BRICK BY BRICK: SaneSmith Mural Fundraiser
In 1989, prolific New York graffiti artist Sane presented a solo exhibition at ABC No Rio, leaving a mark on our community and city both physically and spiritually.
During that show in ABC No Rio’s backyard, he painted his iconic mural ‘Apple Pie and Racism’ — a work we have carefully preserved for more than three decades.
In honor of Sane’s memory, and recognizing the enduring significance of this piece, ABC No Rio has collaborated with Sane’s brother Smith, the other half of the legendary duo SaneSmith. Using bricks salvaged from the original ABC No Rio building, Smith has recreated his brother’s mural.
Proceeds from this project will directly support the development of ABC No Rio’s artistic program areas, including the silkscreen printshop and community darkroom. It’s $100 for a random brick OR $156 to choose a specific brick. If we sell them all, you’ll help us raise over $20,000 for our new building!
Each brick is an original ABC No Rio brick, and comes with a unique screen-printed SaneSmith box, a 5×4 photograph of the mural, an essay including interviews with Sane’s friends and Smith, and a set of ABC No Rio and SaneSmith stickers.
The legendary SaneSmith
If you know even a little about the graffiti world in New York, you don’t need an introduction to SaneSmith. Their legacy is baked into the current graffiti scene in just about every way. Brothers David (Sane) and Roger (Smith) were two of the most prolific writers in 1980s New York. They became known for their large-scale murals and tags that appeared everywhere from subway cars to billboards, from bridges to tunnels. In the late ’80s, their tag on the Brooklyn Bridge, created as a political response to Mayor Koch’s campaign to remove graffiti from subway trains, led to a lawsuit against them by the city. Undeterred, they doubled down on their work and left an indelible imprint on the city’s landscape and on the history of graffiti culture worldwide.
Before Sane passed away in 1990, he created several pieces at ABC No Rio, a place where he spent much of his time going to hardcore shows and where he had his first and only solo show. The only mural that remains is his iconic Baseball, Mom, Apple Pie and Racism, still standing in the garden at the back of ABC No Rio. When we contacted Smith about collaborating on a fundraiser, he felt that recreating Sane’s mural was as much a symbol of ABC No Rio as it was of his brother’s legacy and embodies the spirit of No Rio and what we are working toward: building something new upon the foundation of our community.
Get a Piece of New York History for $100
To raise funds for the new ABC No Rio building, we are selling each of the 198 bricks in this SaneSmith mural. Each brick is from the original ABC No Rio building, which was built in 1917. All bricks in the mural are unique and come numbered and stenciled with Sane’s tag.
There are two price points:
$100 – to get a random brick from the mural
$156 – to choose which brick you want (first-come, first-served).
Each brick also comes with the following:
- a screen-printed SaneSmith box of the 1988 New York Post article on the duo’s Brooklyn Bridge tag (printed at ABC No Rio’s printshop).
- A 5×4 photograph of the recreated mural.
- An essay by Freddy Alva, which interviews Sane’s friends and Smith about the day Sane created the Apple Pie and Racism mural.
- ABC No Rio and SaneSmith stickers.
- A certificate of authenticity.
Here’s a map for you to choose which brick you want. Remember, it’s first-come, first-served.
IT TAKES A VILLAGE…
ABC No Rio is a volunteer-led, DIY community. Therefore, this fundraising project, and just about everything we do, is off the backs of the hard work of our volunteers and friends of our space. Here’s a list of people who were involved in making this project happen:
Smith, the memory of Sane, Gavin Marcus, Julie Hair, Garry, Ru, Liv Dillon, Joe Piglet, Bill Cashman, Wendy Correa, Mike, Freddy Alva, John Hughes, Dave Powell, Tommy McCormack, John Woods, Zero, Barrie Cline, Alan Soloman, Paul Castrucci, Fletcher Kern, Ean Murphy, Aiden, Renzo Castrucci, Alex Rojas, Salvador Espinoza, Jade Doskow, Mike Estabrook, Vandana Jain, Scott Seaboldt, Amy Westpfahl, Barry, Kat Rodriguez, Claudia Acosta, Leah Rocco, Sam Agnew, Helga Smith, The ABC No Rio Fundraising Collective, Bullet Space.