We usually see graffiti art in public areas, since that’s what makes it graffiti. This public art is based on a number of fixed forms of expression and is almost exclusively executed with spray paint. Street art, however, incorporates multiple techniques, materials, and formats (stencil, sticker, carving, etc.), along with the more traditional graffiti techniques.
This subculture is supported by a community of young people who share common practices, hierarchies, values, and vocabulary.
One could argue that image and style predominate the visual landscape. The streets invite a different canvas for each city, allowing for a new treatment, form, style, placement in wall writing, and bringing elements of design, illustration, typography together to form a unique sense of style. New forms of urban language compete within the central spaces of the city with what could be considered by now “traditional” writing. The way space is understood in the street is altered from the moment objects acquire unpredicted symbols. Therefore, carving out one’s place in the city, or leaving a mark, is part of this process.
Impersonal city streets make anonymous people, and this is not a matter of aesthetic quality nor of a mystical emotional effect in architectural scale. It is a matter of what kinds of tangible enterprises sidewalks have, and therefore of how people use the sidewalks in practical, everyday life. – Jacobs
Contemporary graffiti has its origins in New York and Philadelphia in the 1970s, and for almost 20 years, New York City subway trains served as the ideal canvas. Because of the privacy of this space, including allis and tunnels, artists could create aesthetically pleasing pieces given the extra time to work on their art.
Jean-Michele Basquiat, a New York-based artist in the '80s, is a reflection of how
graffiti based artists achieved success in an industry new to this proliferation of art.
Basquiat and his friend started spray painting on walls and bridges in Lower Manhattan, catching peoples attention from a young age. Messages like “samo… for those of us, who merely tolerate civilisation…”; after the success of samo, Basquiat desired the attention of a certain type of people, starting to paint on walls near important art galleries and night clubs, and although still anonymous, he started to gain more recognition for his work.
By the time he was 24, his artworks were sold for millions of dollars, having private collectors, and museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art (that earlier in had declined his work) demanding for his creations. From living of the streets and writing with his friend, he became a super star, producing a hip-hop record called “Beat Pop”,staring in a film: Downtown 81 (released only in 2000).
In 2017 a Basquiat’s painting “Untitled” was sold for a record 110.5 million dollars, putting him in an elite class of artists such as Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso.
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What started on the streets of New York, opened a discussion of what was portrait as art in the city walls.
New forms of media outlets, and counterculture movements: hip-hop culture, gave these street artists the chance of expressing this medium and the exposure helped graffiti movement spread around the world, becoming socially tolerated and increasingly acknowledged as a legitimate aesthetic urban expression.
New York City was transformed with different kinds of urban artifacts, exhibiting new iconic statements.
Nowadays, graffiti has gained the recognition by the Art Community, with exhibitions and galleries spread around London, ie. Black Rat Projects, The Brick Lane Gallery, Lawrence Alkin Gallery, Lazarides; and are often commissioned to do legal murals, bringing graffiti closer to be legitimised as “real” art.
In recent years, the appropriation os graffiti styles by marketers and designers, and partnerships between such have brought up these artists out of the underground into the spotlight.
Vhils artwork first gained attention when on of his pieces stood next to a Banksy’s painting, Cans Festival, London, 2008.
Using an uncommon technique – he attempts to create by removing multiple layers, whether shredding through billboard posters or drilling into a wall in order to form a new image. His method of conscious construction by way of destruction has brought Vhils great amounts of success, and in recent years, Vhils has partnered with designers and illustrators to create a new form of street advertisement, combining both techniques.
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A new way of viewing graffiti as adding and contributing to the urban environment, as part of the mapping of the city and an exploration of the voices of those who live there. Additionally, just because graffiti writing is an alternative way of utilizing city spaces does not necessarily mean it is a bad or invalid way of doing this. Although it may be regarded as illegal, this kind of expression is not necessarily understood as a form of subversion (by graffiti writers) or vandalism (by public authorities, media, etc.).
Tagging, on the other hand, was seen as unskilful and so regarded as vandalism – or less than art – by graffiti writers.
Art in graffiti writing is associated with the time spent producing a piece, it is also related to dimension, position and intent. More complex pieces are valued by young people, but yet these pieces are subjects to degradation by being tagged, which contradicts what graffiti is. Marking surfaces in a meaningless way is seen as vandalism, in both spectres – from the viewpoint of the graffiti community and the outside community. But if writing on top of a art piece is considered vandalism, it means that graffiti it self can be vandalised.
Drawing the line legally whether graffiti is legal or nor comes down to permission. According to law, if permission is not granted to write on walls, it is prosecuted as a criminal offence. Even the intent to write is considered a crime.
Therefore, the law does not distinguish between a Basquiat caliber painting from the intentional act of vandalism.
Graffiti challenges the concept of property and the consensus about valid art and artistic talent, creating space to growing generations of artist, followers and advocators that seek their right to express themselves on the street.
But the boundary between defacing and beautifying continues to be blurred.
For the spectators – willing or unwilling consumers – graffiti is a product.
Though graffiti artists face sever consequences, the pleasure derived from graffiti writing is associated with the value of skill, imagination and audacity that has been invested in the production of a piece. Sharing these art pieces has shown popular in applications such as Instagram and Twitter, help bring attention to new artists and creating new attractions within the surrounding city. Competition for wall surface become outdoor advertising for commissioned public art or anti-graffiti strategies.
The proliferation of websites and social media that celebrate graffiti tend to reinforce the idea that this form of recognition is considered on a spectrum with other more apparently legitimate avenues to secure respect through recognition.
Graffiti writers are becoming hero-vandals who make their own masks and choose an alter ego to harass forces that are immeasurably more powerful. Although remaining faceless, with no criticism.
Policymakers need to understand the cultural meaning and value attached to many forms of graffiti and to move beyond simplistic dichotomies between art and criminal damage.