Solid Gold on January 31, 1981, and became the first rap video ever broadcast on MTV. Set in the East Village, much of the video is a one-take scene of Debbie Harry dancing down the street, passing by graffiti artists, Uncle Sam, an American Indian, child ballet dancer, and a goat. Fab Five Freddy...

Dondi White, Zephyr & Charlie Ahearn ‘Heroin Kills' Subway Art Photograph 1981. A rare, historic, early 1980s Bronx, New York graffiti photograph by Charlie Ahearn of Wild Style fame...

Grand Master Flash, Debbie Harry, Fab 5 Freddy, Chris Stein, & Tracy Wormworth captured by Charlie Ahearn of Wild Style; New York, NY 1981: A seminal late 1970s/early 1980s art/music scene photograph included as part of the exhibition: 'New York, New Music 1980-86': Museum of the City of New York (2021). Medium: Archival Inkjet Print. Overall dimensions: 16 x 22 inches (Image size: 13 x 20 inches). Hand signed & numbered on the verso, from a limited edition of 10. Excellent overall condition. Obtained directly from artist. Artist Bio: Charlie Ahearn, best known as the director of the classic hip-hop film Wild Style (1982), arrived in New York in 1973 to attend the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. Later he was joined by his twin brother, John Ahearn, and they became part of the artists' group Colab (aka Collaborative Projects, Inc). Ahearn showed his early films in an abandoned Time Square massage parlour that Colab had taken over on the corner of 7th Avenue and 41st Street (where Ahearn also lived from 1981 to 1993). Colab's 1981 art...