OUGD401 - Graffiti and Street art lecture

Graffiti and Street art lecture

The very roots of wall/ street art could be argued to be cave paintings. 
The caves at Lascaux, France. The paintings were executed using the local resources of animal bones and natural pigments from sources such as fruit etc.

And so, the word graffiti comes from the Italian word,'Graffiato', meaning, 'to scratch'.

But the earliest signs of graffiti as we know it today would be those in Pompeii, which date back to 75AD and show caricatures of famous politicians at the time, with a witty remark from the artist.

This then develops over the years into examples such as 'Kilroy' or 'Chad' as he was known in the USA. The image of the little man with his nose poking over a wall, accompanied with the phrase 'wot no...?' as in, 'what, no sugar?' etc. relating to the rationing of food and supplies that both countries were experiencing at the time.

In Paris in May 1968, the largest general strike ever occurred and as a result, graffiti started to also appear, as a tool to voice the opinions of the people. The image of 'we are the power' shows a crowd who's bodies are fused together to resemble 1 unified being with the same opinion.

Urban graffiti started to develop with examples of street artists such as Chris Osborne AKA 'Sweet Toof'.

But graffiti exactly as we know it today (excusing Banksy) is heavily visually influenced by New York City in the 1970's:

• introduction of spray can graffiti 
• evolves alongside hip hop culture
• makes language of the streets/ slang visible to all parts of the city via subway trains
• announcing a prescence of those from the ghetto 'we will not be ignored'

Two cultures alongside each other in NYC in the seventies:

• Graffiti/ Hip hop culture : heavily politically inspired.
• Disco culture : superficial, live while you're young lifestyle.

Jon Naar, a photographer during this time often showed his dissatisfaction with the clashes in wealth segregation in the city in his book 'Becoming a Graffiti photographer'.

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. He began as an obscure graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into an acclaimed Neo-expressionist and Primitivist painter by the 1980s.
He invented a comical character that featured in most of his graffiti artwork: Samo. (same-oh = Same-old). New York City almost followed Samo's life until his 'death' in 1979, Basquiat trying to symbolise what he considered to be a decline in Graffiti art.
Basquiat also collaborated with Andy Warhol in their piece, 'General Electric with waiter', 1984. General Electric are a massive corporation, and through this piece, Warhol and Basquiat are trying to get their opinion across (kind of the ethics of graffiti art)

Keith Haring a social activists', 'Radiant Baby', 1990.

Graffiti becoming an almost elitist culture, with graffiti art being commissioned on subway adverts and the opening of the Popshop. (closed 2005). Popshop was a celebrity hangout, and sold t shirts, posters, toys etc bearing signature images. This caused a focus for dissatisfaction as the founders of graffiti felt that graffiti should be free, for the people!

John Feckner, 'Broken Promises', 1980 - refers to political misuse of free space in the city.

Graffiti was never a male-dominated art form. Jenny Holzers 'Time Square Show', 1980, mocks the adverts in NYC's time square showing the 'truisms' of advertising. 

Video game culture and other contemporary cultures of the time filter through into this relatively recent art form. Such as those on the Berlin Wall in 1961.
'Felis' , 1984, expresses the anger for the lack of goods in the 'eastern block'. 

Advertising and popular art forms started to take up the graffiti style in an effort to appeal to younger audiences such as Tats Cru for Coca Cola in 1997. This caused a distortion of the original unspoken manifesto of graffiti. It is fuelled by political arguments and opinions. It has to mean something!
Graffitiing was featured in video games such as 'Bomb the world' (2004), Jet Set Radio (2000-2003) and as something you could do on the Grand Theft Auto game.

'Invader' a french graffiti artist, born in 1969 executed his works with a slightly different approach. His first mosaic in mid 1990s Paris. Because his art was made out of tiles it meant that they are a lot harder to remove. The video game culture was filtered through again in this style as the tiles were treated like pixels.
The 'Invasion' of space invaders characters slowly started to spread across cities in France then across 22 different countries. There is also a conceptual element to these pieces, as you can pick up a free map and see all of these art pieces in Paris. The points on the map form a space invader character itself.

The re-emergence of street art began with the appearance of 'Banksy' (Kate Moss) and Shepard Fairey (Obama, 2008). Another example would be the Parisian photographer JR (Favella Morro Da Provienda). He paints across multiple buildings and photographs at the perfect angle to create one huge piece.

Artist, 'Blu' started to appear in Italy and another, Os Gemeos in Brazil. (Lisbon 2010) makes some sort of social comment but they did receive a form of permission to paint on people's houses, which takes away from the outspoken rebelliousness of Graffiti.
Blu became an animator based on his graffiti works in around 2008. Something similar appeared in the Vauxhall Corsa advert in 2011. 
The 123 Klan from France maintained the graffiti style but in a more controlled way by decorating expensive cars. (Lamborghini in particular)

Paul Curtis AKA 'Moose' introduced an almost reverse of graffiti by jetwashing a dirty wall to reveal his patterns.

'Bomb it' - a useful documentary on Graffiti.

Free art friday - artists place free art out in public for people to enjoy and take home. Sometimes games are made out of it, and clues as to the secret hiding places are revealed on twitter.

Sam 3 from Spain, responds to an exsisting environment using only black paint (Murcia 2010)
VHILS aka Alexandre Farto from Portugal, his piece in London 2008 works on the idea of plaster removal.

Faith 71 in Amsterdam celebrates Hyperrealist and hyperabstract art.

More examples of graffiti:

• Diva (Brooklyn)
• Fafi ( France)
• Miss Van
• Herakut
• Swoon