Al Diaz "SAMO©…Cross" - 1.5 x 1.5" Soft Enamel Pin

SAMO©…Cross • 1 1/2 Inch soft enamel pin    "SAMO©…" BY AL DIAZ Al Diaz aka Bomb 1’s career spans five decades. A prolific and influencial first generation NYC subway graffiti artist, who later became a text-orientated street artist. He co-founded the mythical art duo SAMO© with the iconic Jean-Michel Basquiat. The pair used the title, accompanied by short phrases, in turns poetic and sarcastic, spray painted on the streets of downtown Manhattan starting in 1977.  Art curator and critic Jeffrey Deitch called it “disjointed street poetry” and remembered that “back in the late seventies, you couldn’t go anywhere interesting in Lower Manhattan without noticing that someone named SAMO© had been there first.” One Basquiat biographer noted that "while some of the phrases might seem political, none of them were simple propaganda slogans. Some were outright surrealist or looked like fragments of poetry." Al recognized the original intelligence in their work: “The stuff you see on the subway