TAKI 183 is the "tag" of a Greek graffiti writer who was active during the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City. He has never revealed his full name.
Background
TAKI 183 was born around 1954 in New York, United States. His real name is Demetrius. In the summer of 1969, Demetrius was bored. He lived uptown, north of Harlem, in a neighborhood full of Greek kids, like himself, and also a growing population of Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans. The Savage Nomads gang was headquartered a block away, but they didn't bother the locals. One afternoon that summer, Demetrius' friend Phil wandered down to 183rd and had some news for Demetrius and his friend Greg. A kid in Inwood, 20 blocks north, was writing his name and street number: JULIO 204. Demetrius and Greg thought that was pretty cool. They all started to write their names. Demetrius wrote 'TAKI', a diminutive for a number of Greek names, and his street number.
Education
In the fall of 1970, TAKI went to high school in Midtown Manhattan.
Career
For many years Dimitrios worked as a draftsman of control panels for nuclear power plants, and after being laid off in the mid-1980s he opened an automotive shop in Yonkers, where he restored classic cars. When he arrived at the Hole gallery on the Bowery on Thursday evening, mobbed by photographers and young graffiti artists, he was wearing a pair of khaki cargo shorts, a T-shirt and sports sandals, looking like someone prepared to man a suburban barbecue grill. He lived a pretty regular life but he liked it.
But some years ago Mr. Gastman tracked him down and persuaded him to write a foreword for the book and to set up a Web site for himself, where he now tells his story and sells limited-edition prints for $75 for a piece. He traveled recently to Los Angeles, to see and be seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Art in the Streets” show about the history of graffiti, and even a few of his automotive customers now come into his shop.
Of his role as the movement’s Magellan, he is exceedingly humble, an exceedingly rare thing in the graffiti world. While the 1971 Times article quoted him as justifying his tagging by pointing out that political campaigns frequently plastered his neighborhood with posters and stickers, he smirked on Thursday evening and said that was just a rationalization. He borrowed the form, he said, from an even earlier tagger on the streets, JULIO 124, whose identity now seems to be lost to history. He had a job as a messenger, and he could get all over the city. So he wrote all over the city.
He added, in a partial nod to critics of his legacy he thought a lot of what the graffiti movement spawned, early on, was just vandalism and defacement. But later on real artists started doing it, and it did become a true art form. He never considered himself an artist, and his illicit career of leaving his name and street number on hundreds, maybe thousands, of surfaces throughout the five boroughs of New York City ended after only a couple of years when he put aside his Magic Marker and went off dutifully to college.
Achievements
TAKI 183 is one of the most influential graffiti writers in its history. The graffiti tag in the famous 1985 film "Turk 182" was inspired fully by TAKI 183.
Quotations:
"As soon as I got into something more productive in my life, I stopped. Eventually, I got into business, got married, bought a house, had a kid. Didn't buy a station wagon, but I grew up, you could say that."
Interests
Sport & Clubs
soccer
Connections
Demetrius — who declines to provide his last name, still wary after all these years — is a dad of two children.
