From SAMO® to Today: Al Diaz in Conversation

Name: From SAMO® to Today: Al Diaz in Conversation
Start: 2025-10-09T18:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-09T20:00:00-04:00
Location: Prospect

: October 9, 6 pm – 8 pm.

: Free

Join us at CSB Fine Arts for an evening with Al Diaz, co-creator of SAMO® with Basquiat, sharing stories of NYC’s 70s–80s graffiti and hip-hop scene.

Graffiti in New York started in the late 1960s with simple subway tags that grew into bold murals and a global art movement. By the 1980s, artists like Basquiat and Haring brought it into galleries, cementing its place in contemporary art.

Today, that legacy continues with exhibitions like “Essence of Being” at CSB Fine Arts, featuring Samuel Vázquez, whose work transforms his graffiti roots into powerful, abstract paintings. Essence of Being. From graffiti roots to bold abstraction, Samuel E. Vázquez transforms memory and rhythm into vibrant canvases—an inaugural exhibition that channels street energy into timeless abstraction.

For this event, Al Diaz—artist, storyteller, and longtime friend of Samuel Vázquez—will be speaking for about 30 minutes on the history of graffiti, hip-hop, and the creation of SAMO©. Al is best known as the co-creator of the legendary graffiti tag SAMO© with Jean-Michel Basquiat. Between 1978 and 1980, their poetic and satirical slogans lit up downtown Manhattan, helping to ignite the movement that evolved into today’s global contemporary art scene. Al will also take questions from the audience.