Photo of the Day: Vintage AK47

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This one’s a photo of a photo by Zhang Haipei. The original was featured in a recently closed exhibition of photographs from Beijing’s inner-city hutong alleys organized by the Hutong π collective.

Zhang’s image depicts a half-destroyed structure (the Hubei Community Center) graced with the tag of one of Beijing’s first graffiti artists, AK47. Kicking off his rogue practice in the mid-’90s, AK47, née Zhang Dali, is seen by many as the godfather of Beijing street art. He features prominently in the most comprehensive documentary on the subject to date, Lance Crayon’s 2013 Spray Paint Beijing: