I Love Zoo York by Ali 1981

"I Love Zoo York," photographed by Henry Chalfant, captures a moment in time, a flash of spray paint on a New York City subway car. You can almost feel the energy of the artist, Ali, working quickly, layering colors and shapes in a kind of visual shout-out to the city. I can imagine Ali, maybe in the dead of night, aerosol can in hand, thinking about the colors, the lines, the message. It's raw, it's urgent, it's a visual claim to space. The heart with the face is really something. It shoots out what looks like flames—or are they tears? The way the letters stretch and bend, they remind me of other painters who play with language, like Ed Ruscha or even some of the sign painters I admire. There's a conversation happening here, across time and medium, about how we express ourselves, how we mark our existence. It leaves us wondering—what does it mean to love a place, a city, enough to write it on a train?