The Rise of Graffiti by jaymi.design

From urban vandalism to profitable street art

Preface

Graffiti is a multi-vocal, visual urban discourse that transforms street experience through inventive juxtaposition of mass-mediated and local imagery. It can be seen as symbolic of rebellion from the working class, ethnic minority and disadvantaged groups. However, over the years graffiti has gained more positive connotations as it is equally symbolic of uniqueness, culture and social expression which are becoming increasingly more evident through the gentrification of graffiti in the modern day as well as the use of graffiti not just as a street art but as a valuable artistic expression linked closely with and influential to the process of cultural development.

Index 04

The origins of graffiti and its styles

A brief history

Graffiti legends

Graffiti lettering styles

The evolution of modern graffiti

A period of transition

Commercialization

Cultural influence

Contemporary graffiti artists

THE ORIGINS OF GRAFFITI AND ITS STYLES

A brief history

[1] Graffiti on the side of New York subway cars in the early 1990s

The first drawings on walls appeared in caves thousands of years ago. Later the Ancient Romans and Greeks wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. Modern graffiti seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in the early 1960s. It reached New York in the 70s and shortly after was established in Europe starting in the UK and spread to other countries at uneven pace in the 80s. The new art form really took off in the 1970s, when people began writing their names, or ‘tags’, on buildings, trains and subway cars all over the city. In the mid seventies it was sometimes hard to see out of a subway car window, because the trains were completely covered in spray paintings known as ‘masterpieces’. There was a subculture where Graffiti was born, due to the inequalities that minorities were living in that moment and their needs for protest. In the early days, the taggers were part of street gangs who were concerned with marking their territory. They worked in groups called ‘crews’, and called what they did ‘writing’ – the term ‘graffiti’ was first used by The New York Times and the novelist Norman Mailer. Art galleries in New York began buying graffiti in the ear-

ly seventies. But at the same time that it began to be regarded as an art form, John Lindsay, the then mayor of NY, declared the first war on graffiti. By the 1980s it became much harder to write on subway trains without being caught, and instead many of the more established graffiti artists began using building roofs or canvases. A basic definition of graffiti can be made by its description as “visual perceptible elements, that vary in their colour selection, size and complexity and are often attached unsolicited at places that are well visible”. Despite being a well-established social phenomenon, the debate over whether graffiti is art or vandalism is still going on. For some sectors graffiti is still something to “deal with” and authorities and dutyholders generally consider graffiti as threat a security and safety issue. On the other hand, Felix, a member of the Berlin-based group Reclaim Your City, says that artists are reclaiming cities for the public from advertisers, and that graffiti represents freedom and makes cities more vibrant. Walking around any city nowadays is a guarantee of seeing graffiti with public transportation still being a good canvas for writers.

Graffiti legends

Cornbread. In the graffiti world Darryl McCray, better known as Cornbread, is a living legend. He is the man who is credited with being the first graffiti writer, tagging his name all over Philadelphia.

McCray says he got his start at a juvenile detention center in Philadelphia when at age 15 he missed his grandmother’s corn bread and began writing his beloved nickname on the walls of the jail. When he got out he took the same concept of giving a hall to the streets and started writing ‘Cornbread’ all over the city. He was the first person to write his name with the sole purpose of establishing a reputation - a reputation that was solified when a man who was shot and killed was misidentified in the local media as the artist. McCray recalls, “I knew I had to do something amazing and bizarre to let the public know I still exist.” To do so, he snuck into the Philadelphia Zoo and spray painted the words, ‘Cornbread Lives’ on the back of an elephant resulting in his arrest. He later gained international attention when he spray painted an airplane carrying the musical group, The Jackson Five. Ironically, McCray now works with The Mural Arts Program that helps to prevent illegal tagging and is also a public speaker and youth advocate.

TAKI 183. The first New Yorker to become famous for graffiti writing was TAKI 183 whose name comes from a combination of his home street, 183rd Street in Washington Heights in Manhattan, and Taki, a diminutive for his Greek name Demetraki. Taki tagged his name all across New York City in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. He would write on street signs, public walls and the subway during his commute to school. When he started working as a delivery boy he would hold the boxes up against light poles, using it as cover while he wrote his name. In July of 1971, his simple tags became so widespread that they captured the attention of a reporter who wrote an article about him in The New York Times. The article, titled ‘TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals’, gave birth to a whole legion of kids who decided to copy him and tag their own names across the city. The tagging of names became highly competitive, with those who tagged more becoming better known in the graffiti community. Meanwhile, TAKI 183’s legend grew and rumors spread that he even tagged a Secret Service car and the Statue of Liberty.

Phase 2. Lonny Wood, better known as Phase 2, is one of the original New York subway graffiti artists and is credited with pioneering the “bubble letter” style of spray painting, as well as introducing the arrow motif. His intuitive lettering inspired generations of the street artist who accepted his foundation and built their own styles upon it.

Top left: [2] Darryl McCray, a.k.a. Cornbread Top Right: [3] Demetraki, a.k.a. TAKI 183 Bottom Left: [4] Lonny Wood, a.k.a. Phase 2

Growing up in the Bronx, Wood began tagging subway trains during the early 1970s and later became a founding member of a professional graffiti collective called United Graffiti Artists. The artist was also prominent in the local hiphop scene as a member of an early b-boy crew and occasional DJ at hip-hop events. He even went on to release a couple of rap singles, while he himself has often been referenced in songs. In the 1980s he founded the International Graffiti Times, an early zine to focus on graffiti writing and in the decades that followed, Phase 2 displayed his works in a number of exhibitions dedicated to urban art.

Zephyr. Going by the street alias of Zephyr, Andrew Witten is a fantastic example of how old school graffiti painting is still making a tremendous impact on urban art. Like many of his contemporary peers, Zephyr mostly concentrated on tagging his pseudonym all over walls and subway trains of New York City. He is furthermore credited with several innovations that really altered the course street art was headed during the 1970s and 1980s. Besides being a successful graffiti genius, Witten is also a renowned lecturer and author of diverse books concerning many aspects of street painting and how seasoned urban artists used to do things in their own time. Already the head of a famous street art collective Rolling Thunder Writers and a distinguished tagger, Zephyr was also a key component of the first wave of graffiti painters that made a crucial

transition to galleries, turning the entire concept of street art on its head. Out of nowhere, Witten’s artwork suddenly became an option for collectors and different sorts of commercial representatives, making possible an idea that was literally unimaginable before that moment – it allowed a street artist to earn by painting his graffiti works. During the early 1980s, Zephyr presented his creations at the newly formed New York City galleries specialized in graffiti, such as the FUN Gallery and 51X. Another innovative notion of street art that Zephyr was a pioneer of was the idea of an artistic tour – In 1983, his art was part of an exhibition that toured Japan which also included Fab Five Freddy, Dominique Philbert, Futura 2000, and Dondi White. That same year, Zephyr was hired by a director to design and art direct (as well as star in) the title sequence for the first hip-hop film, Wild Style.

Zephyr was a key component of the first wave of graffiti painters that made a crucial transition to galleries, turning the entire concept of street art on its head.

[5] Andrew Witten, a.k.a. Phase 2, completing one of his masterpieces

Graffiti lettering styles

[6] Different examples of the letter E in various tags

Tag. A tag is the simplest form of graffiti - it is a stylized signature or nickname normally done in one color that contrasts sharply with its background. One can safely say that this kind is the beginning of graffiti history with artists like Cornbread and Taki 183 leaving their tags all over their cities and which led to what we know as graffiti today. Nowadays writers use tags as an addition to their pieces, following the practice of traditional artists who sign their artwork.

Throw-Up. A throw-up is a very simple style designed for quick execution, to avoid attracting attention to the writer. It is often used by beginners and writers who wish to achieve a large number of tags while competing with rival graffitists. It generally consists of one layer of fill-color and a one-color outline with easy-to-paint bubble shapes that form the letters. Most graffiti artists have both a signature tag and a throw-up that are essentially fixed compared to pieces and act as a sort of recognizable logo that identify them and their individual styles. Above: [7] Example of a throw-up by graffiti artist Moses Below: [8] Throw-up done by graffiti artist Seen

Left: [9] Example of bubble graffiti writing

Bubble. The rounding of letters in classical throw-ups was the initial phase that led to the development of bubble style. The letters are round, circular and often overlapping partially one another, creating an image that seems to expand and bubble-up in a way. Bubble graffiti can be done in two colors, where letters are sprayed in one color, and later outlined with another, creating a contrast, or multiple colors can be applied for a more exuberant effect.

Below: [10] Example of wildstype graffiti

Wildstyle. Wildstyle is an elaborate version of a throw-up with text so stylized as to be difficult to read, often with interlocking, three-dimensional type. It often consists of arrows, curves, spikes and other things that non-graffiti artists might not understand and is often considered a style done by advanced artists. Other styles such as FX, electrical, 3D, sharp and abstract could be considered even more advanced variants of wildstyle graffiti.

Stencil. A stencil is an easy (some say ‘lazy’) way to put up detailed pieces. By spraying over a stencil, you can produce a more detailed piece than by doing it free hand and it’s also repeatable. Blockbuster. A simple style of graffiti that uses basic block letters, sometimes also referred to as ‘straights’ or ‘simples’, that can be easily read by anyone. They usually contain only two colors, most commonly in arrangements of silver, black, and/or white and often painted by a brush or a roller.

Above: [11] Example of stencil graffiti by artist Banksy Below: [12] Example of the blockbuste style by graffiti artist MSK

THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN GRAFFITI

A period of transition

[13] Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2008

By the 1970s the graffiti movement was well underway with artists battling the quest to get noticed and ‘go all city’ by writing on as many New York subway cars as possible, creating some of the most iconic artwork to have come out of the early graffiti and street art scene. 1972 also saw the creation of United Graffiti Artists, a collective formed by Hugo Martinez, who recognized the potential of this new exciting art form and started to display graffiti work in galleries. The remainder of the 1970s saw graffiti spread across the USA as well as the development of more complex forms of artwork. Despite being largely ignored by the art establishment, 1979 was marked by a defining moment when Fab 5 Freddy and Lee Quiñones, both from Brooklyn graffiti group The Fabulous 5, were invited to exhibit their work in Galleria La Medusa in Rome, Italy in what is regarded as the world’s first ever graffiti exhibition. New York itself

didn’t catch on until the following year debuting the Outlaw Art Show in Times Square which would turn the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Al Diaz and Richard Hambleton to take the form in a new direction, birthing street art. Followed by the releases of Tony Silver’s documentary Style Wars in 1983 and what is recognised as the ‘graffiti bible’, Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant’s 1984 book Subway Art, the culture was not only gaining popularity, it was being validated as a cultural phenomenon. Not bad when you think that all this was happening while the state was doing everything it could to stop it. Post broken windows theory in 1986 had the state flexing a serious muscle; spray paint was harder than ever to buy or steal, trainyard security was tightened and with the implementation of a new easy cart cleaning system,

New York’s graffiti scene would arguably never experience the same raw authenticity it had in the decade prior. However, by now the foundations of the culture had not only been formed, they had travelled all across the US and found a place in europe. The UK already had its own very British culture of wall writing but both poetic and political, the focus seemed to be more on the substance than on the style. It was only after the influence of the American scene in the early 80s that it began to follow the path to that of which we recognise it today.

As police chased graffiti artists from their canvasses of choice in the city’s subway depots, tunnels, and bridges, they began to take refuge in arrangements that relied on the kindness of more lenient and enlightened property owners. Consequently, the 80s saw a number of graffiti and street artists cross over into the world of art galleries with more conceptual graffiti and urban artworks; The art form metamorphosed, with graffiti, once known for its hurried, lookover-your-shoulder “throw ups”, merging with a nascent genre of street art: the less nefarious

[16] Subway Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, 1984

[15] Style Wars documentary, 1983

[14] The Fab 5 at Galleria La Medusa, 1979

“mural”. The more you think about it, you realize it is a mind bender: a subculture, condemned as a populist take on art, started occupying high places on auctions and quickly being appropriated by those who had labeled it a lesser form of art. What once was seen purely as vandalism or a form of protest evolved into something for the middle-market. Another major step for graffiti in the fine art world came with the landmark show, “New York/New Wave,” which opened at MoMA PS1 in February 1981. Curated by Diego Cortez, it placed works by Futura 2000 and a still up-andcoming Jean-Michel Basquiat alongside pieces by Warhol and Mapplethorpe. The show gave equal attention to the downtown Manhattan punk scene as it did to the hip-hop artists working out of Brooklyn. Only two months later, Haring would host an all-graffiti show, “Beyond Words,” in the narrow space of a Tribeca lounge called the Mudd Club. Freddy and Futura curated the show with the intention of expanding the language of graffiti and elevating its profile above its grungy place in the popular imagination. And later that year, when underground film actress Patti Astor and partner Bill Stelling opened the doors to the FUN Gallery, the nomadic graffiti arts scene put down roots for the first time in the East Village. The cramped, unpretentious basement space would go on to host shows by artists such as Dondi and Lady Pink. The gallery quickly became a lightning rod, with Bruno Bischofberger and other high profile collectors visiting to inquire about artists showing there.

Top: [17] Wild Style Wall in Riverside Park, Manhattan, NYC, 1983 Centre: [18] View of the exhibition “New York/New Wave,” at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, 1981 Bottom: [19] Keith Haring posing with his mural in East Harlem, 1986

Commercialization

[20] Shepard Fairey’s first ‘Andre the Giant’ that ultimately lead to Obey’s fame

Graffiti and street art has evolved into a profitable industry bound by a global fascination with aesthetically pleasing and at times, controversial art. The modern day street art scene is now an extension of the art world, providing massive public interest and revenue for galleries across the nation. With the help of smartphones and social networking, the locationsensitive, ephemeral nature of street art has been compromised by the world wide web’s immortalizing power; now, street artists are able to limitlessly share their work, generating global fandoms through online documentation. From the 1990s street artists like Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Swoon and Mr. Brainwash have found themselves in the modern art spotlight, basking in the commercial success of their artistic brand with works worth upwards of a hundred thousand dollars. This generational craze for street art represents a deviation from the subcultural movement of the 70s and 80s, making street art into a lucrative business, rather than an expression of freedom and rebellion. Shepard Fairey in particular embodies the commercialization of modern day street art as the creator of a massively successful brand that began on the streets of LA. His street art ca-

reer formally launched with his signature “Obey Giant”, featuring an artistic reimagining of wrestling icon, Andre the Giant. In Banksy’s self directed film, Exit through the Gift Shop, the success of Fairey’s artwork is thoroughly described: “combining Andre’s face with the command to ‘Obey’, Fairey had clocked up over a million hits around the world” by the mid 2000s. Fairey’s international stardom was secured after his patriotic print of then Senator Barack Obama surfaced, transforming the unknown Senator into an icon. Shortly thereafter, Fairey began building the Obey Giant industry, including a clothing line and numerous spin off street art exhibitions. Currently, Fairey’s work resides in some of the nation’s most prestigious art museums. Similarly, the infamous British artist, Banksy, has found relentless commercial success and gone on to dominate the scene of modern street art. Due to Banksy’s work being so highly valued and appreciated, restrictions on graffiti and street art even changed to exclude his work from being considered vandalism; this can be seen in the new UK graffiti legislation laws. Seeing that his work was so sought after by many curators and people of influence, his fame grew, inclining galleries to exhibit his work and auction off his one of a kind pieces.

Cultural influence The turning point in the evolution of graffiti during the 1990s, parallel to the massive commercialization of Hip-Hop, lead graffiti to become established all across Europe. In parallel, some authors identify that particularly during the 1990s multiple forms of hip hop culture, including music, fashion, art and more, started to become co-opted into more mainstream popular cultures and began to appear within advertising and commercial outputs as well as increasing adoption by different youth cultures. Both its influence and its symbiotic relationship with these areas are explored here now.

[21] Photo from ‘Wild Style’, documentary film on hip-hop culture directed in 1983 by Charlie Ahearn

Graffiti and Music. In 1980, media began to link graffiti with other emerging urban cultures – those of breakdance and rap music – also produced by youths from the most neglected areas of New York, creating a concept called hip-hop. The new cultural object took form in press articles, performance shows and, in particular, in movies, some of which had wide international distribution. Because of this, the public began to believe, as it still does today, that graffiti in the New York tradition is, from its very inception and by its own nature, a part of hip-hop. This conception is so widespread that the term “hip-hop graffiti” is often used to differentiate this type of graffiti from others.

Graffiti, rap and breakdance were indeed products of the same reality: that of the pre-teens, teenagers, and young people of the deprived areas of New York, a city undergoing the most difficult years of its recent history. Graffiti, rap and breakdance were indeed products of the same reality: that of the pre-teens, teenagers, and young people of the deprived areas of New York, a city undergoing the most difficult years of its recent history. Critic Glenn O’Brien puts it this way: “It’s like, what’s the connection between jazz and abstract expressionism? They weren’t the same people doing hip-hop and graffiti, but there was a cultural, mental, and spiritual connection.” It’s not true, however, that no one participated in more than one of the cultures: even influential writers such as Phase 2 or Futura 2000 recorded rap albums, and played a role in the evolution of hip-hop. While hip-hop was closely linked with graffiti culture, punk also adopted the idea of graffiti. The British band Crass, formed in 1977, was apparently the first to use stencils in punk culture. Its members, closely involved in social strug-

[22] Templates for political stencils, distributed by Crass in the 1970s

gles, are also considered the introducers of anarchist philosophy in punk, regularly using stencil-like images on their releases and undertaking a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Underground system in the 70s, with anti-war, anarchist, feminist and anti-consumerist messages. Amsterdam saw graffiti become an important part of the punk scene too, producing a magazine, Gallery Anus, to document graffiti work. While in America, it was the band Black Flag and their fans that often stenciled their classic logo. The punk movement used stencils as an outdoor communication technique because of its close link with general DIY philosophy. Stencilling lets a person disseminate his idea with minimal resources. Experts believe that the adoption of the stencil worked also as a reference to utilitarian and military style, which punk appropriated to subvert symbols of authority.

Graffiti and Fashion. From the Moschino AW15 show – floor-length gowns scrawled with Moschino’s own tags to one of fashion’s most famous collaborations, between Louis Vuitton and the late Stephen Sprouse in the early 2000s, graffiti and fashion have had a long and happy marriage. Sprouse’s bright, brush-stroked graffiti-style words tagged onto LV pieces were a sort of flip on the controlled monogram usually associated with Louis Vuitton – and the six-year collaboration proved to be one of the brand’s most lucrative moves. The beginnings of modern street art lie in a fusion of art, youth culture, pop and fashion in 1980s New York. Artists such as Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat moved very easily between ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ culture. This movement was influenced by punk fashions in the 1970s where people wrote on their clothes etc. Haring, of course, collaborated with Vivienne Westwood in the 1980s on her “witches” collection, turning his pop graffiti drawings onto Westwood’s boxy pieces. In 2011, British designers Agi & Sam showed an autumn/winter collection which borrowed from the Jean Michel Basquiat graphic prints.

Top Left: [23] Graffiti-print dress from Moschino’s Fall 2015 ready-to-wear fashion show Bottom Right: [24] Store front of the Louis Vuitton SoHo boutique during the release of the Louis Vuitton x Stephen Sprouse Tribute Collection

Modern street art is not spontaneous but very stylised, very self conscious, and this means it is totally natural for street artists to move from the car park to the catwalk.

Graffiti and Advertising. Graffiti has evolved so heavily, that it has become one of the more creative and unique forms of modern advertising for out-of-home media. The world of street art and its huge visual impact has opened the door for advertisers and creatives to explore the medium’s potential by seeing how they can harness the power of graffiti and mural art to reach the public – whether it is the use of the already existing artwork or the inclusion of street artists who can become parts of, or even, build the creative teams for the advertising industry. After all, a great number of modern day graffiti artists create within the discussion with pop culture and with products primarily fabricated for the use in the commercial world.

Colossal Media for one has been creating “art out of advertising” for over a decade, putting paint on brick all over NYC and beyond. Their brilliantly creative gang of goons, all former graffers, fine artists, and designers, have been filling the empty walls of hundreds of buildings with eyeball bursting murals, all while simultaneously dominating out-of-home media and the creatively expressive advertising industry.

Being a specific global movement, among other things, street art has become a fruitful playground for the positioning of companies whose products target young people belonging to certain subcultures. In a way, it is a form of buying a particular style in order to create a situation for profitable market activity. An all-inclusive strategy is reflected in festivals and events specifically created for targeting certain groups of people. [25] A mural advertisement for Lyft by Colossal Media

[26] A mural advertisement for Ciroc by Colossal Media

Contemporary graffiti artists

[27] Marquis Lewis, a.k.a. Retna, infront of one of his murals in Los Angeles

Retna. Marquis Lewis, a.k.a. Retna, is an American street artist known for his unique typography and letterforms. He combines visual linguistics, urban poetics, and appropriated fashion imagery to explore an eclectic range of media, including graffiti, photography, and painting. Retna was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and started his graffiti career as a teenager, joining the Los Angeles mural scene in the 1990s. “It is important to have art in the streets as a cultural fabric that is woven into the city for the upliftment of civic pride,” he once stated. Now, painting with a brush in addition to a spray can, the artist is able to achieve his distinctive text-based signature style featuring intricate line work, complex layering and a wide range of color. His work draws inspiration from Blackletter, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Arabic, and Hebrew calligraphy, as well as more traditional types of street-based graffiti. In addition to exhibiting at institutions and galleries on a global scale, he has done advertising work for major brands and has been used by celebrities like Justin Bieber.

KAWS. Brian Donnelly, better known as KAWS, is a New York-based artist and designer who has made a name out of himself designing limited edition toys and clothing. KAWS, however, began his career as a graffiti artist in the early 1990s. From an early age he was known for marking buildings in New Jersey and Manhattan with ‘KAWS’, a tag he chose because he liked the way the letters looked together.

“When your whole art is based on the lettering you choose, you kinda figure out what ones work together. I just liked the shapes of the k, a, w, s.” Though he soon moved on from this simple tag and developed a unique style that involved adding cartoon-like figures to bus-shelter advertisements. Later, he would replicate these early works of ‘subvertising’ in a series of screenprint lithographs. These included a mock Calvin Klein ad, featuring supermodel Christy Turlington being embraced by a green figure. Although the artist is now predominantly known for his large scale public installations and limited edition vinyl toys, his origins in graffiti brought his work to a diverse audience, many of whom had nothing to do with the art world. Unlike most artists, KAWS did not start out with a gallery; he was fully aware of the benefits of showing his work in the street and mass-producing pieces in order to build a following. This following became so big that it attracted the attention of collectors and critics. Speaking of his early days as a graffiti artist, Donnelly said, ‘When I was doing graffiti, my whole thought was, “I just want to exist. I want to exist with this visual language in the world… It meant nothing to me to make paintings if I wasn’t reaching people.”

[33] A series of early graffitied ‘subvertisements’ by American artist KAWS

Rylsee. Cyril Vouilloz, best known as Rylsee, is a visual artist originally from Geneva, Switzerland. He has conquered new media channels with his catchy, satyrical hand drawn typography, becoming a huge representative of the typography world on Instagram. His work covers the fields of typography and design, specializing in mural paintings with a strong passion for hand-drawn typography compositions. Rylsee found his roots in the street art and graffiti scene and dedicated many years of his life to art and skateboard where he found the main source of his inspiration. Now he finds inspiration in moments of everyday life, the city, and signage, he is interested in expressing mundane situations and places in a satirical way. A traveler by nature, Rylsee lived and worked

[30] ‘Seizure’ by Swiss artist Cyril Vouilloz, a.k.a. Rylsee

[29] Cyril Vouilloz, a.k.a. Rylsee, in his studio in Berlin

in Switzerland, Canada, Brazil and has now settled in Berlin where he is a resident artist at Urban Spree, an art & music venue in the heart of the city. He is also the co-founder of MYOS workshops and streetwear label SNEEER Clothing. He also published his first book “How to play with Letters” in 2017. Although he is considered less of a graffiti artist and more of an illustrator, his mural works and letter-play are reminiscent of graffiti lettering itself, but with a modern twist.

[28] ‘All The Way’ mural by artist Peter Preffington, a.k.a. Pref

Pref. Peter Preffington, a.k.a. Pref, is a British street artist with over 20 years of graffiti experience. He has been morphing, merging and layering letters into a signature style that he is now world renowned for. His artworks play with perception through multi-layered 3D graffiti. Using a range of modern and traditional typefaces, he visualizes popular sayings and expressions in his distinct overlapping style making viewers re-discover everyday words and phrases in public spaces. While these typography murals might seem difficult to decipher at first, this unique style helps draw the viewer in.

Having started his street art career more than 20 years ago, Pref reveals, “I have always been interested in the idea of graffiti speaking to the

general public.” Each of his colorful murals invites the viewer to stop and take a closer look, squint, and tilt their heads to try and figure out the puzzle. He explains, “I have pushed and experimented with this idea of overlapping words, seeing how many I can fit into the space of one word, and then slowly boiling it down to simplify this idea and become more legible.” In one particular head-twisting work, Pref paints the words “more” and “less” as a three-dimensional, interconnected word. Depending on your perspective, the words shift into the other, subtly playing on the phrases “more or less” and “less is more.” For the phrase “smoke and mirrors”, the word “smoke” is written in 3D red and yellow letters, while the font for the word “mirrors” appear as a superimposed smoky vapor.

Alec Monopoly. Alec Monopoly is an American street artist whose adoption of the board game character Mr. Monopoly as his mascot was inspired by stockbroker Bernie Madoff and is intended as a criticism of the billion-dollar bailouts and deregulation associated with major banks. Monopoly uses his work to subvert the capitalist hierarchies presented in existing popular culture and his already sizable body of work is highly recognizable with his signature graffiti-style cast of characters taking center stage. Born Alec Andon in 1986 in New York to an affluent family, he began his artistic career making graffiti around the city.

“Painting on walls is more fun for me because it’s exposed to everybody, not just art collectors or enthusiasts,”

he said of graffiti. However, Monopoly now avoids vandalism, often painting on abandoned buildings and warehouses rather than government properties or businesses unlike other street artists. Now considered one of the leading artists in normalizing graffiti as an art genre, alongside KAWS and Banksy, Monopoly is quickly becoming a household name. His works are collected by famous actors and musicians who, along with the artist himself, personify the luxury lifestyle that his art depicts. With artists such as Alec gaining popularity in recent years, it is clear there a growing interest in street art and graffiti art, particularly that portrays American culture and comments on modern societal values.

Top: [31] and Bottom: [32] American graffiti artist Alec Andon a.k.a. Alec Monopoly

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Iconography [1] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81X3oxm5gGL.jpg [2] https://www.sprayplanet.com/blogs/news/a-history-of-graffiti-the-60s-and-70s [3] https://www.taki183.net/ [4] https://www.graffitiknowledge.page.tl/Modern-Graffiti.htm [5] https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/zephyr/ [6] http://www.evan-roth.com/work/graffiti-taxonomy-nyc-paris/ [7] https://vivacity.ru/profile/taps-moses/ [8] https://dirtypilot.com/products/graffiti-artist-seen-bubble-drawing [9] https://www.pinterest.com/Aizoner/ [10] https://www.graffiti-empire.com/graffiti-pictures/graffiti-spotting-blue-wildstyle-graffiti-in-new-zealand/ [11] https://www.noisiamofuturo.it/2018/02/22/banksy-lartista-del-mondo/ [12] https://thestreetspot.com/category/graffiti/page/3 [13] https://www.widewalls.ch/graffiti-history-10-important-moments/taki-183-tagging/ [14] http://fab5freddy.com/back-makin-art/ [15] https://www.rockandfiocc.com/movies/art-documentaries-full-length-and-free-youtube [16] https://veiling.catawiki.nl/kavels/17688029-poem-graffiti-nature-scene [17] https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-hip-hop-punk-rise-graffiti-1980s-new-york [18] https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-hip-hop-punk-rise-graffiti-1980s-new-york` [19] https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/crack-is-wack-keith-haring-mural-in-newyork-city-gets-second-life [20] https://www.deodato-arte.it/2016/12/21/come-nasce-obey/ [21] https://www.brain-magazine.fr/article/interviews/24006-Martha-Cooper---Graffiti-girl [22] https://urbanario.es/en/articulo/punk-graffiti-stencils-and-tags-since-1977/ [23] https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2015-ready-to-wear/moschino [24] https://urbangypset.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/spouse-loius.jpg [25] https://colossalmedia.com/work/ [26] https://colossalmedia.com/work/ [27] http://www.thewynwoodwalls.com/walls/retna [28] https://www.artwort.com/2018/05/24/arte/street-art/graffiti-pref/ [29] http://www.rylsee.com/bio/ [30] https://www.goethe.de/resources/files/jpg780/mark-macguire_rylsee_seizure-3_983_427-formatkey-jpg-default.jpg [31] https://www.eden-gallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/artnet-6.jpg [32] https://www.rollingstone.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/alec-monopoly.png [33] http://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll1604731llgq4jR3CfDrCWQFHPKAD/ kaws-kaws-x-undercover-(2).jpg

Jayme Miller-DeLorenzo Politecnico di Milano - Scuola del Design Design della Comunicazione Corso di Typographic Design - C2 Prof. Giangiorgio Fuga / Margherita Perugini A.A. 2019-20