Graffiti: Is Aerosol an Art Form?

Sounds kewl Frank, I might take you up on the invitation some time. I have never been to the Frying Pan. I hang out sometimes in Bob Hollman's place in So Ho (really more towards the bowery), Nuyorican's Poets Cafe on the lower East Side, Jakes at 103rd street, and Carlitos (Art for Change) on 106 st, and Lexington.

The Frying Pan is special. If you get the chance...stop by tonight. I'll more than likely be on the top deck (superstructure of the pier, not the lightship)...and Kicky will probably be there also.

Come on down and have a beer or several.

Frank--

She doesn't need my Booster Act. Besides, I've never been to the Frying Pan, but come October 20....


AE--

Thanks for the visuals.

Yesterday I went to a Graffiti exhibit which was supposed to run from Sunday last to Sunday next. Unfortunately, much of the work had been sold and removed. The Gallery Owner wanted the new owners to wait for pick-up. The artists wanted the cash.

Personally, I'd draw a line between murals and Glorification of the (Name) Tag Graffiti. I agree completely that some footprints on the sands of time are much more memorable than pawprints in the sand--although some of the paw prints have a certain charm.

I'll probably go on pondering.

On reading this thread, I realize that a lot of the photos I take are of wall art. In New York, in Toronto, in small towns in Ontario. I'm going to have to organize those photos and think about this.

I have a thicket of opinions, back later.

Oh soz! <big kiss>

Oh shewolf! <big kiss>

I'll have to get a photo of our graffiti - we just had him do our studio name, that was the only parameter we gave him.

I don't really consider things hanging in a gallery graffiti. Perhaps graffiti inspired but to me, real graffiti has a subversive element that keeps it from galleries.

In that regard, things sanctioned by cities or commissioned (like mine) are not REAL graffiti.

The artist I hired does show in galleries and has several commissioned works, as it turns out. And his work sells for a pretty penny. I didn't know this when I hired him and I think that's why he didn't charge me much at all. I saw some of his graffiti on a building and tracked him down and I think that he appreciated the fact that I admired his work without having been told that I should.

It was amazing to watch him work. Absolutely amazing. I nearly passed out from envy.

Tagging is something other than graffiti too, isn't it? Tagging seems to me to be creating the same symbol on various surfaces and it doesn't have anythig to do with art or commentary.

To me, I think the anoymous nature of REAL graffiti is part of what makes it so alluring. Talent that doesn't demand recognition is.... is..... is..... I don't know..... sexy?

I've lived around/in gang territory for years, though in later years also near exploding land value. Still, I've been around a lot of real graffiti. I don't know re tags and graffiti, to me it is the same. Some is elaborate and has a kind of beauty. Even some short tags have a kind of beauty sometimes, in terms of graphics... heh.

However, real tagging all over everything represents a street rule to me that is a threat that isn't cute, in terms of murders at bus stops, and so on. I was only on the fringe in that in our area there were key blocks of deep and decades long rivalry, and that rivalry would play out outside that tight area from time to time, usually in some horrible way. I was a dozen or less blocks from that tight area - well, at one point, four blocks, but on a main street - that was the first gallery studio I was partner in.

So for me, tags are to wipe out, as the street rule represents to me a threat to social comity.

At the same time, there's talent behind a bunch of elaborate graffiti, and passion, vigor, and the straightforwardness of it is sometimes more attractive to a person like me than some intellectual state of finesse called art.

Plus... one of the first painters I loved was Siqueieros, primo muralist.


My feelings about wall art are fairly complicated too.

I look at the example Angelique gave with that gorgeous beefy wall and that one, what was it, girl with balloons.... cool. If that was planned, or even if it wasn't, I have a visceral liking for that.

On the other hand, I am someone who loves walls, most of the time, loves buildings. I know what goes into constructing them; I respect their presence as an art in themselves. I pay a lot of attention to both buildings and the spaces around them, the lacework of cities. Even an honored commissioned mural can annoy my sense of the spirit of place, especially some ineffective loud murals put on walls to keep graffiti off the sides of grocery stores.

On the other hand again, some of my favorite paintings are murals on freeway walls or sides of buildings. It depends.

Another bunch of my favorite walls are the urban walls in (guess where) italy... with stucco and layers of paint washes and splashes of all kinds of effluent, grime, slime, grit, and spit. Walls can take a lot.

Then there's politics and the life of the city.. I've liked Gronk posters up our old beach area, slapped on walls. I don't always hate telephone poles with thousands of staples, though I sometimes do.

On the gentle side, memories of Lucca, by the train station, a big bulletin board and two women holding bicycles looking up at it.. will post that photo some time.

But back to politics and the life of the city - in a weird way, the worst graffiti, which I admit great hostility to, is a kind of politics of exclusion.

There's a sort of integrity in not demanding recognition, I think ... appealing as a political position.

Angelique, thank you so much for those cool pictures! Some of it is really beautiful.

Your very welcome.

People don't talk this much about graffiti. They do talk this much about art. This is an art movement that doesn't have a name yet. It's the newest and most exciting thing to happen to art in a long time. If you live in a major city look around you and you'll begin to recognize it.

People do talk this much about graffiti.

I needed to clarify what the term actually meant. It seems to mean different things to different people:

Graffiti. Term applied to an arrangement of institutionally illicit marks in which there has been an attempt to establish some sort of coherent composition: such marks are made by an individual or individuals (not generally professional artists) upon a wall or other surface that is usually visually accessible to the public. The term "graffiti" derives from the Greek graphein ("to write"). Graffiti (s. graffito), meaning a drawing or scribbling on a flat surface, originally referred to those marks found on ancient Roman architecture. Although examples of graffiti have been found at such sites as Pompeii, the Domus Aurea of Emperor Nero (AD 54-68) in Rome, Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and the Maya site of Tikal in Mesoamerica, they are usually associated with 20th-century urban environments. Graffiti range from simple marks to complex and colorful compositions. Motives for the production of such marks may include a desire for recognition that is public in nature, and/or the need to appropriate public space or someone else's private space for group or individual purposes. Illegitimate counterparts to the paid, legal advertisements on billboards or signs, graffiti utilize the wall of garages, public rest rooms, and jail cells for their clandestine messages. This illegal expression constitutes vandalism to the larger society.... <cont>

http://www.graffiti.org/faq/graf.def.html

I can see parallels between Grafitti as art and the womanly crafts such as quilting.

Some Grafitti is just scribbling on walls--some is a new way of becoming part of the cityscape. . Some quilts are just blankets--and some are high art.

Marc Ecko's getting up blog
Pictures from the Getting Up Festival
9/12/05, 02:06 PM
We finally had the Getting Up Festival! Here are pictures from the event:

9/12/05, 02:05 PM
I don't know what's more fun, writing these things or reading some of your responses

How does that song go, "I fought the law and the law..."? Oh, wait. WE won. Never mind. Thanks for all of your support and I promise to hit you back on the game after tomorrow's exciting event. Come by if you happen to be in New York and help celebrate an undeniable part of American pop culture and our first amendment rights to freedom of expression... - Marc

DESIGNER MARC ECKO WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST NEW YORK CITY; GRAFFITI ART EXHIBITION TO TAKE PLACE AS PLANNED

Federal Court Orders Immediate Reinstatement of Street Permit for August 24th Block Party

(New York, NY), August 22, 2005 - Fashion designer and entrepreneur Marc Ecko, on behalf of his company *ecko unltd., today announced a favorable decision in a lawsuit the Company filed against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City of New York in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, on Friday, August 19.

As a result, the first-of-its-kind street festival, free and open to the public, will be held as originally scheduled on August 24th on 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues from 12:00PM - Dusk. The event will feature ten 48-foot-long by 8-foot-high replicas of the legendary NYC transit blue-bird subway cars, which will be transformed into contemporary urban works of art by 20 renowned graffiti writers.

Commenting on the court's decision, Mr. Ecko stated, "Today is further affirmation that graffiti is without question the most powerful art movement in recent history. This event was conceived as a tribute to the roots of graffiti culture, a time in New York City's history that I chose to believe was worth fighting to preserve. I never envisioned having to go to Court when we started working with the City on this event 10 months ago, but was left with no other choice when the City asked us to change our chosen art canvas and, as such, tried to censor my first amendment rights and those of these great artists by attempting to dictate how we express ourselves.

"Graffiti is an art form without borders, one which touches people of every gender, age, race, income class and political affiliation on a daily basis and today's decision is further affirmation that it is here to stay. Graffiti does not, as some in city hall have claimed, have to be a gateway to crime. It can also be a gateway to opportunity and success when channeled properly, and I hope that the Mayor accepts my offer to join me on Wednesday as we channel our creative energies together." Gregg Donnenfeld, Assistant General Counsel for *ecko unltd. added, "We are extremely pleased, though not surprised, by Judge Rakoff's recognition that graffiti is indeed a legitimate form of art, and that the City has no right to dictate how that art is expressed. Marc Ecko's block party will therefore proceed as planned, with a live graffiti art demonstration open to the public at no charge, with the world's top graffiti artists using mock subway trains as their art canvases." "Should the City attempt to appeal the Judge's decision, we will continue to fight for our First Amendment rights, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. However, at this point we do not anticipate any appeals, and instead just look forward to what will be a spectacular art event for all of the public and New York's art community to celebrate.," Donnenfeld continued.

*ecko unltd. thanks attorney Dan Perez of the Kuby & Perez law firm for his great work on this case, proving again that he's one of the top First Amendment lawyers in all of New York, if not the country, and also the New York Civil Liberties Union for its continued support in this effort.

The Pictures are too big so, I just posted the link.

http://www.eckounltd.com/marceckoblog/
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Two more links.

http://www.at149st.com/

http://cityrag.blogs.com/main/ny_graffiti_steert_art/

Very interesting.