Why Street Art and Graffiti?

I have recently been asked by several students to answer questions related to graffiti and street art. I have decided to start this blog as a place to document some of my thoughts and hopefully create a point of reference for people seeking answers to similar questions.

So, why street art and graffiti?

I guess first off I should state my intentions when I use the terms, street art and graffiti. I find myself continually typing both of them together, I do this because they are connected and very similar, but they are also very different and more importantly are viewed differently by wider society.

Street art has been widely accepted as something that can bring benefit and good to society, however graffiti is still demonised and portrayed as mindless vandalism. It is for this reason that I find it important to continue to state that Colour Ways as an organisation, fully supports both graffiti and street art.

It is my belief that these cultures are inextricably linked. Despite the (at times) vast differences between the cultures there is also an enormous amount of overlap. For the uninitiated I will now attempt to explain some of these differences and some of the similarities, although please do keep in mind that these are just the way that I view these cultures and it is likely that every graffiti writer and street artist will have their own nuanced version of events.

Without going into the boring history lesson that seems to happen with every explanation of graffiti, it is a letter based art form that originated in New York in the 70’s. It has since evolved into a global powerhouse of an art movement with an unfathomable amount of participants across the world. Within this ever growing movement there are a wide range of diverse styles. The possibilities are literally endless and for me this is why graffiti is such a powerful art form.

I realise that in all art forms the possibilities are endless but I guess the real thing that makes graffiti so special is because it has a consistent foundation across the world, the alphabet. (Letters may vary across countries)

So this idea of using an alphabet as a starting point is really interesting and by applying this constraint it forces writers to be grounded in something that is common to all, but also at the same time try to be completely original and break new ground.

I really enjoy thinking about this because when you understand how typography works and how important certain aspects of how letters are created are, then you begin to have a much greater understanding and I would imagine, appreciation for what a writer is actually doing.

For example an A always has to look like an A. It can’t look like anything else, otherwise it is no longer an A. So this enforces the constraint. But how far can a writer push the shape of an A before it becomes illegible?

If we look at the alphabet above by London based artist Neist we can see that the potential for abstraction is quite large. I can imagine to some people this print might not make much sense and it might be difficult to decipher where exactly the letters are and how they are still the letters they claim to be, but trust me, if you spend some time you will find them.

This is just one example of how a writer is able to use the foundation of the alphabet and deconstruct and reconstruct it to suit his own personal style and taste. Graffiti writers spend their whole lives discovering and perfecting their own style. This constant pursuit of perfection, seeking to define and redefine oneself and ones own style is what drives many writers. I believe this is an extremely important part of the culture but also something that can be harnessed and encouraged as it is basically a search for self actualisation that is taking place.

I could continue to delve deeper into this concept but I am conscious of the length of this already so I will move on to street art, but I think it is important to acknowledge that very quickly I have already demonstrated that graffiti is far more complex and valuable than it is made out to be, it is definitely not mindless. Vandalism perhaps, but that discussion can be saved for a future blog.

Street art also has its roots in New York, with artists such as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and one I only recently discovered, Richard Hambleton, all three of these artists have documentaries about their life and work and I would highly recommend them all. (click the images above for links to documentaries)

I think it is important to mention that like all history, certain people are always left out. So although these three artists have risen to prominence, it is easy to imagine that there was plenty more who never quite made it to their level of fame. Also we have a tendency to be quite America-centric so I would like to shout out all the international street artists who have never got a mention.

So what exactly is different about street art?

For me street art began as work on the street that was more image based rather than type based like graffiti. It would use symbols and characters in the same way a graffiti writer would use a tag. It is easy to assume that this is the difference and then leave it there.

However when we dig a little deeper we can also point out that their are certain mediums that an artist will use that will also signify that something is street art rather than graffiti. The use of stencils, paste ups and stickers have long been synonymous with street art. Certain allowances have been made, graffiti stickers being a regular thing now, although I would imagine that this could be a point of contention within the graffiti community.

The street art boom in London around 2000, was greatly inspired by what was happening in Barcelona at the time, the city had been experiencing a great surge in this type of work and for more detail on this please check out this Documentary which is one of the best documents of street art history I have come across.

With the use of stencils and paste ups, it allowed artists to pre create their work. This means that they could spend more time in their house or studio preparing the work and the actual act of putting it up would be relatively fast. For me this is an important point to make as it is sometimes quite crucial in the difference of ‘quality’ of the work that is being created in the streets.

If you are able to spend more time creating something then you afford yourself the time to perfect what you are trying to do, it also removes a lot of the pressure that is found when creating work directly on the street. So I guess for me this is one answer that can be given to the aesthetics behind the two art forms.

Graffiti stems from letters being created very quickly in the street, the form of a tag will be highly influenced by the speed and movement with which it is created. This for me can create a slightly aggressive but also much more dynamic aesthetic. Street art on the other hand can often feel more controlled, especially when we look at early examples such as The London Police and D*Face above. I believe these artists also choose reduced colour palettes and clean bold lines to stand out amongst a lot of visual noise that can be found in a city. (Black and white printing is also cheap…)

I think another good example of the crossover between both cultures is Banksy. He could be credited as single handedly birthing the global street art movement, but as I have mentioned above I think there was a lot of stuff happening at the same time/before he rose to fame. There was recently another documentary made about him, this one in particular I found really interesting as it gave an insight into his early career.

It features interviews with Eine who is a well known graffiti writer turned street artist. His parts give an insight into the dedication of Banksy which I found really interesting and I think it showed the power of flooding a city with an image and how that can then become desired as a piece of art. People basically want to buy into the rebellion, another good or perhaps bad example of this is Shepard Fairey with his iconic OBEY campaign, which is now a huge clothing brand…

The documentary also features Jon Nation who ran a youth club in Bristol in the early 90’s. This youth club became the hub for graffiti in the city and was pivotal in several high profile artists careers. I really like the insight this provides into the lineage of Banksy’s career and how it demonstrates that he was heavily involved in graffiti before street art took off.

`Banksy and Inkie - Glastonbury Trailer 1998`

As humans we are quick to put labels on things and attempt to categorise everything, this unfortunately can stifle creativity and hinder freedom of expression. I believe that it is this self/culturally imposed restriction within graffiti that has encouraged people to push beyond what is acceptable since it began.

For me I find it unfortunate that a large number of artists are never able to break through these restrictions but I think that as with all art movements, change happens at the fringes and thankfully the fringe and avant-garde of these cultures is extremely fruitful. I would encourage everyone to check out the Post Vandalism instagram which showcases a wide variety of work which leans towards this fringe section of the culture.

Definitions are important but they can also hinder progress. For me it is important we understand how and why things are defined. It enables us to point out hypocrisy, like using street art as a euphemism for graffiti. However we have to be careful that we are not the ones imposing strict definitions upon ourselves and others. This can lead to a self policing and disempowers people, making them afraid to experiment and explore new ideas for fear of being shunned/mocked by their peers.

I will need to do a part two of this where I discuss more why I think these cultures are so good and why I have started this organisation to support them. But for now I shall leave with this, which was said to me by one of my favourite artists.

“Don’t worry about any of that, just make good work”

Cheers.

Panda.

Why Street Art and Graffiti?

Why Street Art and Graffiti? Part 2