Angelesposada

Graffiti Art Project

Overview Of Graffiti

Graffiti may be around longer than most of us think. It is an art form that has been around before the modern days artiest that turn it into something that can be describe as vandalism. It is a form of language before human has a form of text word to record down history or events. Today graffiti just like back than is a way a person can express their view on many different things. Most graffiti are now illegals because most so call “artiest” would damage building and structure in cities. The term graffiti came from the Italian word graffito meaning scratch. It has shown up in ancient Roman, Spain and even in the Mayan culture. These types of graffiti were once value as high culture that could even be seen in church for some country. Up until the 90s north and south America has turn this art into another meaning. Now it is mostly affiliate with thrill seeker and gangs that wanted to set area as landmark with their drawing. Today it has became something that change the meaning of the art work. Even some that it is more affiliate with criminals in these modern days some art work can be seen being sold for millions of dollars. In 2018 the art work of Banksy’ “Girl with Balloon” sold for one million four hundred thousand.

Brief History Of Graffiti

Graffiti has been around since before there was any written language. There have been many traces of drawings of animals and abstract shapes on cave walls everywhere. The earliest graffiti has been found in Argentina. “Cueva de las Manos” (The Cave of Hands), is just one example of what can be found on the walls of caves. Graffiti has also been found in ancient Greece and Rome.

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  Cuevas de las Manos

The ancient city, pompeii, is the first place known to label graffiti the way we label it now. When we think of graffiti now, we think of spray paint and people tagging the city streets and subways. This can be credited to a man named Demetraki. He was a messenger who worked in the city of New York and when he traveled from place to place he would leave his tag which was TAKI 183. TAKI as a nickname, and 183 to represent the street he lived on. He soon became well known for his tag throughout the city and The New York Times did a story about him and soon after, subway art became a huge trend. Graffiti artists would try to make their tag look better than everyone else’s and soon after all the subways were entirely covered. Once it became harder to tag the subways, people began to tag city walls and roofs. Today, there are many graffiti artists (like Banksy) who are well known and popular, and there’s the question, “is graffiti vandalism or art?” has been bought up. Either side one chooses, the overall view that graffiti can be beauty and mean something to some people stands true.

Examples Of Graffiti

Seen (Richard Mirando)

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  Seen
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  Seen

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)

• Lady Pink
  Lady Pink
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  Lady Pink

Banksy

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  Banksy
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  Banksy

Questions To Ask

1. The term Defacement means the action or process of spoiling the surface or appearance of something. Graffiti does not always spoil walls or ruin the appearance of buildings they are like portraits instead of being on a canvas.

2. Graffiti is different from commissioned work because, for the most part, graffiti is left anywhere and at random places. While commissioned work is paid for and is meant to be in a specific area. Commissioned art and graffiti are in the same arena because they are both ways of exposing art to other people.

3. We do have a space for graffiti in this society. There are many works of art that were not acknowledged in their time but were appreciated many years later. And since our society is much more open-minded and ‘free’ than at any other time graffiti is not as frowned upon as before. If there are galleries and museums to honor works of art from the past and modern works of art, there should also be a place for graffiti.

4. Tagging is the way a graffiti artist shows his ownership of his art. But, tagging does not determine if the art is legit or not. Whether or not a piece of graffiti is tagged many may still see it as defacement.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2019). Frottage | art. [online] Available at:

https://www.britannica.com/art/frottage

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/17/the-history-of-graffiti-from-ancient-times-to-modern-days/

https://blog.udemy.com/history-of-graffiti/