Dondi

Profile

Born: Donald J. White, April 7th, 1961 in Manhattan, and raised in East New York, Brooklyn. Born to Italian and African-American parents, Dondi was the youngest of five sons.

Aliases: 2hot, 2many, Asia, Bus129, Naco, Pose 2, Pre 2, White 761

How it all began: In the early '70s he began his graffiti career as NACO, a member of a Brooklyn-based crew known as "The Odd Partners." In 1977, he created his own graffiti crew, CIA (Crazy Insides Artists).

Career highlights: In 1979, Dondi befriended the noted photographer Martha Cooper. She began photographing his work and went on to document his painting of the whole car entitled Children of the Grave Part 3 in the New Lots train yard on May 31, 1980. These photos, which appeared in the now legendary book Subway Art (Thames & Hudson, 1984), were the first to feature a graffitist "behind enemy lines" and represented a huge risk by exposing the writers' secret world.In the summer of 1980, Dondi participated in a project called "Esses Studio," which helped to bridge the gaps between writers from different boroughs and unite NYC graf artists in general. Dondi became an influential part of the 80s graffiti renaissance and exhibited throughout the East Village with the likes of FUTURA, CRASH, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab-Five Freddie and Kenny Scharf.He created art for a young Rock Steady Crew, and did the album cover for Malcolm McClaren's Buffalo Gals. He doubled for Lee in the film Wild Style. He also painted the "ZORO" train featured in the film. Photos of his bombed cars were featured in Subway Art. He is credited for redifing wild style lettering.By the early 80s, Dondi enjoyed regular European showings and went on to exhibit his paintings throughout Europe for much of the decade. In May 1992, he was featured in a retrospective exhibit called "The Legacy," and later the same year was honored in Holland with a ten-year museum retrospective.R.I.P.: Dondi passed away in 1998 after a long illness stemming from complications due to AIDS. He was only 37.From the horse's mouth: "Our work was very hard to understand at the beginning. People here in New York tend to be frightened of things they don't understand. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were more palatable, it didn't frighten people as much as our work, as our presence. We were very young, and because we didn't pay for our paint they regarded us as thieves." - Dondi