Everyone in civilization, except an extremely rare few in this world, has seen street art or graffiti in some form. Be it spray paint on a wall, a wheat-paste around the corner, or even a etching into a stone surface or school desk. Since I was born, which was well after the popularization of street art, it has been an influence in my life ever since I was first able to comprehend visual images.
In my childhood the influence from this culture was everywhere, in almost every design. The toys were riddled with it, the shows, the ads, the clothes, the video games, and became especially prevalent in everything when I got into skateboarding. Eventually most of my drawings I did as a preteen were experiments with graffiti lettering and characters. This style of visual imagery has followed me throughout my life and continues to show up in certain ways through the art I produce today and has even led to my involvement in taking part of producing street art. Even the majority of the contemporary art I see now-a-days is tangled with street art imagery and impact from this movement. This genre has grown so large that very often I am learning about new artists or styles that are involved with this subculture.
However this art form hasn't always been this way, though it has been around longer than any other art form, and has had many ups and downs. Graffiti could be attributed back to the cave drawings in Lascaux, France, and then almost every civilization since then for recording events, writing slogans, and especially decoration. However, graffiti as we know it didn't show up until the late 1960s in Philadelphia and then moved to New York, where this new art form blew up. Originally it was done just by kids, usually in lower class neighborhoods, that just wanted to state their name and attain a kind of fame, and was closely tied to hip hop culture.
Then it moved to the West Coast, where it was largely used by gangs to mark territories and promote themselves, along with individual artists just doing it for the sake of it under high danger from authorities and gangs alike. This art expression grew and grew until it was very prominent in most major cities around the world and the public at first didn't know how to perceive or take it. Until in the 1980s when governments tried rigorously to stamp out graffiti and street art, seeing it as vandalism and attributing it to other more serious criminal activity and chaos. They slowed it down a bit and had many supporters and vigilantes on their side, however despite their efforts it still flourished all around the world, with many diverse groups embracing it.
Today, street artists are among some of the highest paid artists; important collectors are buying up works of art from graffiti artists for huge amounts of money, while many museums and galleries everywhere are showing it. Some of the street/graffiti artists hold an extremely prestigious status in the art world. Although, this movement isn't fully condoned yet by art history, authorities, or the general public; due to its ever evolving maturity and its strong social and political statements, it soon to be considered the greatest artistic movement since Pop art.
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| Drawings from the Lascaux cave in France. The images on this cave wall are speculated to be the first not only graffiti, but art that is known to humanity. The concept of graffiti (drawing on the walls) has been around since nomads conquered the world. |
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| Graffiti as most people know it. This style of art since its start in the 1960's has continued development. This is a good image to show the maturity of the tag and the artistic ability and craziness, not to mention the amazing skill of can control, that was grew with time and helped this movement explode. This is as much about recognition as it is about artistic expression, with the bold bright colors, and the huge size of this piece immediately gripping your attention and drawing you in. |
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| This image is a good example of the current trend of moving away from tagging and writing ones name to almost a fine art approach. This is not done with an aerosol can, but is a wheat-paste. Even though the image is quite large, it has a nice subtleness to it that makes you take a second look and contemplate it's meaning. Citation: Lescaux cave mural. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2011, from http://surferjerry.com/wp- Nygard, J. (2008, January, 3). Gaffiti and street art: A brief history. Retrieved March 23, 2011, from http://www.associatedcontent. Street art San Juan, PR. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2011, from http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ Swoon. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2011, from http://30.media.tumblr.com/ |
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