Is Graffiti Dead?

Banksy, "Laugh now, but one day we'll be in charge"

By Josh Baptista

Is the war over? Are there still starving kids out there? Maybe our views are too fucken narrow; maybe, we have been living in a fantasy world where the comments and convictions we make no longer have any meaning, but who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

I think we need to open the picture up. First of all, we have been communicating with graffiti from the beginning of time. It was not dead for the cave painters, the Egyptians, or the French revolution -- the birthplace of the stencil. However unfortunate it may be that "suits" have taken a hold of graffiti's marketable quality, the power of real graffiti has not diminished. I am moved every time I see a Swoon or a Banksy in a public space and cannot imagine that the intentions of the artists were for Urban Outfitters to get a hold of their influence. This is a huge concern and a problem not just for graffiti artists, but also for all alternative lifestyles. On the other hand, good graffiti has a message, and so, if the art receives attention, then more people will be exposed to the message.

Sterile surroundings provoke ideas of change in highly motivated kids. When people believe in what they are doing enough, they disregard their own safety and well being in order to benefit others. This is an ever-evolving energy that does not make sense to the corporate world, and thus, is something the corporate man will never obtain. All they do is ape the idea of graffiti without understanding exactly what graffiti really is. For example, a Rambo poster is not graffiti, no matter how hard Hollywood tries to make us think it is. It is waiting to become graffiti though, but that can only happen at the hands of artists.

The untrained person that encounters the Rambo poster that Cory Oberndorfer referenced in his review "Graf is Dead" on this blog might consider the poster to be graffiti, but then again, that same person might be wearing a graffiti-inspired t-shirt from Urban Outfitters. The poster lacks the convictions of an artist.

I would like to take a minute to question the nature of graffiti -- an art that constantly comments on its environment. With that said, do you think with an ever changing world there will be ever changing questions? In addition, yes, the suits will get a hold of that freedom that makes graffiti what it is, but this is only a cheap imitation, and it can never be authentic. This is the cycle, and the fact that it's becoming commercialized I think will only make this cult stronger. So how can the innovators die? The market needs graffiti and graffiti needs the market.

A world that has become desensitized to television, commercial stores like Urban Outfitters, and the ever-growing leeches of the marketing world. The corporate will always be trying to suck the marrow out of the honest nature of graffiti, but advertising could never possess the qualities this art has. Advertising will never be graffiti. The nature of the beast is never ending, and graffiti just keeps pushing on. As time has gone on, graffiti has just reinvented itself to stay ahead of the market. The language has only become more elaborate and sophisticated. Naïve people will always interpret advertising as graffiti, and it is job as the public writers to educate them so we do not get confused.

The exposure graffiti has received has spread worldwide awareness through the work. Graffiti is a virus of potent information and there will never be a cure for it.

GRAF IS DEAD

A Mournful Note from Cory Oberndorfer.

I always hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in the world of popular culture all good things must come to an end. Perhaps you all remember the height of Snoop Dogg's "izzle" talk. First it was clever and funny and unique to Snoop. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Then one day I heard the "izzle" death knoll in the form of Fran Drescher's annoyingly screachy voice in an Old Navy commercial. Don't remember? Here's a remix of that moment.

Restizzle in Peacizzle Snoopizzle Speakizzle.

Unfortunately I must announce the news that another fad is quickly nearing its demise. Graffiti. But before you get too weepy, realize that the graffiti boom has had quite a long run. What we know as modern graffiti raged in the mid to late '80s as artists covered entire New York commuter trains. The graffiti culture has always been tied to subculture movements like hip-hop, punk and skating. Then along came Banksy. In recent years he has been gaining international attention with his guerilla art movement, often armed with only a can of spraypaint, a stencil, and a humorous yet biting message.
But then the suits took notice. People like graffiti. Paint drips = street cred.
Don't believe me? Walk into any Urban Outfitters, a store that quickly eclipsed Hot Topic as the largest offender of retailers selling out a subculture phenomenon. In Urban Outfitters you are sure to find graffiti influence on everything from tennis shoes to t-shirts, but most importantly you will find no fewer than a dozen books on graffiti. For a while I enjoyed the fact that street art was becoming available for public viewing. I was even excited recently to see Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York's Chelsea district presenting a show of Banksy's work. As I stood in the gallery looking at the price list of his work I realized that no matter how it's presented, the rebellious nature of his work was dead to me.
Then, several days later I found an even stronger message that graf is dead. It came in the form of a Rambo movie poster for Stallone's new movie. Yes, the 61 year old actor is cashing in on yet another sequel in the form of John Rambo, gratuitous defender of the oppressed, voice of the little man, and co-opter of hip stencil street art.


Need more proof? The Sundance Film Festival has long encouraged the voice of the creative artist. In recent years they have branched beyond film to include other sorts of media arts. In January they will be hosting the Graffiti Research Lab as they present L.A.S.E.R. TAG. L.A.S.E.R. Tag is a Weapon of Mass Defacement (WMD) that gives individuals the power to communicate their thoughts on buildings, ski slopes, and snowbanks, using a 60-milliwatt laser and a big-ass projector. The G.R.L. will bomb screenings, party events, and other random targets for the duration of the Festival. I'm sure these hard core subversive street artists weren't lured into the festival by the promise of big money at what is known as the largest and most expensive Hollywood shopping mall. I'm sure their messages and technology won't be exploited to sell the latest vodka or designer underwear. I'm sure they'll "keep it real".


But who knows...maybe I'm wrong.

Freebasing with Blackberries

Thomas DeBari reviews Tony Just
at Gavin Brown Enterprise

There were two types of work in the Tony Just show. The painting work was further divided into two categories. First was painting work from street posters ripped from their everyday context. Second were canvases with pop images in a “trapper-keeper” aesthetic. The work commanding the room was sculptures featuring break-dancers after Keith Harring and a few after Picasso.

The sculptures were painted to random effects. The idea of brings together someone like Harring, a king of free speech and the positive message in graffiti art, with community. Also he brought in outside monumental sculpture indoors on a smaller more manageable scale. Are they bootlegs? In appropriating from other artists, generational masters if you will, different approaches in application created a loss in cohesiveness. With that aside it must be the greatness of expression. The variation of culture, different aesthetics, envelop the same starting forms. This is the spirit of the high eighties.

Information not presented to you in the beginning of this exhibit was that the thirty something sculptures while all made by Tony Just were painted by other people during a party. Evidence of this cannot be found anywhere. Here is the disconnect though. It seems important to think about them as being completed in a painting party. Yet not stated the work is confusing. In doing such a varied degree of representation the work is all over and grasping anything is tough. Feeling overwhelmed and crowded by them you just want to dismiss them. I truly believe in the template of the work and the idea of people coming together and the quality of that experience. I think that by not announcing the sculptures as a reason for that event, belittles the magic of the moment. Also in knowing the people involved it feeds a like a wonderful idea of the artist community also present in the 80‘s. Also it mimics the Eighties community of Basquiat Scharf and Haring all on one block making work.

With and without information I foresee two conclusions one in which is positive the other is problematic. The problematic sculptures felt crazy with unresolved identity. The positive sculptures were a diversified field of self-expression. It sucks informational details matters this much. Polke loves it.

The street pieces were edited with paint to show in the moment of concision beauty of the everyday 21st century. Painted out and glazed over the surface a field of paper floated off the wall due to its crustiness. The information obscured was still there under the omitted of info. The edges contained the info that they were ripped down. Promoting the refinement of the work lets the work transcendence with the craft not being problematic. What he does now has a basic system aware of where it came from. That is now the strength of the work. This work also is just caught between the gallery and the street. Provocative, yes, but overall it suffered from the strength of the contextual cube.

The other painting pieces are of street culture. Text messaging and simple design formats dominate the work. Outsider informational pieces talking about aesthetics’ of pop culture. Neo-Expressionism, fluorescent color, and the small scale defined this work. All so diverse there were even cloud studies in pastel and a neon pastel reinvention of leopard print. I feel as if it was a throw back to Monet painting the factories in Paris or even still the moment in Vanilla Sky when “The Cruise Character’s” life becomes computer generated. Allover the work varied greatly. It was hard to grasp the obsession of this person. It felt like a conceptual distancing was done towards this Idea of expressionism. This distance feels like youthful agitation. Some sort of playful wonder at the contemporary culture. Puzzling jargon because of it being out of context, reaffirms the everyday by products of man being mutated. It’s attachment is to the techno based society we have become. Technology shapes and informs society changing us into mutated humans. The show is puzzling and uplifting.

Guerilla Art in DC

Katherine Knight

I first encountered Guerilla Art in DC about three years ago. It was winter, and we’d had a storm similar to the one we just had: cold weather, snow, melting snow re-freezing into solid ice. I was living on Capitol Hill at the time and I used to walk past the Capitol and all the other Government offices on my way to and from the museums on the mall. I was on my way home from such an excursion when I noticed that the snow and ice covering the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol Building was all messed up. As I got closer I realized that someone had obviously had a great time sliding across the reflecting pool’s ice. I continued on, and paused half way up the hill for one last view. From there I could see that what I’d thought were just random scuffles was actually a message. Someone had taken the trouble to tread, plain as day, and in enormous letters facing the Capitol, the words ‘FUCK BUSH’. It was impossible to miss; anyone looking out of their office window had to see it (and remember- at the time most of these people were Republicans). Plus, the repeated melting and re-freezing of the snow meant that it was there for days and days. It was brilliant.

My second encounter was about a year later. It was just before Christmas and for some reason I was up and on the Metro smack in the middle of morning rush-hour. The cars were packed with just the people you’d expect: mostly business men and women in their drab suits and overcoats clutching briefcases. People crushed together to get on and off at each stop, but of course no one spoke. After one stop, as soon as the doors closed, and Asian man (I believe he was Chinese, but I could be wrong) started singing Christmas Carols in broken English and a thick accent. The effect was unexpected and instantaneous. One business man looked up from his Palm Pilot and said, in a voice already laden with hostility ‘Shut Up!’ and when the Chinese man didn’t stop he said, in a louder voice ‘Don’t you shove your religious views down my throat!’ A second business man addressed the first: ‘Hey! It’s a free country, pal. He’s got a right to say whatever he wants!’ After this a chorus of heated arguments broke out among the passengers; one nearly coming to blows (no joke). The Chinese man ignored it all and continued to sing, although he did move a little closer to the door. This whole scene erupted before we’d even reached the next stop, and when we did, the Chinese man was one of the first people to get off. As soon as he set foot on the platform the lady next to me, who’d been quiet up till now, gave an odd yelp and lurched forward in her seat. I looked at her and she said ‘I thought he’d stepped out through the wall’.

The third piece I experienced was probably my favorite. Early this fall I was riding the escalator up to the street from Metro Center. It was a pretty long escalator, and about half way up I became aware of a weird jangley rhythm coming from near the top. I didn’t think much of it and probably assumed that it was coming from a street musician. When I got to the top, though, I realized that there was no musician around. The sound was coming from a handful of Smarties (those sour candies shaped like little fruits) that had been scattered at the top of escalator. They would ride the stairs up, bounce off the grate at the top, and fall back a few stairs to begin the whole process again. The result was a wonderful continuous, plinking rhythm; made both regular and irregular by the evenness of the stairs.

My most recent Guerilla Art encounter was about a week ago. Again on the Metro, I noticed that someone had taken the time to remove or black out all the personal information from their junk-mail, and then tape one piece on the back of each seat. I tried to think of all the different points this person might be making. As an environmental nerd my first take was on the total waste of such pointless and mass mailings. My second thought was about the protection of our private information such as addresses and interests. The mail was from such a wide range of groups that I found it impossible to believe that a single person could actually have signed up for it all. Finally, judging from the way many of the other passengers were inspecting the mail- some even taking pieces with them- I thought the artist might be making some commentary on our willing acceptance of information or propaganda; even to search for a point when none was readily available (after all, what else was I doing?)

It’s possible, and perhaps probable, that none of these ‘pieces’ were orchestrated by people who consider themselves artists, and that many of them (the Smarties, and the reactions provoked by the Chinese man) were complete accidents, but that matters little to me. What I love about each of them is their simplicity, their directness, and especially the way they function as reminders of how little it takes to remove us from the every-day. I loved the way the Smarties turned the escalator into a musical instrument. In the case of the Chinese man, who knew that such anger was bubbling so close to the surface of Washington’s business people? Or that it could take something so small to make the woman sitting next to me believe, if only for a moment, in the impossible? Do any of these experiences qualify as Art? Who knows? Perhaps they do only because I’m approaching them from that direction. But in each experience I have learned or appreciated something new about my world, and I am eagerly awaiting the next one.

Graffiti on the Red Line

Lily deSassure

The red line goes above ground between Union Station and New York Avenue in Northeast Washington, D.C. Admist the train tracks, garbage and chainlink fences, homeless camps are the facades of brick buildings with colorful writing for the passengers to enjoy- or not. The writing changes every month or sometimes as often as every week, depending on when the building owners decide to buff the walls. Sometimes there are indecipherable scribbles, multi-colored angular letters, full murals containing text and image or simply mint green paint that concelas any or all of the above. Such is the scene in almost all urban (and now sometimes suburban) areas since the rise of grafitti in New York City in the 1970's.

Having grown up in New York City and New Jersey, I am particularly fond of words or "names" written on buildings, highway overpasses, or over anything that is otherwise bleak and gray. I do, however, maintain certain criteria for what is there. When the red line emerges from underground and daylight pours into the cars, I immediately notice black and dark blue spray paint on the first building that come into view. Two weeks ago the building had been bombarded with ridiculous, sloppy babble, but yesterday the surface had been replenished with well-balanced, neat and creative penmenship. Like any successful painting, piece of art or graphic design, a "tag" must be executed with diligent precision. The same goes for larger pieces and murals alike.

Further down the line, there is a large brick building with pieces painted on the side. This is the building with mint green paint covering old graffiti... in one spot someone who wrote 'ease' has drawn large bubble letters outlined in black and white that gently fade out into the green background.

In another place, "Mint" and "Best" have their names wiritten high on the rooftop of a building. Sections of the roof jut out just enough to provide accurate framework for their block letters that happen to fit in perfectly with the architecture.

When traveling through any city, I always enjoy a piece of graffiti that is strategically placed in temrs of composition with the surroundings. It has to be executed with the utmost consideration concerning draftsmanship, balance and color. Pieces that are witty in their statement to the viewer also make my train ride more interesting, especially considering the risk involved in getting a piece where and how the artist wants it.

Now, grafitti has made its way from the streets to galleries, shirts and company logos. As far as careers are concerned, for these artists, there are plenty of options but little compare to the risk, thrill and originality of creating something aesthetically satisying on the fly.