Graffiti

Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface. People usually do it without permission, and others can see it. For other meanings, see Graffiti (disambiguation). Graffiti can be as simple as a written "monikers", which is a name or signature. It can also be as detailed as a large wall painting. Graffiti has existed since ancient times. Examples have been found from ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.

Modern graffiti is a topic people often disagree about. In most countries, painting or marking property without permission is considered vandalism. Modern graffiti started in the early 1970s in the New York City subway system and in Philadelphia. It later spread across the rest of the United States and to other countries around the world.

Graffiti is different from murals. Murals are often allowed by the law, and they are a type of street art.

Etymology

The word "graffiti" (used for both one and many) comes from the Italian word graffiato, which means "scratched." The rare singular form is "graffito." In ancient times, people carved graffiti into walls with sharp tools, though chalk or coal were sometimes used. The word comes from the Greek graphein, which means "to write."

History

See also: Megalithic graffiti symbols

See also: Roman graffiti

Graffiti is very old. Most petroglyphs and geoglyphs are between 10,000 and 40,000 years old. The oldest are cave paintings in Australia. Early artists also made stencil graffiti of their hands, which may have worked like a modern tag. The oldest known written graffiti was found on the Greek island of Astypalaia. It dates to around 500 BC. Much of this early graffiti was bragging. Some was word games like the Sator Square, some said "I was here," and some made comments about gladiators. In Ancient Rome, graffiti was a way to communicate and was usually not seen as vandalism. The Alexamenos graffito was later seen as disrespectful to religion, so it was removed. It may contain one of the earliest drawings of Jesus. Graffiti also helps us learn about history. The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, comes from carvings on rocks in the deserts of southern Syria, eastern Jordan, and northern Saudi Arabia. Visitors to the citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka wrote their names on a "mirror wall" between the 6th and 18th centuries. The Umayyad Arab and Persian poet Yazid al-Himyari wrote political poems on walls between Sajistan and Basra. People read and shared them widely. Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, and Filippino Lippi carved their names in the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea.

In the 1790s, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt. The oldest known graffiti monikers were found on traincars made by hobos and railworkers starting in the late 1800s. Filmmaker Bill Daniel told the story of these Bozo Texino monikers in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?. During World War II, the phrase "Kilroy was here" spread widely around the world. Modern graffiti style was strongly influenced by hip-hop culture. It started with young people in the 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Their early tags were followed by bigger works called pieces painted on the sides of subway trains. Many people admired the art, but others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, saw it as damage to public property. The 1974 essay The Faith of Graffiti helped the word "graffiti" become popular. In 2001, computer company IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco for damages and clean-up after a spray-painted advertising campaign. In 2005, Sony used a similar campaign to promote its PlayStation Portable. This time, it paid building owners for permission to paint their walls.

Main article: Commercial graffiti

Global movements

When graffiti is made as art, it often uses the Latin script, even in countries where it is not the main writing system. In Africa, Amadou Lamine Ngom, known as Docta, worked in the early 1990s to share graffiti and street art with others. Graffiti became a way for artists to speak about social, political, and environmental issues. Festivals such as FESTIGRAFF in Dakar, Senegal, now celebrate these artists. In South Africa, graffiti became an important part of culture after apartheid, and some local rules allow it in public spaces. American graffiti and hiphop spread through Europe in the 1980s. By the late 1990s, every European country had graffiti artists. In the early 1980s, Blek le Rat began making stencil art on the streets of Paris. Later, Banksy took up this technique and improved it. Some of the earliest graffiti exhibitions outside the USA were held in Amsterdam. In Munich, Germany, tags and pieces began appearing in 1983. The European Graffiti Union was formed in 1986 to help create legal places for graffiti. Today, the Bahnwärter Thiel club has spaces for graffiti artists on the grounds of the former "Slaughterhouse". The Berlin-based crew 1UP has become widely known.

Graffiti in the Middle East has grown slowly. There are taggers in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries, Israel, and Iran. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a place for graffiti, much like the Berlin Wall. Graffiti has played an important role in the street art scene in the MENA region. This was especially true after the Arab Spring of 2011 and the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19, when people used art to share their political and social views. Banksy has had an important effect in the MENA area, especially in Palestine and Bethlehem. In South America, graffiti is very common in Brazilian cities. Pichação uses tall, sharp letters and is usually a form of protest. Prominent Brazilian artists include Os Gêmeos and Nunca. Southeast Asian countries have many graffiti influences that mostly come from modern Western culture. Graffiti has long been a common sight in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Types

See also: Graffiti terminology

Artists mainly use spray paint and markers to make tagging, throw ups, and pieces. Paint markers, paint dabbers, and scratching tools are also used. Some art companies, such as Montana Colors, make supplies for graffiti and street art. Many big cities have graffiti art stores.

Stencil graffiti is made by cutting shapes into a stiff material, like cardboard or folders. Paint is then sprayed through the cutout. Some of the first stencils were made in 1981 by Blek le Rat in Paris and in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours, France. By 1985, stencils had appeared in other cities, including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne.

Stickers, also called slaps, are drawn on before they are put up in public. Popular stickers include the United States Postal Service's Label 228 and name tags. Name tag stickers were first made by C-Line Products in 1959. They became popular in graffiti and sticker art. Eggshell stickers break into tiny pieces when someone tries to remove them. Stickers let artists put up their work quickly and quietly.

Tagging means writing one's "name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle that is unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti. Some recent graffiti uses hashtags.

Throw ups are large, bubble-style writings meant to be put up as widely and quickly as possible. Pieces are large, detailed, letter-based works. They often have many colours inside and around the letters, and sometimes characters.

Wildstyle is the most complex form of modern graffiti. It can be hard to read if you are not familiar with it. It draws inspiration from calligraphy. The term became popular through the Wild Style graffiti crew, formed by Tracy 168 of the Bronx, New York, in 1974.

Modern graffiti also uses other arts and technologies. Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media. Yarnbombing is another recent form.

Purpose

Artists have used graffiti as art for a long time. In 1962, avant-garde artist Asger Jorn painted "the avant-garde won't give up" in a style that looked like graffiti. Many people who like graffiti think it should be seen in public places, where everyone can enjoy it, rather than hidden away in a museum or gallery. Graffiti is a way to communicate and express yourself. It can also warn or inform people. Some people see it as art, while others see it as vandalism. Because of this, many graffitists stay anonymous so they do not get in trouble. Graffiti is still the one of four hip-hop elements that is not considered "performance art." Many graffitists also fit the introverted archetypal artist type.

Banksy is one of the best-known street artists in the world. He remains hidden so that he will not be arrested. He is known for political stencil art that speaks against war. His work is mainly in Bristol, England, but it can be seen from Los Angeles to Palestine. He painted funny, critical pictures on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier. Since 2000, a number of exhibitions have featured his work. Some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected his art. Others have removed it, seeing it as vandalism. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke objected when the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat used a photo of a Peugeot 208 with his graffiti in the background. The article was about new cars. Psyke said he does not want his art used for business, even if he is paid.

Graffiti can also mark territory. Some graffiti uses tags and logos to show outsiders whose neighborhood it is. Gang graffiti uses secret symbols, initials, and unique calligraphies to show who belongs to a group, who their rivals are, and where their borders are. Many experts see artistic value in some graffiti as public art. Some researchers say it can help people seek social emancipation or political goals. During times of conflict, graffiti has offered a way to communicate. The Berlin Wall was covered in graffiti that showed the pressures people felt under Soviet rule over the GDR.

Graffiti is often linked with rebelling against authority. The anarcho-punk band Crass stenciled anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages across the London Underground in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Graffiti was also a major part of the punk scene in Amsterdam. Slogans covered Paris during the protests of May 1968. Later, in the 1990s, subvertising, culture jamming, and the rise of Street Art brought more political forms of graffiti. Some artists started using paints that could be washed away. In Australia, the BUGA UP group painted over tobacco and alcohol billboards from 1978 to 1994. In Berlin, activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm spent 35 years removing neo-Nazi and right-wing extremist graffiti across Germany.

In Belgrade, a graffiti mural shows Ratko Mladić. He was a former general of the Serb army. The ICTY found him guilty as a War Criminal for serious crimes committed during the Bosnian War. Critics say the mural reflects Bosnian genocide denial. They also say that Serbia's Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin, has not acted against cases like this. On 9 November 2021, police blocked access to the mural. This was to stop activists from painting over it on the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism. Two activists were arrested after throwing eggs at the mural.

Some offensive graffiti is subtle. It uses heteroglossia, so only people who know the local context understand that it is racist. Activists in Russia have painted caricatures of local officials with mouths shaped like potholes. This shows their anger about poor roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitist painted images around potholes. These potholes were often repaired within 48 hours.

Decorative and high art

Main article: Street art

In the early 1980s, some of the first art galleries to show graffiti artists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan. In 2006, the Brooklyn Museum held an exhibition that showed graffiti as an art form. The idea began in New York's outer boroughs. In the early 1980s, artists such as Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat made it very popular. The show included 22 works by New York graffiti artists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. The curator hoped visitors would think differently about what they had assumed about graffiti.

Starting in the 1970s, Burhan Doğançay took photographs of city walls around the world. He kept the pictures to inspire his own paintings. This project, now called "Walls of the World," grew to about 30,000 images taken over 40 years in many countries. In 1982, some of these photographs were shown in a solo exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. In Australia, art experts have said that some local graffiti is creative enough to be considered art.

Environmental effects

Spray paint can harm the environment. The paint contains harmful chemicals, and the can uses gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

These chemicals, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), help form ground level ozone, which is a type of air pollution. Most of the gas released from graffiti is made of VOCs.

Government responses

Governments in many places have responded to graffiti in different ways. In Asia, Mao Zedong used slogans and paintings in the 1920s to support China's communist movement. A film by Lance Crayon found that graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, though political and religious graffiti is not allowed. In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti, and some of his work is now kept by the government. Taiwan has allowed graffiti in special "Graffiti Zones" since 2005, and a graffiti contest was held in Ximending. Artists who paint outside these areas can still be fined up to NT$6,000. In Singapore in 1993, a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, was charged with vandalism under the Vandalism Act of Singapore. This law was first passed to stop communist graffiti. He was sentenced to four months in jail, a fine, and a caning. The New York Times criticized the punishment, and many people asked for clemency. The president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, reduced the caning from six strokes to four. In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court. She had painted a rat on posters for the G-20 Summit. Park said the letter in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat". Prosecutors said it was an insult to the president, Lee Myung-bak, who was hosting the summit.

In Europe, a Scout group in France tried to remove modern graffiti in 1992. By mistake, they damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne. This earned them the Ig Nobel Prize in archaeology. In 2006, the European Parliament asked the European Commission to create city plans to reduce litter, graffiti, and other problems in European cities. In Budapest, Hungary, a city group called I Love Budapest and a special police unit both work on the problem. In the United Kingdom, the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became the newest anti-graffiti law. The Keep Britain Tidy campaign called for zero tolerance of graffiti. In all, 123 Members of Parliament, including Tony Blair, signed a charter stating, "Graffiti is not art, it's crime." In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used for the first time to convict graffiti artists. Nine members of the DPM crew were found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal damage. In Australia, many cities have set aside walls for legal graffiti to reduce vandalism. The "Graffiti Tunnel" at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney is one example. Many state governments have banned selling spray paint to people under 18, the age of majority. Melbourne is known for its graffiti, and Hosier Lane is a popular place for visitors. The Lonely Planet travel guide lists it as a major attraction. In New Zealand, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced a crackdown on graffiti in 2008, calling it a harmful crime. In Auckland that year, a property owner was found guilty of manslaughter after someone died in a confrontation with two teenage taggers.

In media

Many documentaries have explored graffiti and street art. 80 Blocks from Tiffany's (1979) shows parts of the South Bronx community in New York City near the end of the South Bronx gangs. Stations of the Elevated (1980) is the earliest documentary about subway graffiti in New York City. Style Wars (1983) is an early documentary about hip-hop culture. Piece by Piece (2005) tells the history of San Francisco graffiti from the early 1980s. NEXT: A Primer on Urban Painting (2005) looks at graffiti culture around the world. RASH (2005) is about Melbourne, Australia, where artists make a living from street art. Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010) was produced by Banksy. It tells the story of Thierry Guetta, who loves street art. The film also features Shepard Fairey and Invader, and Guetta finds out that Invader is his cousin. Graffiti Wars (2011) tells about King Robbo's argument with Banksy and how different authorities feel about graffiti and street art. Spiritual Letters (2021), a German documentary by Mr. Paradox Paradise, is about art in public spaces.

Several films also show graffiti culture in exciting stories. Wild Style (1983) is about hip-hop and graffiti culture in New York City. Turk 182 (1985) is about using graffiti to protest for political change, and Bomb the System (2002) follows a group of graffiti artists in New York City today. Quality of Life (2004) was filmed in the Mission District of San Francisco, and Wholetrain (2006) is a German film.