Before Streetwear––Graphic Appropriation, Visual Authorship & the Evidentiary Record of Late-Twentieth-Century Los Angeles

Before Streetwear: Graphic Appropriation, Visual Authorship & the Evidentiary Record of Late-Twentieth-Century Los Angeles examines the visual and documentary conditions that preceded the commercial consolidation of streetwear. Focusing on Los Angeles during the 1980s and early 1990s, the paper situates graffiti, independent publishing, photography, apparel, skate culture, advertising, and graphic appropriation within a shared field of visual production in which reproduction and distribution functioned as components of authorship. Drawing on the surviving FUCT archive, the study considers how publications, graphic works, garments, photographs, correspondence, process materials, ephemera, legal records, and later artworks permit the reconstruction of authorship, attribution, chronology, and dissemination across categories that were subsequently separated by art, design, fashion, publishing, and commerce. The paper further addresses the historiographic consequences of uneven preservation, arguing that the accessibility and organization of primary-source material directly shape what later scholarship can verify, cite, compare, and incorporate into cultural history. It forms part of the Erik Brunetti Foundation for the Arts research series Authorship, Publishing, and Contemporary Visual Culture.