10Foot, Tox & Fume: Up the Wall

Thoughts on 'Long Dark Tunnel', an exhibition from three graffiti legends

As I wander through the doors of Long Dark Tunnel, the latest exhibition from the infamous graffiti triad of 10Foot, Tox and Fume, I get the feeling I’m probably the last person these three would want to see moseying around the room. I can’t help but notice myself; I’m sporting loafers, a tote bag and a mullet—I feel like a walking encapsulation of the white middle-class youth who so often leeches off the ‘coolness’ of edgier subcultures. Luckily for me, it’s early afternoon on a Wednesday, meaning I can peruse the room without much embarrassment.

Even the most inattentive eye in London will, at least subconsciously, have come across the name ‘10Foot’. It is ubiquitous, sprayed on the city with as much regularity as dog piss on a lamppost. Every conceivable surface has borne his emblem at one time or another: shutters, trains, walls, bridges, road signs, underpasses, bus windows. 10Foot’s productivity has made him a quasi-mythological figure of London’s underbelly, a writer (graffiti artist) of such gargantuan reputation that his name is known both up and down the country and far beyond its borders. Through this unwavering commitment to the medium of graffiti he has cultivated both a deep-rooted animosity from the British Transport Police and a devoted following that counts 90s rave legend Goldie and Oscar-winning director Jonathan Glazer among its number. But for anyone interested enough to investigate the man behind the can, rather than make an instant moral judgement on his tendency to vandalism, it becomes clear that 10Foot’s mission is not simply one of mindless destruction and self-aggrandisement, as a certain Daily Mail article would have it (which I’ve chosen not to link for obvious reasons…). There are more nuanced forces at play here. Long Dark Tunnel showcases work from the three aforementioned figureheads of the DDS crew (Diabolical DubStars) that goes beyond simple artistic classification; the exhibition is, in their words, “an illustration of freedom and friendship, a distillation of decades and decades of literal underground artwork”.

Freedom, autonomy, liberation from societal constraints: these are all foundational tenets of any graffer’s manifesto, and they shine through across the entire show. Each piece conveys a sense of unbounded urban frolicking, from Fume’s fantastical cartoon depiction of an attempted Christmas Day police raid on a graffiti-hit Oxford Circus station, to the parodied road sign giving directions to the nearest train which is captioned: “Come we do it then”—a mantra one can imagine begins all graffiti missions. The DDS crew clearly have a knack for pastiche; they riff not just on road signage, but other governmental apparatus, too. This includes the AZ London Street Atlas, adorned with a stylish 10Foot tag (though he seems to reject this adjective whenever it’s applied to his work), as well as the tube map and its iconic roundel, which inspire Tox’s new abstract spray paintings—these, in turn, echo the patterns found on Underground train seats. The exhibition even contains a whole section of a replica tube train, coated with signature dubs (a graff term for bubble-letters which are often simply coloured) from 10Foot, Tox and Fume. Taken individually, these are great examples of the slightly differing techniques of each writer, while collectively they are a definitive reflection of the homogeneous London style, which rates pure volume of output over intricate embellishment. The more train-related artwork I see, the more I’m convinced Francis Bourgeois would fucking love it in here.

At this point I should provide a little backstory to Tox and Fume for those who are unfamiliar. They are legends of the scene in their own right. Tox is perhaps the most notorious of the DDS crew, famous for being Britain’s most jailed writer. He has been incarcerated nine times, though the charges against him tally up to a far greater number. Every one of these charges is documented in the ‘Regina V Tox01-Tox25’ booklet, on sale at the exhibition for £20.25. On the subject of Tox, I have to mention here what is perhaps my favourite line from 10Foot’s recent Big Issue takeover. It comes from Tox’s interview with Banksy, where he describes his seasonal graffiti antics: “They even reserved cells for me in the police station on Christmas Day, cos that day is a special day for us graffiti artists: Father Xmas was going down the chimney but I was ready to go down a manhole to batter a tube, being artistic init.” Beyond his reputation as DDS’ resident jailbird, Tox’s raw, unfiltered blob style stands as one of the foundational examples of graff purism, and is perhaps why Banksy paid homage to him in the 2011 piece on Jeffrey Street, Camden, where a young boy blows bubbles spelling out ‘Tox’.

Fume is the veteran of the group. A West London native, he’s been peppering train yards from Gloucester Road to Hammersmith and far beyond since 1992. Fume’s graff style is an interesting contrast with that of his compatriots—slightly more angular and decorative. His paintings, on the other hand, apparently made with tunnel dust from the alcoves of that very train yard at Gloucester Road, are wonderfully psychedelic depictions of the fun, the madness and the danger of graffiti missions. Between these two and 10Foot, it's clear a real brotherhood exists. This comradeship is evident in the artwork; where there is one tag, the others almost always follow. Out on the streets this practice is known as ‘putting up’ your friends, and it applies even beyond the grave. The exhibition contains a touching tribute to King Robbo, another legendary writer and great friend of the DDS crew who passed away in 2014. He is commemorated in a shrine furnished with personal items: Arsenal memorabilia, spray cans and photos—each painting a picture of a man who was as much loved by friends and family as he was by the scene.

One of the realities of graffiti is that it will, by its very essence, always go hand-in-hand with vandalism. But what’s interesting is that the connotations of the term ‘vandalism’, such as those of destruction and hate, cannot be simply applied to the work of 10Foot, Tox and Fume. These labels are lazy, ignoring the boundless love that these writers have for the city they inhabit, their passion for adding style where there was none before, and their intimate appreciation of long-forgotten corners and mundane landmarks. When this complete immersion in the urban landscape meets a proclivity for spray painting, a symbiotic relationship emerges between artist, subject, audience, and canvas. The distinctions between them blur, each element merging with the next. Prolific writers create a web of interconnected artworks that form a constantly evolving dialogue—a conversation that flows from each individual tag, throw-up, dub or piece, through the perceiver, and back to the very fabric of the metropolis itself. As 10Foot himself puts it in his Big Issue interview with Derek Walmsley: “Single instances of graffiti aren’t the point. A single tag is like a drum loop on a set that lasts for hours, graffiti is all about how everything fits in with each other. (…) It’s about witnessing someone sequencing with the city and its systems, permeating one another until they’re one and the same”.

I find it fascinating how deep 10Foot’s love for his environment goes. At the end of my walk through the exhibition I purchased a booklet containing his ‘A406’ project. It is essentially a long-form poem, a gripping, heartfelt and amusing ode to the North Circular which documents a series of graff missions that took place there. 10Foot’s talents clearly extend well beyond tagging, tunnel-running and police-dodging; his writing is infused with biting wit, social satire and genuinely engaging storytelling, and he evidently has a knowledge of the real London that would make Peter Ackroyd jealous. My favourite line in the poem is an explanation as to why he is dressed head-to-toe in black for his illicit expedition: “Prison is an expensive way / to make people worse / so I’m just trying to / look out for the public purse”. I also think it’s important to note that 10Foot’s appreciation for these urban structures like the A406 and the Westway does not simply arise out of their graff-ablenness, but out of a true understanding and admiration of their vivaciousness and unique character. For example, he lovingly refers to the North Circular as a “grubby, grey tiara”.

Despite the public damage caused by his work (albeit damage which the majority of the public probably wouldn’t bother ‘repairing’ if they had the choice), 10Foot seems to show more regard for the community and the marginalised than any current Labour politician. While Keir Starmer is scrapping disability benefits, 10Foot is publishing the best-selling Big Issue of all time, donating all the proceeds of his exhibition to charity, promoting family-run businesses and painting pieces for the children of Gaza (as captured briefly in the short film displayed at the exhibition). He’s no saint, but he’s got a conscience.

I see 10Foot, Tox, and Fume’s work as both a love letter to the grimmest guts of London and an act of transfiguration—using graffiti to reframe our encounters with the ugly and the banal as moments of artistry that demand attention and urge onlookers to view the everyday with fresh, even reverent, eyes. What’s more, the DDS crew seem to practice their art in incredibly good humour, with tongue-very-firmly-in-cheek. This makes me think they might howl with laughter if they ever saw the word ‘transfiguration’ used to describe their graff.

As I descend the escalator and exit the Arts Arkade building which houses Long Dark Tunnel, I can’t help but think that graffiti is everything contemporary art wishes it could be: visible, accessible, and alive on every city street. Still, after this exhibition, maybe the art world can start catching up.