ady_bob One Bboy In Entity Din: VPC/ToT
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Graffiti is the street art of HipHop. To many, the writing all over buildings and public places in most of America’s major metropolitan areas is nothing more than vandalism, and well...alot of it is. But graffiti is a big part of hip hop culture, and though a sharpie scribbled on a subway wall may not be art, many of the ‘graf’ heads that practice graffiti are true artists. Graffiti has been around for as long as humans can write. The word graffiti comes from the ancient Greek work graphien, meaning; to write. The first graffiti was done by prehistoric man on the walls of the caves they lived in, often in symbolic pictures to tell the story of a hunt or a long voyage. Thousands of years later graffiti was used to spread anti-political messages. Guerilla activists would sprawl a message in huge letters in public areas in hopes that people would recognize their cause. Graffiti as we all know it in the 21st century began with a man named Keith Harring, Harring was an artist and to promote himself and his work he would plaster posters of his unique drawings in subways and other highly trafficked places. Soon instead of using posters he would just draw directly onto the walls. This was the beginning of graffiti art.
But wait...what about the scribbled words that are so common in big cities? Well those words are called ‘tags.’ And though tagging is the least artistic form of graffiti it is also what popularized the art. Tagging began in Philly in the 1960’s, but wasn’t popularized till it made its way to New York City. In 1971, The New York Times published an article on a person named TAKI 183. Taki 183 was a tag that first showed up in a Washington Heights neighborhood, but soon was all over the city. The Times traced the tag to a foot messenger whose nickname was Taki, and 183 was the number of the street where he lived. Taki 183 would tag the buildings where he delivered messages and also write his tag in the subway, the way he got around.
Though there were other people doing the same thing as Taki 183, the Times article gave credit to him, and soon thousands of kids began duplicating Taki’s tag in there own name. This became known as ‘bombing.’ Kids would tag the places they where at with markers at first, but then moved on to spray paint. The object was to ‘bomb’ as many places as possible, therefore having your tag be the most respected. Soon subways and back allies were filled with tags.
‘Graf’ writers soon realized that just having the most tags was not enough to stay recognized. This was the beginning of tag style. Writers began using unique ways of writing to keep there fame. Different scripts where used in different parts of New York City and soon one writer was able to know were another writer was from just by his or her tag style. This was the next step in the evolution of graffiti. Taggers from different areas began to link up, much like breakdancers did, into crews. These crews would find the best places to tag, trying to make them the biggest and most elaborate they could get. Spray paint became the tool of choice for these graf crews. The standard spray nozzle for a can would only spray in thin lines an the graffers could not get the desired effect out of the spraypaint so, kids began removing the nozzles and replacing them with nozzles from other aresol products that would change the way the paint came out. Writers sprayed the names of there crews in block letters which they would fill with unique designs. These deigns then started to appear outside the letters and often became more important than the words. By this point tagging had metamorphosed into something far more artistic.
These new elaborate deigns were called ‘pieces.’ Writers realized that by bombing the sides of subway cars with pieces, their work would travel around the city and be seen by everybody. Soon the entire sides of the cars where taken up by by pieces stretching from top to bottom and side to side. Some of these pieces would take hours to complete and the crews that did them would often break into train yards in order to have enough time to finish. The first top to bottom ‘masterpiece’ as it was called is attributed to one person, named SUPER KOOL 223. Graffiti art peaked in the early 1980’s and the cities would pay thousands of dollars to clean up graffiti, but the art never died. Graffers soon stopped writing words and tags and would just spray unique pictures and designs. Many graf artists became legitimate commercial artists. From its early beginnings in Philly and New York, graffiti spread across the nation. In the 1990’s Europe had a surge of graffiti artists and pieces would show up all over Dutch and German cities. As an art form graffiti still exists and a new graf artist is born everyday, however it is unlikely that it will ever see the popularity it saw in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Of the four elements of hip hop, graffiti is the only one not linked to music . Why hip hopers grasped onto graffiti as a form of expression is unknown. Perhaps it is because just like MCing is about getting your ‘props’ and being the illest lyricist, the goal of graffiti is having the best most elaborate style. Whether or not this is the reason, graffiti is still a major part of the culture as a whole. Want to see more graffiti art, check out www.artcrimes.com
GRAFFITI IS NOT A CRIME! – poza de ady_bob, in GRAFFITI Writing · 19.4KB
_______________________________________ . One Bboy In Entity .
#2
Lil'Vietnam
Vizitator
Graffiti is Art
GRAFFITI IS NOT A CRIME! – poza de Lil'Vietnam, in GRAFFITI Writing · 30.6KB
