A Retrospective from the Double Down Kings Artchive Curated by Cory Lee Stowers August 1 – October 31, 2025
Workshop led by Cory Lee Stowers; a longtime creative culture worker, is co-founder of the Double Down Kings, the region’s largest graffiti crew with over 300 members, and founder of the 14th Street Graffiti Museum in DC. He currently serves as Executive Director of DC Murals, a nonprofit documenting the city’s public art since 1997, and leads ART B.L.O.C. DC, a creative consultancy for public storytelling through design and mural work.
Alternate Identities is an exhibition exploring over three decades of graffiti culture in the Washington, DC region and beyond. Curated by subcultural anthropologist, artist, and author Cory Lee Stowers, the show features more than 50 original works—canvas pieces, sketches, photographs, and found objects—handpicked by 9S Studio from the Double Down Kings Artchive, one of the most comprehensive graffiti collections in the area.
At its core, Alternate Identities is a story about names—how they're chosen, how they're written, and how they live on walls, trains, and in communities. This immersive retrospective brings viewers into the world of style writing, where coded letters, layered textures, and iconography reflect not only artistic mastery but also social commentary, resistance, and personal identity.
The exhibit features rare and intimate post-graffiti works created between 1992 and 2025, including pieces from Stowers’s private archive—a 30-year collection of gifted, acquired, and self-produced work. Through these visual artifacts, Alternate Identities traces the evolution of a subculture that has long existed in the margins, yet has shaped the urban landscape in profound ways.
Stowers’ newly released book, To The East: The Rise of Public Murals East of the River, will be available for purchase during the exhibition.
