Chris Pape

Who is Chris Pape?

Chris Pape is an American painter and graffiti artist. Pape started tagging subway tunnels and subway cars in 1974 as "Gen II" before adopting the tag "Freedom". Pape is best known for his numerous paintings in the eponymous Freedom Tunnel, an Amtrak tunnel running underneath Manhattan's Riverside Park. Prominent paintings in the Freedom Tunnel attributed to Pape include his "self-portrait" featuring a male torso with a spray-can head and "There's No Way Like the American Way", a parody of Coca-Cola advertising and tribute to the evicted homeless of the tunnel. Another theme of Freedom's work is black and silver recreations of classical art, including a reinterpretation of the Venus de Milo and a full train car recreation of the iconic hands from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.