Following “Say I Love You” on a Downtown Graffiti Journey
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It’s late in the afternoon on the corner of Spring Street and Elizabeth. People are out walking. The sun is out shining. Sean Martini, can of red spray paint in hand, is on the hunt for the next surface to spray. The latest rogue in a tradition of downtown street artists with high-art futures, Martini has been painting not only boards and bollards, but IKEA desks and desk chairs left out on the curb as garbage—all tagged with a single, looping phrase: “Say, ‘I love you,’”
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It’s a reminder now emblazoned on everything downtown, and locals living in Soho and Nolita are taking notice. It’s all art now – at least in the estimation of the growing audience of people who derive joy from the friendly repetitiousness of the work.
Martini calls his practice an “emotional outlet,” but it has also become — in a bizarre way — something of a neighborhood service. People in Nolita are now placing their furniture on the street, almost waiting for Martini to tag it as art, and then the locals will re-emerge to claim back their credenza. It seems that every crappy Ikea coffee table is now a blank canvas.
As a phenomenon, Martini’s work and its popularity are both peculiar and not. Art rooted in repetition, patterns, and a signature marking like this has already crossed over into the major design market: Shantell Martin (best known for her loopy line drawing murals) has lent their talents to the home goods brand Hoek and Lolly Lolly Ceramics (a ceramist best known for making unique mugs and vessels) has created 100 Day Project mugs with West Elm.
And those are just the new names. Keith Haring was doing chalk drawings on the B Train decades before Urban Outfitters licensed them for tees and Moma Design Store to make chairs. Basquiat was tagging walls SAMO long before his painting “Untitled” sold for $110.5 million in 2017. Given that local history, it makes sense that will-be collectors are getting ahead of the game. People may not know who Martini is today but they recognize his work, who knows what it could become.
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