Modern Graffiti

Graffiti is often seen as having become intertwined with hip hop culture and the myriad of international styles derived from New York City Subway graffiti (see below). However, there are many other instances of notable graffiti this century. Graffiti has long appeared on railroad boxcars and subways. The one with the longest history, dating back to the 1920s and continuing into the present day, is [www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgSRiJjmnYYBozo Texino]. During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and its filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words ‘Bird Lives.’ In the sixties American graffiti proclaiming that "Yossarian lives!", was briefly popular, a reference to the protagonist of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22. The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchist, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") expressed in painted graffiti, poster art, and stencil art. In the U.S. at the time other political phrases (such as "Free Huey" about Black Panther Huey Newton) became briefly popular as graffiti in limited areas, only to be forgotten. A popular graffito of the 1970s was the legend "Dick Nixon Before He Dicks You," reflecting the hostility of the youth culture to that U.S. president.

Rock and Roll graffiti is a significant sub genre. A famous graffito of the 20th century was the inscription in the London subway reading "Clapton is God". The phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington Underground station in the autumn of 1967. The graffiti was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall. Graffiti also became associated with the anti-establishment punk rock movement beginning in the 1970s. Bands such as Black Flag and Crass (and their followers) widely stenciled their names and logos, while many punk night clubs, squats and hangouts are famous for their graffiti. In the late 1980s the upside down Martini glass that was the tag for punk band Missing Foundation was the most ubiquitious graffito in lower Manhattan, and copied by hard core punk fans throughout the U.S. and West Germany.

Graffiti as an element of hip hop

In America around the late 1960s, graffiti was used as a form of expression by political activists, and also by gangs such as the Savage Skulls, La Familia, and Savage Nomads to mark territory. Towards the end of the 1960s, the signatures—tags—of Philadelphia graffiti writers Cornbread, Cool Earl and Topcat 126 started to appear.. Cornbread is often cited as one of the earliest writer of modern graffiti. Around 1970-71, the centre of graffiti innovation moved to New York City where writers following in the wake of TAKI 183 and Tracy 168 would add their street number to their nickname, "bomb" a train with their work, and let the subway take it—and their fame, if it was impressive, or simply pervasive, enough—"all city". Bubble lettering held sway initially among writers from the Bronx, though the elaborate writing Tracy 168 dubbed "wildstyle" would come to define the art. The early trendsetters were joined in the 70s by artists like Dondi, Zephyr and Lady Pink.

 

An aerosol paint can, common tool for modern graffiti

Graffiti is one of the four main elements of hip hop culture (along with rapping, DJing, and break dancing). The relationship between graffiti and hip hop culture arises both from early graffiti artists practicing other aspects of hip hop, and its being practiced in areas where other elements of hip hop were evolving as art forms. By the mid-eighties, the form would move from the street to the art world. Jean-Michel Basquiat would abandon his SAMO tag for art galleries, and even street art's connections to hip hop would loosen. Occasional hip hop paeans to graffiti could still be heard throughout the nineties, however, in tracks like the Artifacts' "Wrong Side of Da Tracks" and Company Flow's "Lune TNS".

Early modernist graffiti can be dated back to box cars in the early 1920s yet the graffiti movement seen in today’s contemporary world really originated through the minds of political activists and gang members of the 1960s. The “pioneering era” of graffiti took place during the years 1969 through 1974. This time period was a time of change in popularity and style. New York City became the new hub (formally Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) of graffiti tags and images. Graffiti artists during this time period sought to put as many markings up as possible around the city. This was the ultimate goal of exposure. Soon after the migration from Philadelphia to NYC, the city produced one of the first graffiti artists to gain media attention in New York, TAKI 183. TAKI 183 was a youth from Washington Heights, Manhattan who worked as a foot messenger. His tag is a mixture of his name Demetrius (Demetraki), TAKI, and his street number, 183rd. Being a foot messenger, he was constantly on the subway and began to put up his tags along his travels. This spawned a 1971 article in the New York Times titled "'Taki 183' Spawns Pen Pals". Julio 204 is also credited as an early writer, though not recognized at the time outside of the graffiti subculture. Other notable names from that time are: Stay High 149, PHASE 2, Stitch 1, Joe 182, Junior 161 and Cay 161. Barbara 62 and Eva 62 were also important early graffiti artists in New York, and are the

first women to become known for writing graffiti.

Also taking place during this era was the movement from outside on the city streets to the subways. Graffiti also saw its first seeds of competition around this time. The goal of most artists at this point was "getting up": having as many tags and bombs in as many places as possible. Artists began to break into subway yards in order to hit as many trains as they could with a lower risk, often creating larger elaborate pieces of art along the subway car sides. This is when the act of bombing was said to be officially established.

The use of designs such as polka dots, crosshatches, and checkers became increasingly popular. Spray paint use increased dramatically around this time as artists began to expand their work. "Top-to-bottoms", works which span the entire height of a subway car, made their first appearance around this time as well. The overall creativity and artistic maturation of this time period did not go unnoticed by the mainstream – Hugo Martinez founded the United Graffiti Artists (UGA) in 1972. UGA consisted of many top graffiti artists of the time, and aimed to present graffiti in an art gallery setting. By 1974, graffiti artists had begun to incorporate the use of scenery and cartoon characters into their work. TF5 (The Fabulous Five), was a crew which was known for their elaborately designed whole cars^.

By the mid 1970s time, most standards had been set in graffiti writing and culture. The heaviest "bombing" in U.S. history took place in this period, partially because of the economic restraints on New York City, which limited its ability to combat this art form with graffiti removal programs or transit maintenance. Also during this time, "top-to-bottoms" evolved to take up entire subway cars. Most note-worthy of this era proved to be the forming of the "throw-up", which are more complex than simple "tagging," but not as intricate as a "piece". Not long after their introduction, throw-ups led to races to see who could do the largest number of throw-ups in the least amount of time.

Graffiti writing was becoming very competitive and artists strove to go "all-city," or to have their names seen in all five boroughs of NYC. Eventually, the standards which had been set in the early 70s began to become stagnant. These changes in attitude led many artists into the 1980s with a desire to expand and change  .            

The late 1970s and early 1980s brought a new wave of creativity to the scene. As the influence of graffiti grew beyond the Bronx, a graffiti movement began with the encouragement of Friendly Freddie. Fab 5 Freddy (Fred Brathwaite) is another popular graffiti figure of this time, who started in a Brooklyn "wall-writing group." He notes how differences in spray technique and letters between Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn began to merge in the late 70s: "out of that came 'Wild Style'." Fab 5 Freddy is often credited with helping to spread the influence of graffiti and rap music beyond its early foundations in the Bronx, and making links the the mostly white downtown art and music scenes. It was around this time that the established art world started becoming receptive to the graffiti culture for the first time since Hugo Martinez’s Razor Gallery in the early 1970s.

It was also, however, the last wave of true bombing before the Transit Authority made graffiti eradication a priority. The MTA (Metro Transit Authority) began to repair yard fences, and remove graffiti consistently, battling the surge of graffiti artists. With the MTA combating the artists by removing their work it often led many artists to quit in frustration, as their work was constantly being removed.

In 1979, graffiti artist Lee Quinones and Fab 5 Freddy were given a gallery opening in Rome by art dealer Claudio Bruni. For many outside of New York, it was their first encounter with the art form. Fab 5 Freddy's friendship with Debbie Harry influenced Blondie's single "Rapture" (Chrysalis, 1981), the video of which featured Jean-Michel Basquiat of the SAMO© Graffiti, and offered many their first glimpse of a depiction of elements of graffiti in hip hop culture. More important here was Charlie Ahearn's independently released fiction film Wild Style (Wild Style, 1982), and the early PBS documentary Style Wars (1983). Hit songs such as "The Message" and "Planet Rock" and their accompanying music videos (both 1982) contributed to a growing interest outside New York in all aspects of hip hop.Style Wars depicted not only famous graffiti artists such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne and Zephyr, but also reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip hop culture by incorporating famous early break dancing groups such as Rock Steady Crew into the film which also features a solely rap soundtrack. Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s.  Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983. Hollywood also paid attention, consulting writers like PHASE 2 as it depicted the culture and gave it international exposure in movies like Beat Street (Orion, 1984).

This period also saw the emergence of the new stencil graffiti genre. Some of the first examples were created ca 1981 by graffiti artist Blek le Rat in Paris; by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photograher Rennie Ellis.

   Just as the culture was spreading outside New York and overseas, the cultural aspect of graffiti in New York was said to be deteriorating almost to the point of extinction. The rapid decline in writing was due to several factors. The streets became more dangerous due to the burgeoning crack epidemic, legislation was underway to make penalties for graffiti artists more severe, and restrictions on paint sale and display made racking (stealing) materials difficult. Above all, the MTA greatly increased their anti-graffiti budget. Many favored painting sites became heavily guarded, yards were patrolled, newer and better fences were erected, and buffing of pieces was strong, heavy, and consistent. As a result of subways being harder to paint, more writers went into the streets, which is now, along with commuter trains and box cars, the most prevalent form of writing.

 

Storefront grafitti of a restaurant between the World Trade Center and Chinatown, in New York City.

Many graffiti artists, however, chose to see the new problems as a challenge rather than a reason to quit. A downside to these challenges was that the artists became very territorial of good writing spots, and strength and unity in numbers became increasingly important. This was probably the most violent era in graffiti history—artists who chose to go out alone were often beaten and robbed of their supplies. Some of the mentionable graffiti artists from this era were Blade, Dondi, Min 1,Quik,Seen and Skeme. This was stated to be the end for the casual NYC subway graffiti artists, and the years to follow would be populated by only what some consider the most "die hard" artists. People often found that making graffiti around their local areas was an easy way to get caught so they traveled to different areas.

The years between 1985 and 1989 became known as the "die hard" era. A last shot for the graffiti artists of this time was in the form of subway cars destined for the scrap yard. With the increased security, the culture had taken a step back. The previous elaborate "burners" on the outside of cars were now marred with simplistic marker tags which often soaked through the paint.

By mid-1986 the MTA and the CTA were winning their "war on graffiti," and the population of active graffiti artists diminished. As the population of artists lowered so did the violence associated with graffiti crews and "bombing." Roof tops also were being the new billboards for some 80's writers. Some notable graffiti artists of this era were Cope2, Claw Money, Sane Smith, Zephyr and T Kid.

The current era in graffiti is characterized by a majority of graffiti artists moving from subway or train cars to "street galleries." The Clean Train Movement started in May, 1989, when New York attempted to remove all of the subway cars found with graffiti on them out of the transit system. Because of this, many graffiti artists had to resort to new ways to express themselves. Much controversy arose among the streets debating whether graffiti should be considered an actual form of art.

Prior to the Clean Train Movement, the streets were largely left untouched not only in New York, but in other major American cities as well. After the transit company began diligently cleaning their trains, graffiti burst onto the streets of America to an un-expecting un-appreciative public.

City officials elsewhere in the country smugly assumed that gang graffiti were a blight limited largely to the Big Apple No more. The stylized smears born in the South Bronx have spread across the country, covering buildings, bridges and highways in every urban center. From Philadelphia to Santa Barbara, Calif., the annual costs of cleaning up after the underground artists are soaring into the billions.

During this period many graffiti artists had taken to displaying their works in galleries and owning their own studios. This practice started in the early 1980s with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, who started out tagging locations with his signature SAMO (Same Old Shit), and Keith Haring, who was also able to take his art into studio spaces.

In some cases, graffiti artists had achieved such elaborate graffiti (especially those done in memory of a deceased person) on storefront gates that shopkeepers have hesitated to cover them up. In the Bronx after the death of rapper Big Pun, several murals dedicated to his life done by TATS CRU appeared virtually overnight;similar outpourings occurred after the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Big L, and Jam Master Jay.