Martha Cooper Captures How Urban Youth Made New York
The article reviews the Bronx Documentary Center's exhibition "Martha Cooper: Streetwise," which surveys Cooper's career from the late 1970s through the 2010s, focusing on her iconic photographs of New York City's graffiti and breaking culture in the early 1980s. The exhibition includes images from New York, Baltimore, Tokyo, and Soweto, highlighting Cooper's documentation of urban youth, street play, and the physical relationship between inhabitants and the city, such as spray-painting subway cars and dancing on flattened boxes.