Written by Vittoria Benzine | Cover Photo by Rasmus Luckmann
Bushwick is synonymous with street art. Murals, wheatpastes, and graffiti bloom across its every inch. From Miami to Paris, every city is said to have its own “Bushwick,” a trendy neighborhood where culture thrives. If you’re paying attention in the real Bushwick, though, one name appears amongst all its artworks over and over: Zexor. A rare few tags are by the late, great graffiti writer himself. Far more have been painted by other artists in tribute since his untimely death in 2019.
Born June 30, 1990, Zexor grew up in Bushwick, the son of the legendary graffiti writer Asp, who founded Bushwick’s still-active WTO (We Takin’ Over) crew in the 1980s. Graffiti may be a human impulse, but as an artform it was born in New York. It’s one of the three tenets of hip hop, alongside rapping and breakdancing. When the city plunged into peril during the 1970s, and cut after school programs to stay afloat, kids kept busy by writing their names everywhere they could. The game intensified as they got better, incorporating intricate designs and colors into their tags and striving to go “all city,” getting up in all five boroughs. Subways became canvases.
Guiliani took office when Zexor was four years old, and transformed the city with his “broken windows” policy, which cracked down on “quality of life” crimes like graffiti. That year, pioneering street artists COST and REVS were featured in Artforum for their wheatpastes, a new medium that involved pasting printed posters on New York’s streets. Graffiti was considered criminal, but it was branching off into street art, inspired by art stars that started on the streets like Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, by shifting from graffiti’s letter-based approach to a more pictorial, pretty one.
Zexor started writing graffiti as a young teenager. He wasn’t necessarily following in his father’s footsteps—graffiti was just something kids did, especially in the Bushwick of that era. But, his father’s prestige may have pushed him to go even harder. Every city has its own graffiti motifs, but in America’s largest city, writers here have to work fast to avoid getting caught—and paint well to get noticed. DEK2DX, another native Brooklynite who was close friends and fellow writers with Zexor, said he developed that critical balance of speed and artistry earlier than most. PROVE, another compatriot and cohort, said that while the New York style can be hard to pin down, since the city’s such a melting pot, Zexor’s round letters were iconic. With time, he got wilder in style. Zexor was blunt when he didn’t think someone’s graffiti was good, but he was equally tough on himself—and known to go back and paint over his own work if he didn’t like it.
Zexor’s upbringing also informed his feelings about the evolution of street art from graffiti—which echoed the changes that ensued in his own neighborhood. Gentrification started in Williamsburg in the late 1990s, as yuppies flooded the neighborhood for its low prices, proximity to Manhattan, and the stunning visual landscape cultivated by graffiti writers, who took to its warehouse walls like moths to a flame. Bushwick was next—in 2000, the neighborhood’s population was nearly 70% Hispanic, and over 20% Black. As of 2022, Bushwick’s population was 42% Hispanic, 20% Black, and 26% White. Zexor spoke to those shifts in a 2016 interview with Office. “It’s nuts to see such a rapid change in my neighborhood,” Zexor remarked. “Where people don’t even say hi to you because you are a certain color, or have a certain physique.”
In 2011, Bushwick native Joe Ficalora founded The Bushwick Collective, a mural organization whose block party each June celebrates that year’s new artworks. Zexor noticed that as The Bushwick Collective grew into a who’s who of street art’s global elite, the curation often overlooked Bushwick-born talents. In 2015, he started tagging his name over their murals, an act of graffiti called bombing. The following year, he featured in the Swedish graffiti YouTube channel Tags and Throws’ “Summer in New York” series. The episode encapsulates Zexor’s complexities—he paints in broad daylight on Canal Street, talks trash, and keeps his eye out for the kids, old school style, apologizing to the mother of a family he unwittingly tagged in front of.
Both the Bushwick Collective debacle and the Tags and Throws feature catapulted Zexor from local to global fame, but he retained his authenticity. DEK2DX, PROVE, and Zexor’s Office interviewer Rasmus Luckmann all told me that Zexor definitely had an intimidating exterior, but those who could hold their own quickly saw the warm, boisterous, articulate guy beneath—who was often even willing to grace fans’ black books with sketches. When Zexor passed away at 29, his sudden death sparked rumors and tributes around the world. DEKD2X and PROVE fielded messages from as far as Vietnam, and Luckmann’s article caught newfound hype. In it, Zexor said he wanted to move from graffiti to fine art. Luckmann felt that if Zexor had received more support, perhaps from art galleries, while alive, he could’ve pushed himself even farther.
But, it can be hard to support graffiti writers. Some cities have sanctioned zones where it’s legal to paint graffiti, but for the most part, the adrenaline rush driving graffiti hinges on its illegality. PROVE does think New York could create jobs and serve nonviolent criminals justice by staffing attendants to process the $132 fine for graffiti on site, rather than making writers go through central bookings, the way corporate America can pay a fine for their missteps and keep moving.
Counterculture also thrives when it evades the limelight. Mainstream attention has, at times, turned graffiti and street art into weapons of gentrification. DEK2DX noted that billionaires are more likely to eradicate graffiti from their neighborhoods when it deflates, rather than inflates, their property values. There’d definitely be more original Zexor tags around Brooklyn if property owners saw them for the treasures they were. Street art and graffiti are the natural voices of healthy communities. Thus, a robust scene really relies on local businesses rather than big box stores, as well as affordable rents, so artists can remain in the neighborhoods they help nurture.
Nonprofits like Brooklyn Arts Council offer an array of grants for community-involved artists, projects, and organizations. There’s also numerous avenues beyond the Bushwick Collective for artists who know their way around aerosol to create legal murals, including downtown Manhattan’s Lisa Project, Harlem’s Uptown Grand Central mural corridor, and Morgan District Walls—a curatorial project DEK2DX started to carve out space for refined graffiti in Bushwick.
PROVE has organized a party for Zexor’s birthday every year since 2020. The public is invited to enjoy free food, drink, and graffiti jams, surrounded by Zexor’s loved ones. Graffiti is a global family, but New York’s scene is particularly close-knit, united by the subways. Attendees can even try painting a Zexor tribute themselves—stepping into Zexor’s Timberlands, no matter how hard they are to fill.
About Vittoria Benzine
Vittoria Benzine is a Brooklyn-based journalist covering contemporary art with a focus on storytelling, counterculture, and magic. She writes for a number of cultural publications, including Artnet News, the Brooklyn Rail, Brooklyn Mag, Hyperallergic, and Maxim. Find her on Instagram at @vittoriabenzine or visit her website vittoriabenzine.com.