The Bronx Documentary Center is presenting a comprehensive survey of Martha Cooper’s nearly six-decade career of documenting urban spaces, community life, and creative expression.
“What can you say about Marty? Marty is fearless. You can be like, Marty, let’s go to the most dangerous neighborhood in the world. She’d be like, ‘What time?’” Wilfredo “Bio” Felician of Tats Cru, one of the top stylists in the New York City subway graffiti movement, said of photographer Martha Copper in his introductory remarks at the opening of her exhibition “Streetwise” at the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC). “How she’s not in prison, I have no idea, because some of the stuff I’ve seen Marty do, Marty’s wild. But she’s dedicated.”
Cooper was born in Baltimore in 1942 and grew up surrounded by cameras because her father and uncle owned a camera store. She took her first photo at the age of 3, and early on began accompanying her father on trips with the Baltimore Camera Club. In 1977, she became the first female photographer for the New York Post and has spent almost 50 years specializing in documenting urban culture. Her work has been included in exhibitions around the world and published in monographs, including Hip Hop Files (2004), We b* Girls (2005), and Tag Town (2007). Her first book, “Subway Art” (1984), has been reprinted many times and is called the “bible” by many graffiti artists, as told by the Steven Kasher Gallery, which represents her.
The exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center shows both Cooper’s photographs of graffiti writers and breakers in New York City that are central to the history of hip-hop, and that she is most well known for. It also reflects the broader scope of her photography, including a large body of work made in the Bronx.
Other series featured in the exhibition include Cooper’s photographs documenting casitas (informal community-built structures in Puerto Rican neighborhoods), BMX riding, and street racing. It also includes her work documenting the Sowebo neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore and Japan’s underground tattoo culture in the 1970s, from a time when it was rarely seen by Western media.
“It’s really a wonderful thing for me to be able to bring some Bronx pictures back to the Bronx,” Cooper said in brief remarks at the exhibition’s opening. “This is really the first time I’ve done this, and people already have come up to me and said how much it reminded them of their youth and reminded them of the old neighborhoods. That makes me feel wonderful.”
Each of the subjects has its own section of the gallery, many of which are on three movable walls that bisect the BDC’s large Annex space. The sections are beautifully labeled with graffiti tags to denote each body of work. Also in the gallery are vitrines with copies of Cooper’s many books, as well as some of her cameras and other items from her time working.
The photographs themselves are also beautifully printed. Roughly half were done in-house by the BDC.
“Ghetto for Life” by Banksy; 651 Elton Avenue, Bronx; October 22, 2013; part of Banksy’s one-month residency in New York, “Better Out Than In.” Mural cut from wall and moved to Connecticut in 2024 when building was demolished. (© Martha Cooper) 
Boys practicing breaking moves on sidewalk; Bronx, 1982. (© Martha Cooper) 
Boys racing homemade go-carts on portion of West Side Highway since demolished; Lower East Side, 1978. (© Martha Cooper) 
TATS Cru with their World Trade Center Mural seen from 207th Street #1 subway line; 2002. (© Martha Cooper) 
Benny Ayala teaching Puerto Rican plena music at Rincon Criollo. Panderetas (frame drums) were made of stretched skins inside casita; Bronx, 1988. (© Martha Cooper) 
Boy painting his nickname OWL on street as a van approaches; Lower East Side, 1979. (© Martha Cooper) 
180th Street subway platform; Bronx, 1982. (© Martha Cooper) 
Boys constructing go-cart from found materials; Lower East Side, NYC, 1978. Mural “New Birth” in background at Rivington and Chrystie Streets for Cityarts Workshop, 1974, directed by James Jannuzi with artists Alfredo Hernandez and Pedro Vidal Tirado. (© Martha Cooper) 
Boy with his pigeon coop in window; Houston Street, Lower East Side, 1978. (© Martha Cooper)
“This is really a retrospective of her work. It’s not just the trains that everybody knows, but it’s a lot of the deeper work and the older work as well,” said Michael Kamber, founder and creative director of the BDC. “I think there’s a whole part of our history here in the Bronx that just wouldn’t even exist and we wouldn’t even know about it if it wasn’t for Marty. A lot of these pictures you think are snapshots, but she spent days and days getting up on rooftops, going into abandoned buildings, getting to know people in the community, going into the trainyards in the middle of the night and photographing. The level of commitment when you’re seeing a photo — there’s so much work behind that photo.”
This commitment is easily seen in the depth of the work, and the scenes that Cooper captured. You can’t make photographs like hers without knowing your subjects well, to the point that they are comfortable with having you and your camera around. You can’t take intimate photographs without spending that time, so people become not just subjects but friends.
When I asked Cooper what she hopes for visitors to the exhibition, she replied, “I hope maybe they look at their own neighborhood with a fresh eye, because nothing about this stuff is newsworthy. It’s all kinds of things I saw day to day.” It is that day to day that makes her photographs special.
“Martha Cooper’s Streetwise” is on view at the Bronx Documentary Center’s Annex (364 East 151 Street in the Bronx) through June 14, 2026. More information can be found at bronxdoc.org.