In the early days of graffiti, the ultimate flex in the scene had a name: wholetrain. To paint not just a single carriage but an entire moving vessel from end to end was a feat of scale, coordination, and audacity. Emerging in late-1970s New York, the wholetrain became a rite of passage: it was a moving celebration of collaboration between different artists, friendship, adrenaline, and sheer artistic nerve. When a wholetrain rolled into a station, everyone stopped. It was that powerful.
This spirit of collective creation, risk, and improvisation is the foundation of WHOLETRAINS, a project initiated by Alexandre Farto aka Vhils. He invited close friends, long-time collaborators, and some of the most important graffiti artists today — Barry McGee, OSGEMEOS, and Revok, who in different corners of the world, also grew up working on trains — to take this legendary spirit and twist it into something new. Instead of steel and subway tunnels, the structure unfolds on a long sheet of paper mapping the outline of a real train from Portugal’s Sintra Line.
Cadavre Exquis
In the WHOLETRAINS project, the raw energy of graffiti meets the Surrealists’ favourite game, the cadavre exquis: a chain-reaction artwork where each artist builds on what came before without ever seeing the whole picture. This concept served as inspiration for the project, shaping a seamless clash of styles that only collective creation can produce. And just like a train in motion, WHOLETRAINS keeps unfolding — opening the way for future collaborations and new carriages to come.
Collectible Carriages
Steering this project are none other than Barry McGee, OSGEMEOS, Revok, and Vhils — four artists who have defined entire chapters of graffiti and urban art across continents. Each takes on a carriage, turning the train into a moving constellation of styles, rhythms, and visual frequencies.
Together, they bring WHOLETRAINS to life with the force, velocity, and unpredictability that only decades of shared history can generate. Underdogs is proud to present this project with unique original works, individual editions available for separate acquisition, and full-train editions that unite all carriages into a single unfolding piece.
