What is Graffiti???
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Last Modified: January 23, 2008 Issue: January 2008 |
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GRAFFITO
“Graffito” is singular; “graffiti” is a mass noun.
Graffito and Graffiti make the world go round.
Graffito is a little scratch, a groove on urban skin.
A record without a scratch, is simply called a mandolin.
Graffiti can be found in Tikal on a Mayan tomb,
In Hagia Sophia, like stretch marks on a womb.
A prolific graffito artist was sent to jail.
Was he a bastard for pinning the donkey on a tail?
When French soldiers carved their names,
During Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign,
They were left without a fleet
When the pyramids were stained
An “adult ghetto” is a rigid state of mind:
A Cerebral slum, is scum without a spine.
Social distances are far and near
Stretch your leadership muscles to adhere
In the ghetto, you try to stay alive
Your socks don’t match, and you start to jive.
In the ghetto, your kids get shot at school
Your car does not drive because it has no fuel
In the ghetto, graffito can’t pay the bills
Graffiti feeds the needy when poverty kills
In the ghetto, your heart is frozen to death
Art is life support: it is your last breath
In the ghetto you can’t afford to bleed
Individual pluralism leads to greed.
I was going to keep quiet about this for a long while… I wanted to see if it was possible to find mass radical, exciting changes within Graffiti.
Today I broke down and decided to offer up some of the stuff that I’ve been doing just to feed your eyes with an alternative or two.
It’s the kind of art that I want to see in the street but where ever I look, it seems that there’s knuckle draggin’. Just variations of the wild style, tastelesssss broth of the 80s.
If you make art in the street I say to you, take the time to look at your city and really see it. There’s so much more. It’s deep and deeper if you care to look. Old School, Hard Core and Risk don’t have to play part. Take that blinged out ball and chain off and make art that transcends. Let’s not be afraid to reset a standard that was set and handed to us.
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mejuan I'm an independent artist seaching for freedom with in the system
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This is some innovative art that I know has inspired a number of people in the street art movement. Though, I think the question of “what is graffiti” remains unanswered. Does graffiti = art, or is graffiti a type and category of art?
For me, “graffiti” is an always changing concept that defies boundaries, but that has one particular characteristic that makes it distinct: it is a potentially subversive art form that is always illegal from the perspective of social norms. I think it was Omen or Other that said that murals for Nike or Calvin Klein aren’t “graffiti”, rather they are pieces of art in the style of graffiti. Of course, graffiti may not always have to remain that way, as you point out in your post. But then, when does graffiti stop being Graffiti?
No matter what definition we choose, there is no doubt in my mind that your post covers and interventions bring a whole new dimension to street art. Oh, and the poem by Oni is beautiful!
Does it have to be art to be graffiti? Are tags and the such improperly labelled graffiti? If so, why aren’t they art? Beauty? Intention? Visual effect? Skill involved?
I would consider ‘tagging’ an artform, just as I would categorize sticker-bombing or ‘throw-ups’ as art (and graffiti). I’d argue that graffiti is more about intent and how it is viewed through the lens of social norms than it is about beauty (though I think it is beautiful), medium used, or the skill involved. For example, this is both art and graffiti: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwsBBIIXT0E
One of the issues to distinguish between is whether graffiti is an artform, or a political form - i.e.: is the essence of graffiti contained in the work itself or the act? From all the prior posts, I get the feeling that it is a little of both.
In 2005, the city of Vancouver organized an event along the base of the Seymour offramp of the Granville bridge. They offered space and supplies to interested participants and let them paint whatever they want, so long as they did not incorporate “direct advertising, trade marks, racial/religious/political acts”. I watched alot of the murals go up, and the work was phenomenal (you can see photos of that year and others on the City’s website.
Yet of course, the fact that they imposed restrictions (especially on political expression) detracted from the freedom that “illegal” graffiti provides. The city structures its graffiti projects as much as it can, and couples their mural projects with restrictive fines and penalties for “illegal” graffiti.
Which leaves me with a question. The 2005 Seymour mural project offered alot of people the chance to get out and express themselves in quite traditional graffiti form. At the same time it sought to ‘legitimize’ grafitti by giving it state sanction, necessarily taking something away from the artists themselves. Can we consider the murals painted as part of this program graffiti, or like Eliot points out, merely art masquerading as graffiti?
So would this be considered graffiti?
http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com/outside.html
Eitherway, it sure is fantastic art!
you’re all over thinking it. and the original guy who has “broke down and decided to offer up some of the stuff that I’ve been doing just to feed your eyes with an alternative or two” is also posting art with motif’s that have been explored in all sorts of pop art and neo-dadaism…. art is what you want it to be, and if you don’t like what other people are producing (and calling art) you don’t need to look at it either. shove off.
graffiti is the means of distribution, it has never been, never will be, nor ever should be, a style. if it’s public, and the person doing it wants to call it that, it’s graffiti. art snobs not required. case closed.
I believe you are right! Graffiti should never be a style.
I don’t agree that it has never been. Graffiti style is very well know and unfortunately it has been repeated over and over and over again. It’s what is called, old school graffiti tagging and lettering pieces.
The point I was trying to make by posting this item is that, I would like to see people explore their cities and look at them in a different way. I think that by doing that, art in the street, graffiti style and public art, legal or not, will change drastically. The post from “lamont” is the perfect example of that.
It’s not about “shoving off” or art snobbery. It’s just a post asking for remote change and if I offended you, then, what can I say. I find your sensitinity, strange. With much love and respect. ….jc
I’d agree with Geoff that graffiti is a means of distribution, but it’s still a particular kind of distribution. To summarize/clarify what I’ve already written above, for me: Graffiti is any piece of art displayed both publicly and illegally. It doesn’t matter what form the art takes. Any art that isn’t both public and illegal isn’t graffiti.
In terms of graffiti illegally placed on private property, I see that as a re-appropriation and reclaiming - the making public - of private spaces (”temporary autonomous zones” for those into the anarchist lingo).