Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism in 1961.
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal.[36]
The murals of Belfast and of Los Angeles offer another example of official recognition.[37] In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over theGDR.
Unique use of graffiti as a method of expressing sexual orientation, Montclair, California
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stencilling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognised while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffiti artist Mathangi Arulpragasam, a.k.a. ‘M.I.A.’, has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles “Galang” and “Bucky Done Gun“, and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London inBrick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffiti artists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.[38]Graffiti artist John Fekner, called “caption writer to the urban environment, adman for the opposition” by writer Lucy Lippard,[39] was involved in direct art interventions within New York City’s decaying urban environment in the mid-seventies through the eighties. Fekner is known for his word installations targeting social and political issues, stenciled on buildings throughout New York.
Anonymous artists
Graffiti artists constantly have the looming threat of facing consequences for displaying their graffiti. Many choose to protect their identities and reputation by remaining anonymous.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted “graffiti” art, graffiti artists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered “performance art” despite the image of the “singing and dancing star” that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffiti artists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Graffiti No false move in Hamburgwithout name tag
Banksy is one of the world’s most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today’s society.[40] He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy’s artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy’s art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials fof other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public.[41] Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy’s anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. “One of the pieces was left up above Steve’s Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome”- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston.
Radical and political
‘R-Evolution’ stencil graffito critical of Vladimir Putin found in Moscow, Russia in 2012
A graffiti in Pieksämäki representing the former president of Finland, Urho Kekkonen, who is well recognised in Finnish popular culture
A preserved 1920 graffiti written on a wall in Sremska Street in Belgrade, Serbia, with the slogan Гласајте за Филипа Филиповића (Vote for Filip Filipović), who was the communist candidate for the mayor of Belgrade
An interpretation of Liberty Leading the People on the separation barrier which runs through Bethlehem
2nd WW bunker near Anhalter Bahnhof(Berlin) with a graffiti inscription „Wer Bunker baut, wirft Bomben“ (those who build bunkers, throw bombs).
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punkband Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war,anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s.[42]
In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names as ‘De Zoot’, ‘Vendex’, and ‘Dr Rat’.[43][44]To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
Graffiti on the train line leading to Central Station in Amsterdam
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire (“Boredom is counterrevolutionary”) and Lisez moins, vivez plus (“Read less, live more”). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the ‘millenarian’ and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
“I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we’re not a bunch of p—- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we’re a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.”
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as “on the street” or “underground”, contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in thesubvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints for a variety of reasons—but primarily because is it difficult for the police to apprehend them and for the courts to sentence or even convict a person for a protest that is as fleeting and less intrusive than marching in the streets. In some communities, such impermanent works survive longer than works created with permanent paints because the community views the work in the same vein as that of the civil protester who marches in the street—such protest are impermanent, but effective nevertheless.
In some areas where a number of artist share the impermanence ideal, there grows an informal competition. That is, the length of time that a work escapes destruction is related to the amount of respect the work garners in the community. A crude work that deserves little respect would be invariably removed immediately. The most talented artist might have works last for days.
Artists whose primary object is to assert control over property—and not primarily to create an expressive work of art, political or otherwise—resist switching to impermanent paints.
East Timorese protest against Australia
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often, conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest.[46]
The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other’s practices. The anti-capitalist art group, the Space Hijackers, for example, did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
On top of the political aspect of graffiti as a movement, political groups and individuals may also use graffiti as a tool to spread their point of view. This practice, due to its illegality, has generally become favored by groups excluded from the political mainstream (e.g. far-left or far-right groups) who justify their activity by pointing out that they do not have the money – or sometimes the desire – to buy advertising to get their message across, and that a “ruling class” or “establishment” controls the mainstream press, systematically excluding the radical and alternative point of view. This type of graffiti can seem crude; for example fascist supporters often scrawl swastikas and other Nazi images.
One innovative form of graffiti that emerged in the UK in the 1970s was devised by the Money Liberation Front (MLF), essentially a loose affiliation of underground press writers such as the poet and playwright Heathcote Williams and magazine editor and playwright Jay Jeff Jones. They initiated the use of paper currency as a medium for counterculturepropaganda, overprinting banknotes, usually with a John Bull printing set. Although short lived, the MLF was representative of London’s Ladbroke Grove centered alternative and literary community of the period. The area was also a scene of considerable anti-establishment and humorous street graffiti, much of which is also produced by Williams.[47]
In 2009, following the elections in Iran, protesters (who regarded the electoral result as rigged) began to deface banknotes with slogans such as “Death to the dictator”. In Colombia writing and drawing on banknotes has become increasingly popular, either to make political comments, for fun or as an artistic medium. The national government has run advertising campaigns in an attempt to discourage the practice. In the UK there have been signs of an MLF resurgence with a number of banknotes in circulation being over-marked with protest slogans such as “Banks=Robbers”, relating to the perceived culpability of banks in the financial crisis.
Gates in a peace line in West Belfast, marking the boundary between segregated communities in Northern Ireland
Both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland produce political graffiti. As well as slogans, Northern Irish political graffiti includes large wall paintings, referred to as murals. Along with the flying of flags and the painting of kerb stones, the murals serve a territorial purpose, often associated with gang use. Artists paint them mostly on house gables or on the Peace Lines, high walls that separate different communities.
The murals often develop over an extended period and tend to stylization, with a strong symbolic or iconographic content. Loyalist murals often refer to historical events dating from the war between James II and William III in the late seventeenth century, whereas Republican murals usually refer to the more recent troubles.
Territorial graffiti serves as marking ground to display tags and logos that differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols andinitials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.[48]
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The completed work
As advertising
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Graffiti as legal advertising on a grocer’s shop window, Warsaw, Poland
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. In NYC, Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca Cola, McDonald’s,Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden’s Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store. Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product. Shepard Fairey rose to fame after his “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign, in which his art was plastered in cities throughout America.
Many graffiti artists see legal advertising as no more than ‘paid for and legalised graffiti’ and have risen against mainstream ads. The graffiti research lab crew have gone on to target several prominent ads in New York as a means of making a statement against this criteria.
Offensive graffiti
Gang symbol markings on public property, Millwood, Washington
Peace Sign
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to locate, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly).[49] Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as “racist”. It can then only be understood if one knows the relevant “local code” (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen asheteroglot and thus an ‘unique set of conditions’ in a cultural context.[50]
- A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come.[51] A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
Hence, the lack of obvious racist graffiti does not necessarily mean that there is none. By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints),[52] these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.[53]
Decorative and high art
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Graffiti in Buenos Aires, showing theObelisk
In the early 1980s, the first Art Galleries who started to show graffiti artists to the public were Fashion Moda in Bronx and Now Gallery inEast Village, Manhattan.[citation needed]
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York’s outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
It displayed 22 works by New York graffiti artists, including Crash, Daze, andLady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine, Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti. Terrance Lindall, an artist and executive director of the Williamsburg Art and Historic Center, said regarding graffiti and the exhibition:[54]
“Graffiti is revolutionary, in my opinion”, he says, “and any revolution might be considered a crime. People who are oppressed or suppressed need an outlet, so they write on walls—it’s free.”
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts.Oxford University Press‘s art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti’s key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.[55]
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris — a clear acceptance of the art form into the French art world.[56][57]
Many graffiti artists have used their design talents in other artistic endeavors. In 2009 graffiti artist “Scape” publishedGRAFF; the Art & Technique of Graffiti, the world’s first book dedicated to displaying the full techniques of creating graffiti art. Other books that focus on graffiti include Faith of Graffiti by Norman Mailer, Trespass by Taschen press,[58]and the comic book by Elite Gudz, Concrete Immortalz, which has a graffiti artist as its main character.
Figurines by KAWS, featuring icons of pop culture, often with crossed-out eyes, run in limited editions and sell for thousands of dollars.[59] World-renowned street artist Banksy directed a film in 2010, Exit Through the Gift Shop, which explored street art and commercialism.
All about graffiti 