KEZ5 PHONE INTERVIEW WITH H. MARTINEZ

KEZ5, President of YKK crew, interview on divided identities / You Weren’t There, page 402

Q Are you a victim of KEZ5?

K A victim?

Q Yeah.

K How can I be a victim?

Q Is KEZ5 somebody different than Nestor.

K Yeah, it is, and sometimes I get confused because I don’t know which one I have really or which one I have to play?

Q You’re playing at being either one?

K Yeah, I guess I’m more KEZ5 than me.

Q What’s the difference?

K One is more glorified; one is more like a superhero type and a spider’s web since it’s alcohol and drugs that amplified this character.

Q So, does Nestor paint?

K Nestor is more like a artist and KEZ is more like a vandal.

Q Do they like each other?

K There you go! There you put in this shit like the fucking questions that you just did, bro. I’m gonna let you go ‘cause I got, um, I’m busy.

Header: KEZ5 Self Portrait

KEZ5 lifestyle video. Film: Stephen J. Bell for Martinez Gallery. All Rights reserved

You may read the full interview in You Weren't There: 1990s NYC Graffiti. Aesthetics, Plasticity, & Form, edited by Martinez Gallery, NATO, DIP, Danielle Becker, Kevin Monaghan, Octavio Zaya, Hugo Martinez

Focusing on the 1990s—a decade of unpredictability and innovation—this book traces graffiti's evolution and its sensibilities within broader social currents. Through striking visuals and incisive text, we follow their vanguard's vision of creativity: combinational, exploratory, and transformational. Accompanied by the vanguard's stories, commentary and their artworks from private collections, this is the groundbreaking chronicle of an era that redefined the rules of art.

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