Cost

[Guest Can you sign my book???]

http://www.freephoto-i.net/users/lushkingz/revs-L-train2.jpg'>

My own photo, I got more, but they aint uploading right....They are the precurser to so much, all those who wheatpaste and do rollers now, bow down....Also who remembers DJ NO and Red x-men?I think that was their names...

[iSLEEPwithMIDGETS]

yeah those dudes are good!:king:

[crack]

some one post the dumbo weld!

 

thats fuckin awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[idonotlikeu]

i love the metal.

[georgepataki]

bump for cost and revs

[yroc]

those diary entry pieces revs has been doing are really cool

[Guest newyuckshity]

Originally posted by newyuckshity

SOMEONE HAS TO HAVE THE

 

>> SOCIETY 2000 REVS COST <<

 

from the freedom tunnels........ back in 94 post it!

 

[TheGarbageMan]

where in newark is Revs up??!!! i never really seen his shit around here...if its true ill go get some flix

 

as for the freedom tunnel thing...i been planning on going with a friend soon but i donno how safe it is and shit, im gonna start a topic about it later, peace

[sLaMoNeSaBkYmi]

revsuicide and cost had NYC on lock in the early 90's you coulnt go anywhere and NOT see them!!! i remember that hotline that they had, with bugged out messages that they left. i would alway be high and call trying to get some new laughs. i remember being in the audience when they were on ricky lake. revs is on a WHOLE other level ..........................much respect fellas!!!

[Guest GoBiloe]

does anyone know if there is some sort of collection of flicks, online or otherwise, of all the subway "pages" that genious revs has done? that would be quite a little coffee table book... i would buy it, that's for damn sure

 

anyone??

[Guest Showoff]

It was DJ NO and TESS X-MEN who used to also do fliers, to whoever that asked.

You still catch them here and there and TESS still has some tags living.

[CoffinCheatr]

Record?

 

Originally posted by Mr. Rack

the revs punk rock record= ill

 

What's this all about? I'd be interested in hearing it.

[The Hipster]

A Graffiti Legend Is Back on the Street

By RANDY KENNEDY

 

He arrived on foot, and on time, wearing heavily grease-stained beige overalls and boots. He seemed to be in his late 30's or early 40's, with thinning light brown hair. He had the windburned eyes and blackened fingernails of an ironworker, along with the vaguely feral intensity of someone on the lam.

 

But he hardly looked like the kind of shadowy revolutionary figure who had once declared that his goal was to "tear the city to pieces and rebuild it." Now, he says, smiling weakly, "I stop at stop signs; I pay taxes; I get up and go to work and get a paycheck."

 

In the New York graffiti world of the early 1990's, he was everywhere and larger than life, sometimes literally: the name Revs, usually accompanied by that of his partner in crime, Cost, could be found scrawled, wheat-pasted or painted in gargantuan white letters on overpasses, walls and roofs from SoHo to northern New Jersey. The work upended many traditional notions of graffiti and helped inspire a new generation of so-called street artists.

 

Then in late 1994 Cost was arrested for vandalism. Revs went underground and left the city for Alaska. And when he returned, his work went mostly underground, too - into the subway, where he painted long, feverish diary entries worthy of a Dostoyevsky character on dozens of walls hidden deep inside the tunnels. (He called this a personal mission and said he did not care if anybody else saw them.)

 

But over the last few years, he has re-emerged into public view and reincarnated himself in a way few of his fans ever expected, as a legitimate and (mostly) law-abiding sculptor. He has made dozens of works using construction-grade steel and other metal parts and has sought the permission of building owners to weld and bolt them to the outsides of buildings in the meatpacking district, the East Village, the Gowanus Canal area and Dumbo, where the gentrifying but still half-deserted streets have become a veritable Revs gallery.

 

Yet unlike many former graffiti artists who have turned their street credibility into successful careers as graphic designers or youth-market branding gurus, Revs has continued to shun, angrily, the worlds of conventional art and commerce. He makes his living about as far from the art world as possible, as a union ironworker, surrounded by co-workers who mostly have no idea of his reputation as a near-mythical deity of the graffiti world. His only gallery show, in Philadelphia in 2000, was to raise money so he could pay a lawyer after he was arrested for the subway graffiti. Otherwise, he has refused to sell his work or take commissions for it.

 

"To me," he said recently, in a rare interview, "once money changes hands for art, it becomes a fraudulent activity."

 

He also continues to avoid publicity. In order to find him, a reporter contacted several graffiti aficionados, most of whom warned that Revs, whoever he was, would probably not cooperate. Calls eventually led to Julia Solis, an author and photographer who specializes in charting forgotten and subterranean New York. She agreed to pass a message along to Revs. A day later, a call came to the reporter's home from a man with a thick New York accent who agreed to an early-morning meeting in Brooklyn, at an intersection almost beneath the Manhattan Bridge, on the condition that his photograph not be taken and his name and age not be revealed.

 

He apologized for the cloak-and-dagger routine but said that his anonymity was still his most prized possession. "I don't want to become nobody; I just want to do what I do," he said, stressing, as a kind of implied message to the police, "I'm not trying to stage a major comeback or anything." (The New York Police Department confirms that he has not been on the radar screen of the Citywide Vandals Task Force since his arrest in 2000.)

 

But Revs fans can be forgiven for thinking a comeback is in the works. Over the last several months, pictures of the sculptures have shown up on several street-art Web sites. This has prompted graffiti cognoscenti to scour the streets to find - and in a few places, to wrench loose and steal - the works, most of which are clustered in or close to Manhattan, although some have been discovered as far afield as Queensboro Plaza.

 

"He's huge, you can't deny it," said Will Sherman, a photographer who operates a Web site called untitledname.com and has scouted out several Revs works recently. "I have a lot of respect for him not just as a graffiti artist or street artist but as an artist in general."

 

Peter Sutherland, another photographer, spent a year tracking Revs down. Last year, in a book of portraits of graffiti artists titled "Autograf," he featured a picture of the artist himself, though his face is completely covered by a cap. "I'm a photographer and I don't usually get intimidated or impressed by celebrities," Mr. Sutherland said. "But when I met Revs, I kind of geeked out."

 

During the recent two-hour interview in Brooklyn, Revs conducted a proud tour of half a dozen of his metal sculptures, only one of which he said he installed without permission: a tall, heavy piece that spells out "Revs," welded several years ago to the top of an abandoned loading dock. Asked how he was able to weld something so large and distinctive to a building without attracting a crowd and eventually a phalanx of police, he shook his head.

 

"I can't talk about my techniques," he said sternly. "It's a trade secret, you know? It's my cloaking device."

 

Over the last few years, he said, he has made more than 100 metal pieces, some weighing hundreds of pounds, and he estimated that he has installed about two-thirds of them with permission, including nearly all his most recent sculptures. He says that while he may not be a guerrilla street painter anymore - some of the 1990's wall paintings were more than 10 feet tall in the middle of sheer walls, most likely requiring a harness and ropes to accomplish - he is still a fully committed outsider, and his work will be seen only outside, on New York City streets, as long as he keeps making it.

 

He kicked one the pieces, made from two-inch-thick steel, part of a column left over from a construction project where he once worked near the Port Authority bus terminal.

 

"A car can back up into it," he said. "Somebody can get their head cracked open on it. A dog can go on it. Somebody can paint it if they want. It rusts. It's more interesting that way, you know?"

 

But is it any less interesting because it's legal?

 

He smiled. "I might still have a few little knickknacks scattered around in places where they're not supposed to be, who knows?" he said. "I'm not commenting on that."

 

via http://www.nytimes.com/

[MIND2GAME34]

[cramstar]

 

if this works I will post more

[cramstar]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didnt take these flicks

props to the people that did

 

http://photos2.flickr.com/2946253_afc18231f9_o.jpg

[cramstar]

 

forgot the last one

[cramstar]

 

 

 

 

 

[cramstar]

 

[cramstar]

 

http://www.saster.org

[cramstar]

 

http://www.saster.org

[MAGS156]

allways a step above the rest!

[cramstar]

Cream of wheat paste: Cost and Revs - graffiti artists - Interview

ArtForum,  March, 1994  by Glenn O'Brien

 

 

I remember the days when a subway train illegally painted by Lee Quinones would roll into a station and the people on the platform would spontaneously applaud. I remember artists like Lee, Zephyr, Futura 2000, Lady Pink, Crash, Daze, SAMO |C~ (aka Jean-Michel Basquiat), and Keith Haring putting art out on the street for free. But graffiti isn't what it used to be. Style is all but gone, and thi outlaw practice, once a field of ambition, daring, rebellion, and improvisation has largely reverted to a form of unconscious egoism and conformist vandalism.

 

There are still a few sparks of unauthorized public art out there, though.

 

I think I might have noticed Cost and Revs at the beginning of their careers--I remember seeing some of those conventioneer stickers that say "Hello My Name Is around town with their tags marketed on. But I didn't really latch on to them. really noticed them a year or so ago when I started seeing their 8 1/2-by-11-inch wheatpaste posters all over New York. And I mean all over. Most visible was their use of the backs of "walk/don't walk" signs--it seemed like they'd hit just about every intersection in Manhattan. Each poster had the name COST or the name REVS and a qualifying word or slogan: Specimen REVS. COST was here. Machine REVS. COST is dead. Turkish REVS. COST fucked Madonna. That one made me laugh out loud when I first saw it.

 

COST and REVS also do larger works, which they call "rollers," because they mak them with paint rollers on walls. One of them is visible in a Donna Karan DKNY ad that shows a New York landscape; COST and REVS are a part of the landscape. They're getting more elaborate these days. They've hit SoHo walls with guerilla canvases. They're doing authorized murals. But they're still taking their message to the street with determination, sincerity, wit, and guts.

 

Cost and Revs are a couple of New York kids. White Kids. New York etched in their accents. Being in their mid 20s, they're getting a little old to be kids, but they're kids as long as they keep doing what they're doing. What they're doing is getting up everywhere, making their mark, making a name for themselves in the landscape. It's unauthorized nonprofit public art. It's not made for museums or foundations or galleries. It's not made for speculative investors or dealers or critics or collectors. It's made for an audience of their peers.

 

One day I noticed a poster with a phone number on it: COST (212) 592-4133. I called the number and couldn't believe what I heard--the speaker wasn't Cost or Revs, it was an old lady. You could tell from her voice that she's cashing a social security check. If you can believe Cost and Revs, she's in her 90s, and she goes by the tag Graff's Grandmother. As in Graffiti. She gave an eloquent oration on how her boys Cost and Revs were holding up the standards of graffiti in an age of decline. A few months later I caught up with her again. She explained that she had been in the joint, where she was "runnin' shit," and she recounted, in her ancient tremolo, how she had been in the same prison as Mike Tyson and how she had explained to the champion that he needed some spiritual values in his life and how that had led to his conversion to Islam.

 

Graff's Grandma hasn't been on the hot line in recent months, Cost and Revs hav been issuing their own funky but grandiose manifestos, but I just checked in with the line now and there she was: I am the only Grandma of Graff. I am the wisdom, the engine, the teacher behind the Cost and Revs machine. I built these boys and I built them to last. As you can hear I am no joker and neither are they. They are merely henchmen to me and purely servants to New York City. They are art outsiders looking in on life and watching and learning from other people's stupidity. They are the sugar in your coffee, the sauce in your spaghetti, the salt in your stew. They are everything you've ever wanted but haven't realized yet, so take it from me, kiddies, the Grandma of Graff says Cost and Revs are the move. Or as Cost and Revs say, "Move over." Either one. Both are true.

 

I talked to Cost and Revs recently. Cost talks more, but when Revs gets revved up he is declarative and passionate about what he does.

 

COST: We met in '85, then went our separate ways. About a year and a half ago w were doing things that were similar so we started hanging out again and combine the mission. I think we brought wheat-pasting to a different level.

 

I was intrigued by graffiti since I was eight or nine years old. I'd read the walls and I'd wonder how it got there and want to do it. When I started to get some time to myself I found myself buying markers and trying to write on the walls, on dumpsters, on doorways with my friends. It built from there. I never stopped.

 

I respected a lot of graffiti writers. When I was young I was really impressed by Zephyr.

 

REVS: I've always liked Lee's stuff. He put his heart and soul on the wall, and not a lot of guys do that. I really respect that a lot.

 

GLENN O'BRIEN: Who is the Grandma of Graff?

 

REVS: A wise old lady who gives us direction. She's an old-timer. She goes back to when Kilroy was around.

 

COST: She guides us. She instructs at times on what to do and how to do it. She's got the wisdom.

 

GO'B: What's your relationship to graffiti?

 

COST: Some people say it's an eyesore. I think it's a spice, a treat. It livens things up. I'm trying to let people know that I'm here during this time period. Let it be remembered or forgotten, that's up to the people.

 

GO'B: How many posters have you done?

 

COST: Somewhere between 75 and 100. Some we put up 1,000 of, some 500, some 50. Graffiti's changed in the '90s; nowadays writing your name on walls, just putting it up everywhere, is the same old same old. Scrawl on the streets, writ on the trains then it gets cleaned the next day, talk a lot of garbage--I'm too old for that now. You've got to try something different.

 

A lot of young writers are looking for trouble; we're not trying to hurt anybody, we're trying to do something positive. We're trying to change philosophies a bit. Change everyday life. We want to open people's eyes up when they walk outside their house, let them see something a little different. There's not much left for me to do in the graffiti world, I want to stay as far away from that world as possible. Stay away from the in graffiti-crowd. I just want to be a lone wolf.

 

GO'B: What were your favorite posters?

 

REVS: Turkish REVS has no meaning whatsoever. Machine REVS: I'm a hard worker, work like a machine. Specimen REVS: I'm just a specimen of a larger whole. It's kind of abstract unless you know me.

 

GO'B: What kind of messages do you get on the hot line?

 

REVS: Some people have threatened our lives. Some people tell us, Keep going. They're waitin' on our next move. They're rootin' for us.

 

COST: A lot of graffiti writers call. Some have beefs to settle with us: we try not to go over people, but sometimes someone will say, You went over me here. O they don't like what we're doing. We're trying to change graffiti, which is all about using spray paint. I don't think it's all about spray paint. I think you can use other mediums.

 

REVS: Others say they love what we're doing and we've inspired them. We get old people saying we're ruining the city. We get marriage proposals.

 

COST: Some people think Grandma is the Grandmother of Grass instead of Graff. They think she's a weed lady. We get a lot of hot girls rappin' to Revs.

 

REVS: Right now we have some violent information. Words of wisdom for the everyday public. Opinions on things. We like to shake up the system, have high impact.

 

COST: We're saying we're not graffiti guys anymore. What we do has a graffiti attitude because we're promoting our names, but we're on the art tip. At this point we might be the most outlaw art in the city. Not too many people are doin street art and basically street art is illegal.

 

GO'B: Postering is an old New York tradition. For a while the police went after clubs featuring bands that did postering.

 

COST: We took it to the extreme. People think we're vandals; that's not what we are. We want to put things up that will be appreciated by people. We've painted a few murals and we're doing more--we did one on Lafayette Street called Mount Crushmore. It's Warhol, Keith Haring, and me and Revs on a mountain.

 

REVS: We also did King of the Pigs, with Rodney King, on Elizabeth Street and Houston. We're basically insulting everybody.

 

COST: The police department for their stupidity and Rodney King for his stupidity. He's no great guy either.

 

REVS: We're not insulting the good cops, just the ones who abuse their job. Mos people want to take one side or the other, but to us both sides are wrong. It may be a little harsh but it's got to be said.

 

COST: Today all you see is "Knowledge is Power" and "Safe Sex." That's the basi message from everybody. I'm not saying that's bad, but we're coming from a little different angle.

[cramstar]

Cream of wheat paste: Cost and Revs - graffiti artists - Interview

ArtForum,  March, 1994  by Glenn O'Brien

 

Continued from page 1.

 

REVS: We think art should be dangerous. Everybody's into safe art, doing safe things in their studio. We're bringing danger back into it. It's got to be on the edge, where it's not allowed.

 

COST: We live on the edge and that's what makes it good.

 

REVS: The art world is too sissyish for us. There's no raw quality.

 

COST: The galleries are too quiet. You sip a little champagne.

 

REVS: lt's got to be real crude. Crude.

 

COST: Rude and shit. Noisier.

 

REVS: Graffiti writers do have a message. It's just that nobody knows what it is. It's not a strict statement, it's a way of life.

 

COST: It's revolt.

 

REVS: It's considered mindless vandalism by most people but there's really a lo to be said about a guy who scribbles his name on the wall. Why would a guy risk being hurt to do that?

 

GO'B: It's territorial. It's leaving your mark.

 

REVS: It's to say, This is what I produced while I was alive.

 

COST: We don't even have a choice in the matter, we have to do this stuff. It's not like we planned out a career. It's about putting our lives on the wall and letting people decipher it from there. I always say, We're going all the way to the top with it. Or all the way to the bottom. And either one is fine. I don't want no middle ground--being an average Joe. Put me on the top of the pile or the bottom of the pile. Either is fine, just no mediocrity.

 

REVS: Some people use the front door. Some people use the back door. We're crashing through the side of the house. We're gonna level it. Nobody's going to deny us. It sounds like a megalomaniacal bad attitude, and maybe it is. But that's okay.

 

COST: We don't think we're big shots. I consider myself the little guy out ther trying to claim my piece. But we're gonna get what we're shootin' for because we're not gonna stop. There's just so long people can ignore you in this world.

[cramstar]

[D_Berkowitz]

[IN FLAMES]

king shitttt

[anotherwhiteboy]

killin rough time

[Nutonce]

revscost.

 

nothing touches them. if you cant see why your one of the

 

people that will never understand, really understand, what

 

this graffiti thing is all about.

[unclecharley]

yall think you got your inks on the lock.

 

revs just smashin on everybody writin in metal.

 

next up, mt rushmore.