D’STASSI ART PRESENTS

AL DIAZ

SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION THE UK DEBUT SHOW

Opening 25 September 2026

D’Stassi Art, 12–18 Hoxton Street, London N1 6NG

This September, D’Stassi Art presents SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION, the UK debut exhibition of pioneering New York graffiti writer and SAMO© co-creator Al Diaz.

Opening on Friday, 25 September 2026, the exhibition will present new SAMO© works on canvas alongside new works based on New York’s subway signage, with Diaz also creating a mural and series of public interventions in Shoreditch during his visit from Brooklyn.

Coined by the artist, Transatlantication turns “transatlantic” into an action. It also marks a journey for an artist whose visual language was formed on the streets and subway system of New York.

The exhibition connects the history of SAMO©, created by Diaz and Jean-Michel Basquiat as teenagers in the late 1970s, with Diaz’s current work addressing misinformation, political fracture, and manufactured belief.

Diaz was already established within New York’s subway-writing culture when he met Basquiat at City-As-School in 1976. In 1978, the two began developing a series of cryptic and provocative statements that appeared under the name SAMO© across downtown Manhattan.

They worked on the lines together in notebooks, editing one another and discarding anything they thought wasn’t good enough before taking statements onto the street. Unlike the name-and-number graffiti Diaz had grown up around, which he describes as largely a conversation between writers, SAMO© was meant to reach people outside that world. The lettering was bold and easy to read. They wanted someone walking past, a parent, a worker, an artist, anyone, to stop and engage with what it said.

SAMO© is still often described as a tag, a Basquiat alias, or an acronym for “Same Old Shit”. Diaz says that misses the point. The phrase began as an in-joke between the pair, but SAMO© was never supposed to have one fixed meaning. Taken literally, “Same Old Shit” does not even make sense in many of the statements they wrote, “SAMO as an alternative to mass-produced individuality” being an example.

SAMO© was closer to an invented brand: a name for something that did not actually exist, which Diaz and Basquiat could present as though it did.

“SAMO was an imaginary product,” says Diaz. “We were experimenting in hype, taking something that didn’t exist and presenting it as if it were a viable alternative. The motivation was communication.”

Nearly five decades later, Diaz’s new SAMO© canvases use spray paint, acrylic, and art pen to make short, pointed observations about contemporary America, from political division and misinformation to the way repeated absurdity can leave people dulled to what is happening around them.

“I try to make observations a kind of ‘wake up, America’ commentary,” says Diaz. “That has been one of my key focal points in the past few years.”

Alongside the SAMO© works, SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION, will present new pieces from a body of work Diaz has been developing for more than 16 years using the familiar signs of the New York subway.

Working with Helvetica lettering and the coloured circular “bullets” used to identify train lines, Diaz turns the transit system into an alphabet of his own. Because the subway does not contain every letter

and symbol he might want, he has to work within an incomplete vocabulary, constructing anagrams and messages from what is available.

Some become finished artworks; others are closer to journal entries, responding to politics, current events, or whatever happens to be on Diaz’s mind that day. Familiar fragments of the subway are pulled apart and put back together until they read as something else entirely, a warning, an observation, a private thought or a message whose meaning takes a little longer to reveal itself.

Across the exhibition, Diaz returns again and again to something that has interested him since SAMO©: the way a few words placed in public can interrupt somebody’s day. His work borrows the language of advertising, graffiti and transport signage, things we are accustomed to absorbing quickly, and uses it to make people stop, read and think again.

The project will also move onto the streets of Shoreditch, where Diaz will create public works during his time in London.

SAMO : TRANSATLANTICATION opens amid renewed international attention to Basquiat’s early years, including Julius Onah’s forthcoming feature film Samo Lives. While the film centres on Basquiat, the exhibition gives audiences the opportunity to hear the history of SAMO© directly from its co-creator and to encounter the independent practice Diaz has developed since.

Michael Howes and Edward Sanders, co-founders of D’Stassi Art, said: “We first met Al in New York in 2018 and there was an immediate connection. Not long afterwards, we worked together on a limited-edition release based on two of his Wet Paint subway-letter collage works. The results were beautiful, and the response from our audience was exceptional.

Since then, we’ve worked with and presented UK solo exhibitions for a number of Al’s peers from that generation of New York artists. Our audience has always responded to the energy of that period and the extraordinary influence those artists continue to have on contemporary culture.

But what makes this exhibition particularly exciting for us is that it isn’t about looking backwards. Al’s use of language, observation and poetry feels as relevant now as ever. The works he is making for London are incredibly considered, and that same attention runs through the whole exhibition, from the works inside the gallery to what we’re planning on the streets of Shoreditch.

We’ve wanted to bring Al to London properly for a long time, so this feels very personal for us. We’re incredibly proud to be doing it and genuinely believe these will be some of the strongest works he has produced. We can’t wait for people here to experience the work, and Al, firsthand.”

About Al Diaz

Al Diaz is a New York artist and graffiti writer whose career spans more than five decades. He began writing on New York’s subway system as a teenager and was already established within the city’s graffiti community when he met Jean-Michel Basquiat at City-As-School in 1976.

Together they created SAMO© in 1978, developing a form of text-based graffiti that replaced the conventional writer’s signature with cryptic, satirical statements intended for a much wider public. The collaboration lasted into 1979 and became an important part of the cultural history of downtown New York.

Diaz has continued to work with language throughout his career. For more than 16 years, he has developed a body of work using the typography, symbols and route markers of the New York subway system to construct new words and messages. His practice spans painting, collage, gel transfer, public art and graffiti.

He is co-author of City of Kings: A History of New York City Graffiti and SAMO Since 1978.

About D’Stassi Art

Founded in 2017 by Michael Howes and Edward Sanders, D’Stassi Art is an independent contemporary art gallery based in Shoreditch, London. The gallery presents a programme of exhibitions spanning contemporary art, street art and wider visual culture, with a particular focus on artists whose work has helped shape, challenge or move beyond traditional artistic boundaries.

From early collaborations with figures including LAII to exhibitions with artists such as Trevor Andrew and Adam Handler & Lady Pink, D’Stassi Art has developed a reputation for ambitious solo presentations, cultural storytelling and creating meaningful encounters between artists and new audiences.

Working closely with its artists, the gallery produces exhibitions and collaborations that extend beyond the traditional white cube, including projects across fashion, music and popular culture. Previous collaborations include Fiorucci, alongside an evolving programme of exhibitions, editions and special projects designed to make contemporary art engaging, relevant and accessible to a broad international audience.