Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City

With its now-familiar presence in art galleries, advertising and pop culture around the world, it can be hard to remember that graffiti was once outlaw art. Art critic Ivor Miller takes us back to the New York City of the 1970s and '80s, where ""writers,"" as graffiti artists called themselves, used the subways as canvases and mayors spent millions of dollars trying to erase their work. Based on interviews with the most prolific and talented aerosol artists of the era, the scholarly Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City looks at the evolution of graffiti art, its role in hip-hop culture and the various social forces that led to its creation from white flight to the mass marketing of spray paint. (Aug.)