The graffiti artist Futura: From subway to the stars

Published on: 26 March 2025

By: Hervé Lancelin

Category: Art Critique

Reading time: 8 minutes

Futura transforms the constraints of urban space into galactic explorations, his atomic compositions recalling distant nebulae. His alien figures, notably his emblematic Pointman, embody contemporary man in the technological era, suspended between terrestrial materiality and cosmic aspirations.

A stylized, purple-tinted image shows a person wearing glasses and a baseball jersey, set against an abstract patterned background with repeated arch and floral motifs. © Illustration by ArtCritic.

Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs, you who look at art from above with your self-proclaimed connoisseur’s eyeglasses. You are probably sipping tepid champagne in a sterile gallery on the right bank, but let me tell you about someone who has made the entire city his canvas. Futura, a name that resonates like a promise of the future, is not simply an artist, he is a meteor who has traversed the sky of contemporary art, leaving behind a trail of abstract colors and cosmic figures that we continue to decipher.

Born Leonard Hilton McGurr in 1955, this child of Manhattan began his career in the underground entrails of New York, transforming subway wagons into ephemeral spaceships. But don’t be mistaken, his art is nothing like a juvenile whim. His emblematic piece “Break” from 1980, that chromatic explosion which literally broke the conventions of graffiti, was a silent manifesto, a declaration of independence from the aesthetic orthodoxy that then ruled the underground scene.

What distinguishes Futura from his contemporaries is precisely this quantum leap towards abstraction, this will to transcend the urban alphabet to explore unknown territories. His canvases are not walls transported to a gallery, but portals to alternative dimensions, stellar maps of a parallel universe where atoms dance and planets collide in a cosmic ballet.

Futura operates at the border of two fascinating conceptual worlds: astronomy and existentialism. His compositions strangely remind us of the theories of astrophysicist Carl Sagan, for whom we are all made of “star dust” ^[1]. When we observe his works like “Colorforms” (1991) or “Invasion From Blue City” (1989), we cannot help but think of those distant nebulae where stars are born, of those supernova explosions that disseminate in space the chemical elements necessary for our existence. The atom, this recurrent motif in his work, is not a simple graphic ornament, but the symbol of our deep connection with the cosmos.

Sagan wrote that “to make an apple pie, you must first create the universe” ^[2]. Futura seems to have understood this cosmic truth before anyone else, by creating entire universes on his canvases from nothing, with aerosol paint as his only tool. His technique of aerosol can inversion, this feat which allows him to control with surgical precision the finesse of his lines, is reminiscent of the dexterity of a scientist manipulating subatomic particles.

His abstract compositions, where colored mists deploy like interstellar gas clouds, evoke the images captured by the Hubble telescope, those cosmic landscapes of breathtaking beauty which remind us of our insignificance in the face of the immensity of the universe. But far from crushing us under the weight of this realization, Futura invites us to celebrate our belonging to this great whole, to embrace our nature as cosmic explorers.

This astronomical dimension is coupled with a deep existentialist reflection. The alien figures that populate his canvases, notably his famous “Pointman”, seem to come straight out of the reflections of Jean-Paul Sartre on alterity and identity. In “Being and Nothingness”, Sartre writes that “existence precedes essence” ^[3], a principle that Futura has put into practice from the beginning, by forging his own artistic identity on the margins of established currents.

The “Pointman”, this androgynous silhouette with elongated limbs which has become his signature, perfectly embodies this existential quest. Neither entirely human nor completely extraterrestrial, it occupies this liminal space which is ours in the technological era, where the boundaries between the organic and the mechanical gradually blur. It is the man of the future Futura, justly confronted with the anguish of his absolute freedom in a universe devoid of pre-established meaning.

When Futura paints “El Diablo” (1985), he does not simply represent a demonic character, but materializes this Sartrian “nausea”, this vertigo in the face of the radical contingency of existence. The splashes of paint which seem to spontaneously burst onto the canvas are the pictorial equivalent of those moments of existential lucidity where we become aware of our fundamental freedom and the crushing responsibility that accompanies it.

Futura’s art is profoundly marked by this tension between cosmic determinism and existential freedom. On one hand, his atomic motifs remind us that we are subject to the same physical laws as the rest of the universe; on the other, his unpredictable pictorial gestures, these “happy accidents” which he welcomes with enthusiasm, affirm the possibility of creative freedom even within these constraints.

What is particularly striking in Futura’s trajectory is the way he has transcended the artificial categories that the art world insists on maintaining. In an era when street art and fine arts, commercial art and “pure” art were still opposed, he navigated between these worlds with disconcerting ease, refusing to be locked into a reductive definition of what an artist should be.

His collaboration with brands like Nike, Comme des Garcons or BMW is not a compromise, but a logical extension of his artistic practice, a rejection of this arbitrary distinction between “high art” and “low art” which no longer has a place in the digital age. As Sartre pointed out, “man is nothing other than what he makes of himself” ^[4], and Futura has made himself simultaneously a gallery artist, designer, entrepreneur and cultural icon, fully embracing the multiplicity of possibilities available to him.

This ability to transcend borders is all the more remarkable because it manifested itself from the beginning of his career, at a time when the art world was still rigidly compartmentalized. His live painting during The Clash concerts in 1981, this performance where he created works in real time while the group played, was a bold statement on the transversal nature of art, a fusion between music, painting and performance that heralded the hybrid artistic practices of the 21st century.

Faced with Futura’s work, we experience what Carl Sagan described as the “cosmic shiver”, that vertiginous sensation in the face of the immensity of the universe and our tiny place within it ^[5]. His canvases are windows open to the unknown, invitations to spatial and inner exploration. And that is perhaps where the genius of his art lies: in this ability to make us travel simultaneously to the confines of the cosmos and the depths of our human condition.

Sartrean existentialism teaches us that we are “condemned to be free”, thrown into a world without pre-established meaning, forced to invent for ourselves the meaning of our existence ^[6]. Futura has made this condemnation a celebration, transforming existential anguish into creative jubilation. His explosions of color are not acts of vandalism, but vital affirmations, tangible proofs of our capacity to create meaning in an indifferent universe.

Futura’s trajectory is also a lesson in resilience. When interest in street art waned at the end of the 1980s, he did not hesitate to work as a taxi driver or bicycle courier to provide for his family. Then, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, he made a triumphant return to the artistic scene, proving that the value of an artist is not measured by his immediate media visibility, but by his ability to persevere in his long-term vision.

This ability to bounce back in the face of adversity echoes the Sartrean vision of authenticity: living in accordance with one’s choices, fully assuming one’s freedom despite external obstacles ^[7]. Futura chose to be an artist, and he remained one against all odds, refusing to be defined by the hazards of the market or the fluctuations of fashion.

In an era obsessed with categorization, Futura remains elusive. Is he a street artist? An abstract painter? A commercial designer? A visual philosopher? He is all of these at once, and more. This fluid identity is profoundly Sartrean: man is not a fixed essence, but a process, a perpetual becoming ^[8]. Futura becomes, reinventing himself constantly, refusing to freeze into a fixed identity that would betray the dynamic nature of his art.

His work “Garbage Rock” (1983), with its fluid forms and vibrant colors that seem to float in an indeterminate space, perfectly illustrates this vision of a world in perpetual motion. There is no stable essence, no definitive form, only temporary configurations of energy and matter, exactly as in the universe as described by contemporary astrophysics. Carl Sagan could not have said it better when he affirms that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself” ^[9], Futura, through his art, participates in this cosmic consciousness.

What I particularly like about this artist is that he maintains a visual coherence while constantly exploring new territories. His works are immediately recognizable, these colored mists, these floating atoms, these alien figures, while being each time unique. He has found this perfect balance between repetition and innovation, between personal signature and constant experimentation.

Whether in his early graffiti on New York subway wagons or in his recent collaborations with luxury brands, Futura has never stopped being Futura. This unshakeable authenticity, this fidelity to his personal vision despite changes in medium or context, makes him much more than just a fashionable artist: a true beacon in the contemporary artistic landscape, a point of reference in a world in perpetual mutation.

So the next time you come across a work by Futura, take the time to really stop and look at it. Do not just see it as a pretty assembly of colors or a decorative accessory for wealthy hipsters. See it instead as an invitation to travel, a journey through sidereal space and the meanders of the human condition, guided by an artist who has understood, like Carl Sagan, that “we are all made of star dust” ^[10], and like Sartre, that this star dust is condemned to freedom ^[11].

In a universe in constant expansion, in an existence without a pre-established instruction manual, Futura reminds us of our capacity to create, to imagine, to transform. And is that not, ultimately, the most noble role that art can assume?