Artist Futura 2000: “Graffiti kids redefined action painting.”

Meet one of the living legends of contemporary graffiti art, Leonard Hilton McGurr, alias Futura 2000. “Norman Mailer compared graffiti writers to dogs peeing on a fire hydrant. And of course, whether it's a tree, a fire hydrant, anywhere a dog will pee, the other dogs will come, sniff out, and want to add their bit. So, it's a terrible analogy, but it is also very accurate, because it's just what we did.”

Leonard Hilton McGurr, alias Futura 2000 (b. 1955 in New York), is a graffiti pioneer who began painting subways in the late 1970s. In 1980, he painted the iconic whole car titled Break, which was recognised for its abstraction rather than a focus on lettering. This painting established some of the enduring aesthetic motifs and approaches Futura 2000 would explore over the decades that followed.

“Initially, it was about getting noticed, getting up. You know, if you write your name somewhere, you got up. I think the dream for people is to get their work seen.”

Futura 2000 was among the first graffiti artists to be shown in contemporary art galleries in the early 1980s. His paintings were shown at Patti Astor’s Fun Gallery and Tony Shafrazi, alongside those of his friends Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rammellzee, DONDI, and Kenny Scharf. MoMA PS1 brought the artists together in their landmark 1981 exhibition, New York / New Wave. In 1984, Futura 2000 participated in the show New York Graffiti at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark.

In this period, Futura 2000 illustrated the sleeve cover for The Clash’s ‘This is Radio Clash’ seven-inch single. He accompanied The Clash on their Combat Rock tour, spray painting in the background while the band played. He painted as an accompaniment to demonstrations of break dance by the Rock Steady Crew, and concerts by Grand Master Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. With the Clash, he recorded the vinyl “The Escapades of Futura 2000,” a manifesto for graffiti.

”I could see some fantastic work in the public space that may never arrive in institutions, which is kind of sad. I think our school was held back from the higher levels of what art is supposed to be. Once the graffiti kids came, I think we redefined what action painting is.”

By the 1990s, as the commercialisation of global street culture in the 1990s inspired collaborations with fashion and lifestyle brands, Futura 2000’s work moved toward a more refined expression of his abstract style. Commissions from brands such as Supreme, A Bathing Ape, Stüssy, and Mo Wax saw his artwork canonised as an elemental component of cross-genre street aesthetic. He has collaborated with Nike, BMW, Comme des Garçons, Louis Vuitton, and Off-White.

Simultaneously, he has developed his fine art practice. In recent years he created collaborative works with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, and he has exhibited at Kaikai KiKi, Gallery in Tokyo. His work has been shown at The New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Groninger Museum, the Netherlands; Yvon Lambert, Galerie De Noirmont, and the galerie du jour agnès b., all Paris. He was the subject of a 2019 exhibition at Urban Spree Gallery in Berlin and a large site-specific installation in 2020 at the Palais de Tokyo. Also in 2020, Rizzoli International Publications released FUTURA: The Artist’s Monograph, the most in-depth and comprehensive survey of the artist's life and career. His work was included in the exhibition Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip Hop Generation, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.


Futura 2000 was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner on the occasion of the opening of his show The Mechanical Age at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark. The interview and drawing were filmed at The Lab, Copenhagen.

Camera: Simon Weyhe
Edited by: Astrid Agens Hald
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2025

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