Exploring graffiti helped me find more joy in art. Large, fast, colourful, permanent brushstrokes. To be confident rather than careful and better my muscle memory of fundamental shapes. I’m due for expressing some love for graffiti and providing my view on it!
What’s funny with graffiti is the great contradiction of its rule breaking nature vs. the many rules of graff. A Throw up goes over a tag, a piece goes over a throw up, a burner over a piece etc. You need to practice letter structure and study the history, work your way through the different styles, always practice your tags, throwies and pieces in parallell for decades until you can finally develop a style of your own. And at the same time, there are no rules to graffiti—breaking the rules are at its core.
Since graffiti is all about “getting up”, and staying up; staying relevant, it’s a full time job. Graff needs to be your lifestyle or what you’re doing don’t matter. It’s astounding to think about how much time have gone into the names you recognise, and how fast a legacy will disappear without diligent maintenance.
Not unlike this blog, graffiti is free from the pressures and expectations many other endeavours entail. Because 1. Almost no one cares or even notices it except other graffiti writers, and 2. It’s anonymous and not tied to your personal identity, free of self censorship. Which is fucking refreshing today. Doing something not for personal gain but for the joy of it.
That’s also why graffiti crews are so one of a kind. They’re working together just for the process and get no personal reward except each others company. Crews like 1UP are absolutely sick in their coordination, like a well oiled machine for screwing the man. Really a great testament of the power of the people.
“Ask not what your crew can do for you, ask what you can do for your crew.”
Whether graffiti is art or vandalism is a polarising subject. I have in the latest years become a bit fed up with (boring) art, or the art world. In my opinion art should really push the envelope, and today there are many fields other than ‘art’ which do this better. (What could possibly threaten my world view inside an exhibition?) Graffiti takes the creative elements of art and applies to the real world, where I would argue all the interesting movements take place.
I think this is the same reason I went into coding. It effectively manipulates/interacts with the real world instead of being frozen in time, read only. To me as a child stop motion animation was cooler than simply drawing, and making games was even cooler than animation. The closer an art form is to ‘real life’ the cooler I deem it. (See the works of Nathan Fielder for some funky shit. Fellow Lainion on Nathan)
Graffiti is the artists way of interacting with each other and society. I love finding a tag in some weird spot, like a little hidden message or moss that just grows everywhere. When every day life is so devoid of opportunities for self expression, the art simply can’t help but spill out on the square and concrete monuments of our conformity.
At the same time a lot of graff falls into the exact same styles and conventions. You probably recognise the squarey letter tag or the usual bubble throwie. Maybe the likeness makes graffiti a more powerful movement but I rather think its power lies in bringing out the plurality of the city. Showing some inner life of the anonymous urban inhabitants.
I love to see artist like “sluto” that keep graffiti on the move without getting stuck in the regular tropes and styles, or even worse: selling themselves to the art world. He shows a funny view on the whole thing in this great interview:
“museums do to art what taxidermy does to nature.”
“God gave you infinite canvases, and you couldn’t find anything better do than write your fucking name.”
Great graffiti reminds me that there is nothing holding you back. Your existence is not for someone else to define, it’s for you to exercise. By writing your name over and over lol. And any boundaries posed in art or other spheres are artificial. Let’s continue breaking all the rules in our own very special way.
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