Some sources identify New York specifically taggers Julio and Taki of the Washington Heights area , and others identify Philadelphia with tagger Corn Bread as the point of origin. Yet, it goes more or less undisputed that New York "is where graffiti culture blossomed, matured, and most clearly distinguished itself from all prior forms of graffiti," as Eric Felisbret, former graffiti artist and lecturer, explains.
Soon after graffiti began appearing on city surfaces, subway cars and trains became major targets for New York City's early graffiti writers and taggers, as these vehicles traveled great distances, allowing the writer's name to be seen by a wider audience.
The subway rapidly became the most popular place to write, with many graffiti artists looking down upon those who wrote on walls. Sociologist Richard Lachmann notes how the added element of movement made graffiti a uniquely dynamic art form. He writes, "Much of the best graffiti was meant to be appreciated in motion, as it passed through dark and dingy stations or on elevated tracks. Photos and graffiti canvases cannot convey the energy and aura of giant artwork in motion.
Graffiti on subway cars began as crude, simple tags, but as tagging became increasingly popular, writers had to find new ways to make their names stand out. Over the next few years, new calligraphic styles were developed and tags turned into large, colorful, elaborate pieces, aided by the realization that different spray can nozzles also referred to as "caps" from other household aerosol products like oven cleaner could be used on spray paint cans to create varying effects and line widths.
It did not take long for the crude tags to grow in size, and to develop into artistic, colorful pieces that took up the length of entire subway cars. By the s, the city of New York viewed graffiti's inherent vandalism as a major concern, and a massive amount of resources were poured into the graffiti "problem.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority MTA received a significant increase in their budget in , allowing them to erect more sophisticated fences and to better maintain the train yards and lay-ups that were popular targets for writers due to the possibility for hitting several cars at once.
However, writers saw these measures as a mere challenge, and worked even harder to hit their targets, while also becoming increasingly territorial and aggressive toward other writers and "crews" groups of writers. In , the MTA launched its Clean Car Program, which involved a five-year plan to completely eliminate graffiti on subway cars, operating on the principle that a graffiti-covered subway car could not be put into service until all the graffiti on it had been cleaned off.
This program was implemented one subway line at a time, gradually pushing writers outward, and by many of the city's lines were completely clear of graffiti. Lieutenant Steve Mona recalls one day when the ACC crew hit cars in a yard at Coney Island, assuming that the MTA wouldn't shut down service and that the graffitied trains would run.
Yet the MTA opted to not provide service, greatly inconveniencing citizens who had to wait over an hour for a train that morning. That was the day that the MTA's dedication to the eradication of graffiti became apparent. However graffiti was anything but eradicated. In the past few decades, this practice has spread around the world, often maintaining elements of the American wildstyle, like interlocking letterforms and bold colors, yet also adopting local flare, such as manga-inspired Street Art in Japan.
It is important to note that contemporary graffiti has developed completely apart from traditional, institutionalized art forms. Art critic and curator Johannes Stahl writes that, "We have long since got accustomed to understanding art history as a succession of epochs [ Modern graffiti did not begin as an art form at all, but rather, as a form of text-based urban communication that developed its own networks.
As Lachmann notes, rather than submitting to the criteria of valuation upheld by the institutionalized art world, early graffiti writers developed an entirely new and separate art world, based on their own "qualitative conception of style" and the particular "aesthetic standards" developed within the community for judging writers' content and technique.
During the late s and early s, many graffiti writers began to shift away from text-based works to include imagery. Around the same time, many artists also began experimenting with different techniques and materials, the most popular being stencils and wheat paste posters.
Since the turn of the millennium, this proliferation has continued, with artists using all sorts of materials to complete illegal works in pubic spaces. The myriad approaches have come to be housed under the label of "Street Art" sometimes also referred to as "Urban Art" , which has expanded its purview beyond graffiti to include these other techniques and styles.
The term "graffiti" comes from the Greek "graphein," meaning "to scratch, draw, or write," and thus a broad definition of the term includes all forms of inscriptions on walls. For me, graffiti is interesting and eye-catching.
The blank wall of a building or an untouched alleyway becomes something brand new with the addition of graffiti. Because of the lack of control or direction from outside influences, it conveys a raw, uncensored message. Banksy, an anonymous graffiti artist based in England, comments on controversial social issues in his work, like violence and homelessness.
This is what makes graffiti an incomparably powerful kind of art. A year-old art education major, who works under the nickname Gunk, has been creating graffiti art for nearly a decade. He was introduced to graffiti in high school, he said, and it eventually became a regular hobby. I just enjoy making art. But censoring artwork of any kind is complicated and problematic. The world is a canvas, and strokes and sprays of paint make any city more stimulating and colorful. Graffiti is no less artistic than the murals in Center City or the painted trash cans down South Street.
It should be embraced and encouraged, not denounced. What does it mean? Does it even mean anything? Who did it? Graffiti and street art has always had a history of being influenced by the present political and social issues; a lot of people have painted and pasted on the walls and buildings in their cities as a form of anonymous political protest.
For example, when the recent Greek economic crisis happened, angry sentiments sprung up on walls to express the anger of people living there. Political statements have typically been controversial; scrawled illegally and boldly in various countries and for various reasons. When people feel they have no power or influence but want to express their anger, hatred or defiance towards political injustice, this kind of art happens:.
Art is about expression, creativity, freedom, asking and raising questions, protesting, analysing… for the creative type to get things out of their system. For the underdog to take a stand. Graffiti has been looked at in very many ways for a while now. Is it art? Is it not art? Should it be illegal? According to a poll in on cbsnews.
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