Andrew Finch. 2012
Contact: andrew_6556@hotmail.co.uk Website: www.andrew-finch.tumblr.com
ʻTo me itʼs not so important the form, which is really freeing, itʼs not so much what it looks like or what it is, but itʼs the ideas in it or the spirit of it or the mental feeling. You feel like your watching a brain working. Itʼs more cerebral in a weird way, not being smart, being geniously dumbʼ -Mike Mills (filmmaker speaking on skateboarder, Mark Gonzales)
ʻThe artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstepʼ - Paul Strand (photographer)
The question of what defines art (and therefore graffiti as art) is a long and drawn out philosophical investigation that seems unanswerable without considering artʼs role. Art that represents, art that informs us and art that serves to express are the constant running modes of investigation. The writers of graffiti and those that vehemently refuse to see any artistic significance in the form have long discussed what makes graffiti ʻartʼ since itʼs rise in popularity since the 1960ʼs. The crux of the discussion often concludes that street art with conceptual ideas, often of socio-political importance, hold artistic relevance, but tagging, or ʻthrow-upsʼ remain vandalism. Many are unable to understand how a tag can accepted as art, however often the tagger and the street artist display their work for overlapping reasons that coincide and amount to rebellion and a feeling of necessity – the art is in the doing, the road taken to create it. Kantʼs definition of art lies in his idea the art exists for the purpose of representing, while also further exercising the power of social communication we can express in the artistic form. The communication that graffiti expresses has always been varied. Writers have found themselves able to tell the world how they feel by anonymously writing a statement upon a wall, to awaken people to ideas or messages that they deeply believe, but feel unable to tell in any other way. In illegally writing upon a wall you are committing an act of rebellion, which holds a level of social communication in itself, for it tells the owner of the wall- as much as the people who see it- that there comes a point where the modern world in all its emptiness and superfluities, swallows up individual truth and expression so venomously that there is sometimes no alternative to simply writing how you feel, and hoping that someone else will read it and feel like they are not alone in their anxiousness about how the world is. Otherwise what is literature? Or film? Or music? Plato believed that art has the power to corrupt, as it blurs the truth for people. Considering the progression and development over the thousands of years since Plato was writing, it is questionable whether his theory can
be applied to graffiti art, for one may argue that it has the power to corrupt the mind, but again it is also possible to lay the claim that it saves the mind from corruption, it allows us to be momentarily free from manipulation. The exposure to something raw, something direct from the imagination of a single person is freeing, and releases thoughts free of impulsive desires to eat, shop or procreate. This allows graffiti to be separated from advertisements and imperatives that are so commonly littered in society, and makes it pure in its form, for what is purer than an escape from the mundane, and a forming of complete expression of individual imagination. Often when we are exposed to a large-scale piece of graffiti we are momentarily unable to grasp what is depicted, or even what it conjures up in our mind, so we have to step back from it and consider, using our innate faculties of creative imagination, which are slowly being numbed. Artists seek to represent in their art, often satirically representing modern life as absurd, with the demand for improvement. It is a backlash against the dank grey walls society seems to prefer, but can give no honest justification for. Do we really prefer things to be so neat and orderly that we are unable to distinguish wall by wall- walls that constantly coat our vision? We choose what to look at in our private time- the words we read, the films we watch, the people we see, so why should it be that we let our public life be dominated by nothingness? Graffiti tags are people, who look over the city and make it what it is. The tags are the cracks in a non-perfect world, which allow the space for the cities to breathe. In terms of representational art then perhaps it would be better to judge case by case within graffiti rather than generalise because often artists are seen to represent modern life satirically in their art while also distorting our representations, perhaps enhancing our view of life, so the mirror that art acts as may actually reflect a brighter world filled with greater possibility. The colours and shapes created in a throw-up often exceed what we think the human imagination is capable of, and often- what the artist thinks that they are capable of. The colours that have been lost in our dreams, but are distantly felt in our child-like sense of wonder. We often connect with street art because it regularly reflects our lives and how we secretly feel but daren始t tell anybody, because what does
conversation consist of in modern-day society other than a brief exchange of meaningless comments passed between people who long to tell the world of their deepest beliefs and fears, but have grown accustomed to etiquette and sensibility? An artist may create a work of art to inform. Either about something that they are going through personally and wish to share, so that we can learn informally of an experience or a historical event, (such as Picassoʼs Guernica which gives a direct account of the artists depiction on the Spanish Civil War) or it may hold religious connotations (such as the Buddhist Wheel of Life which informs us of The Four Truths: the existence of suffering on earth, the origin and cause of the suffering, the ending of the suffering and the path once must take to be liberated from suffering). Therefore, informative art is often produced not for self-interested purposes but for the purpose of teaching. This does not mean that the teaching has to be educationally beneficial to the observer of the art- it may inform them of something they wish they did not know, out of fear or conscious failure to recognise their selves in the art. George Orwell wrote ʻIf liberty means anything at all it means telling them what they do not want to hearʼ. Graffiti art differs from other various types of informative art in that it communicates to you directly; it does not politely avoid the subject as a means of artistic endeavour. It is wholly demanding of your attention in the very moment you are exposed to it, and what you learn from it may even be that you despise graffiti more than you already thought you could – or you may learn that somebody has felt the need to communicate something, and risks being caught by the law to tell you. And while some may see it more appropriate to communicate something through the mendacity of language, in the form of which we use it day-to-day with less extreme courses taken to communicate- many would feel as though art manages to communicate beyond what we are able to speak. It may be done for your benefit and it likewise it may be done for the benefit for the artist, for them to learn something of themselves or to organise and work something out inside themselves that they feel canʼt be done in any other way. Art as a method of expression is perhaps the most popular argument for aesthetic creation. Many would claim that all art is expression, for
producing something original (that is not mass marketed or produced to be sold in large quantities as a product) is led by the artistʟs emotion. Art is a gradual process where the original emotion the artist intended to communicate may change which is represented in the form, colour and composition of the piece. However the artist has to be conscious of their own emotion, they must be individualistic in their expression, for the art would serve little purpose if generalising about a single emotion and the artist feels some sense of enlightenment once the work has been produced. Art making is often a cathartic process that frees oppressed emotions. Art as expressionism means that the emotion presented by the artist may sometimes not be known, therefore making the work entirely subjective to the observer/participant. It may produce happiness while it also may produce pain, emotions that some wish to be left alone and kept hidden. Some works may seem to express very little, or cannot be known to express anything without understanding that creatorʟs intent and concept behind the piece. Emotions may be challenged and placed in front of the observer so that they cannot do anything but assess them and see what it is they can create and express. Sometimes what is expressed is simply the feeling that the artist is incapable of producing what his mind desires – elements of frustration are constantly apparent in the history of art and the art produced in the attempt is able to take the observer through the emotions that the artist felt whilst trying to express their feelings. Most overwhelmingly, art is necessary, and is inseparable from emotion. If there was no art, how could emotion be expressed and documented? How could one escape their isolation in believing they are alone in their pain, emptiness, loneliness, alienation, and grief? Throughout time we have connected through single moments of art and been brought closer to ourselves through each other. Sometimes we even produce something so personal to ourselves that we want others to see it, to share it with the human conscious outside our own. However we often feel as though such things are best left unsigned by who we really are. So we create ourselves, a sense of reinvention into the people we never thought we could be, or wanted to be but never found the chance to before.
And we make our art, we do it with emotion and heart, and we give it to the world to feel with us, whether theyʼre ready for it or not. We tell them who we are and what we feel in ways unimaginable to how they believed conceivable. And sometimes, itʼs just wholly gratifying to piss people off who canʼt bear to see a wall perverted by kids who are having much more fun than they are.
Over time the art world has become increasingly exclusive and inaccessible to some of the most creative minds in the modern world usually belonging to young people with intense drive and talent but no money. Continuously art is bought and sold and commoditized because of wealthy collectors and museums that are able to afford the monumentally high prices people place on art. Although exhibitions are held and many art private art spaces are open throughout the year, a distance is kept between the art and the observer, making them feel as though the art isnʼt theirs to be part of. Paints and other artistic materials are highly priced and often unaffordable to young people who wish to create for the sake of creating, for the sake of showing what it is that they feel inside themselves. Throughout the history of art, it has been almost absolutely necessary to own money, in order to own the means of producing art that will be noticed and appreciated. However this is primitive in itself, as thousands of people other than the recognised artists associated with the history possessed the overwhelming talent of internally constructing meaningful artistic ideas. Ideas that ignite with a small revelation, and are left to build in your head, collecting and discarding additions that will eventually be actualised if the artist truly believes is worth creating. The basis of art is that it should be universally enjoyed by all those who wish to enjoy it, and that also means it should be open to all who also wish to partake in it. More often than not, the art world is valued in money. The piece itself may be completed externally of any interest in money, but once it gathers interest and takes its place amongst contemporaries in the world of art, it becomes a product. The true value of art should lie embedded in the need to create, to feel something that we otherwise may not have felt, to understand ourselves better and to understand others. To capture something that holds either personal or social importance, and will forever remain important to a whole generation, or to a single person.
At an alarming pace our culture is moving away from art and genuine values of truth and social consciousness to a level of distraction and commercialisation. To experience and partake in culture is to experience something superficial, controlled by what sells products and what is popular, when true art always has and always will be created by those with no need for financial rewards. But unfortunately these works are being smothered, and discarded. Left to rot or to be painted over. While the need to create becomes more apparent, the will to create seems to be diminishing. There will always be those that feel the urgency to paint or draw or write, but the motivation to create that people feel when they are young lessens with age. The burden of responsibility and maturity replaces the time and irresponsibility we once demonstrated in art. Time is now an enterprising opportunity, money is to be made and time is precious. Art making when in childhood, time is not a factor, and if you make a mistake in what you are doing not only can you work around it and let your imagination turn it into something completely different. The satisfaction came in seeing where your creativity takes you. The need to create is becoming more crucial, in order to counterbalance the commodity of our past passions and interests that have been stolen and sold back to us. A chart now controls our love of music; something that exists solely to show people what is currently 驶popular始, in order for record labels to make excessive amounts of money while controlling the musical interests of the majority. There is the general assumption from lovers of independent and underground music that the majority of people, especially young people who contain an element of vulnerability to manipulation, cannot take the initiative to find their own music taste, and let it flourish away from what is played on music video stations and in clubs. The film industry has been Hollywoodised and prostituted continuously through advertisements that embed the images of films and their titles through products including children始s toys, fast food and music. When a highly anticipated film is to be released, the company filters the film into the entertainment world (and therefore the everyday world), smothering the independent creators. Mainstream films are produced and released for the
goal of making of money. There is no love in the creation of the film, it neither exposes characteristics of the creatorʼs vision nor projects an image of the contained characters that will stay with the viewer long after the film has ended. If a commercial film is not expected to financially generate high profits then it will not be made, however throughout the history of independent cinema directors have risked the financial future of their entire life for a piece of art that they have believed in, and often this is recognised, and shines through the finished piece. One sphere of artistic culture that has been prominently left to its own devices is literature – although it too has a chart of the most popular books, they are scarcely advertised on the same scale as music or films are due to the result of the decreased market of literature that exists today – many people simply donʼt bother to take the time to read because they find it easier to access other forms of entertainment. They switch on to switch off. It has been said that for a film to hold the audienceʼs attention, it should be no more than ninety minutes in length. It often needs a constant changing of scenes and an element of good humour. The plot must be simple and have a beginning middle and end. This is the general advice for screenwriters, which goes to show that the common reasonable person has a short attention span, a need for cheap, light entertainment to make himself feel better, a need for minimal level of complexity and a straightforward linear plot that he is able to understand and process by the time the shift change occurs. The general output of films now follows these criteria. But those that see this as art rather than entertainment, engagement rather than escapism, will know that the greatest films, books and albums have been pained over and the artistʼs raw energy channelled into every aspect of their creation in order to create something wholly unique, and meaningful. The viewer, reader and listener must too, be put through a similar experience for them to learn something, and more so – learn something about the artist. They might have to read a bookʼs passage one hundred times to understand it, claw through every word, every sentence to understand what the author is truly trying to express, or listen to an album in order to help understand themselves, because they can relate to it so
much that it feels as though it was written solely for them, or watch a film and run through a scene again and again in their mind in order for them to realise the point in which a scene no longer remains a scene, but an integral part of their life, that they too have been a part of. We do not control what appears on our television, and likewise we cannot prevent the advertisements that bombard the streets of urban cities, only control them – through how we choose to spend our time, with the potentiality of the pursuit of changing whatʼs around us because we do not agree with it. We are controlled by the world we live in, by the streets that direct us to shops where we buy products with the money we earn through work that often we do not enjoy, and we learn to feel the need to consume in order to stay entertained, much like a drug addictʼs dependence on their next fix. Itʼs a vicious circle people buy into, and something that becomes very hard to escape and gain consciousness of because of the constant feeding of distraction we are given. Often our lives are needlessly repetitive in that we involve ourselves in things that mean nothing to us, so that we forget what is most important. Our minds are a blank slate at birth, a tabula rasa that is created by the external world. When you are born you know nothing, you know not how to tie neither your shoelaces nor how to read. You come to learn through association and habit. Walk down any populated urban city street in the world and look at the advertisements placed purposefully in the positions that hold the most footfall, for Hollywood films, Coca-Cola, Cadburyʼs, Nike, MacDonaldʼs, LʼOreal, made purposefully in the way that are progressively adapting to our modern lifestyles. The association of the big tick to the Nike products, the thin white ʻCoca-Colaʼ font upon the red background and the large yellow arches upon the red background of the McDonalds logo. The more you see on the outside, the more you see on the inside. If you saw the Coca Cola logo just once in your life in a non-ostentatious way you would never again think of it again. But because it is there in the spaces you walk, cycle, drive and live – it is the most recognised symbol in the world. You are visually raped each day, so that you feel compelled to buy the brands you think you trust, which are the most recognisable.
Our televisions contain hundreds of channels, ones that we never even watch, yet somehow feel better for having. Freedom of Choice. What freedom do we have when our lives serve the purpose of generating wealth? Outside of the entertainment industry we are given infinite choice in the things we consume. Paper or Plastic. Regular or Diet. Small or Large. Freedom of Choice. We now remain a controlled generation in which our wildest impulses are subdued to pathetic wants. We are no longer a threat, because we have everything we ʻwantʼ. And when we exhaust all that is given to us and the short-lived novelty wears off, the product is upgraded and we become satisfied once more. All of our restless energy, the energy of the agitators, becomes eroded by the capitalist system. We have no time to create, because why bother when everything we think we need is right in front of us, as long as we have the money to consume it. We often feel the need to be part of a widespread culture for the recognition in that we are not alone in what we experience, like how we look to art to recognise the great human suffering. The entertainment world that was once partially artistically controlled now contains an element of the mundane that helps us to recognise our own lives. And contrastingly, we often wish to experience something fantastical in literature, film or music in order to feel as though our own lives could potentially be more exciting. Escapism. Culture becomes more objective, for the subjective entails alienation in what we experience, people wish to see themselves in art and media. And the implications of this entail that we find very little alternatives offered to us, so we must use our own initiative to see through what is presented to us, in order to experience a culture that is self-created, to make the alternatives ourselves where there are none. Therefore if you feel dissatisfaction in what is around you, itʼs entirely down to you to create what you see, what you read and what you hear, and be void of all inhibitions to do it, because otherwise there will forever be a constant perpetuation of suppressed reaction in a world that is increasing controlled from the top down. The people with the most money decide what you see and hear and think and act. What right does a large industry have in telling you what you need? A beauty product telling you wonʼt be as pretty as a Hollywood actress if you donʼt use a certain foundation cream.
A clothing company telling you that the girl isnʼt going to want to fuck you if you donʼt wear a certain set of clothes. A fast-food corporation telling you that your lovinʼ it before you have even eat their food. We judge how to act on the actions of those around us. We are comforted by thinking that weʼre all in this together, and the more we are – the less our lives remain our own. What we need most is energy, and art that doesnʼt care about where you come from. Art not made for wealth nor critical acclaim, but to protest against all the bullshit around you, and to feel the pure joys of living in a self-created world. Graffiti art should be totally removed from corporations. There is nothing in graffiti art that is manipulative for the purpose of making money. Some artists see a gateway for their work to be sold. To take graffiti art from a wall and transfer it to a canvas, or print the design onto a t-shirt to sell is completely out of touch with the real relevance of graffiti art. This is art that came from the streets, a direct backlash against the manipulative forces that too often tell you who to be, how to look and how to act. Graffiti has no care in beingmarketable, and because of this it is very clear which artists have stuck to their original purpose, and which have sold out to an enterprising opportunity. Some say that graffiti art ultimately became an industry. The interest it gathered over the decades is now reflected in many aspects of advertising and product design. Companies took on board the interest and embedded it into their image in order to reach out to a target market – those that appreciate graffiti art for false reasons. The original point of graffiti was to rebel against profit in art. The wealth came from the feeling you get from tagging, painting in the streets, manipulating the horrible concrete mess around you. If you give in to the money-making opportunities around you as an artist, your work becomes compromised, and no longer are you creating art for an intrinsic reason, art for the sake of art, and you end up obeying those that you were originally fighting against.
The main question of debate that constantly rises in relation to graffiti is the distinction between what constitutes art, and what constitutes simple vandalism. Too many times you hear people try to exercise their selfassured liberal selves by stating that they are able to appreciate street ʻartʼ, a piece that has form and composition, but simply cannot appreciate tags, believing it to be an ugly form of nonsensical vandalism that just should not exist in society, for it encourages crime and puts a dent in their middle-class existence. First of all, what tagging consists of is an alias, a pseudonym to which the artist or ʻtaggerʼ can remain loyal. Often a single word comprises the tag that can mean anything and everything, from the initials of a gang to a former childhood nickname of the artist. The tag is a hand-style that the artist tries in a variety of styles in order to establish the form they think is best, and they practice out in a type of trial and error. The tag becomes their signature and their mark. It is completely their own, but no one knows it. Therefore the main purpose behind it is creating a recognisable signature the artist can put to their work on the streets, so they become someone while remaining no one. Often the tag is scrawled on walls where a graffiti piece doesnʼt exist, which is simply ʻtaggingʼ the wall for the purpose of putting your name there, to let people know you were there, and more importantly- you felt it necessary to make a point of it. It is the writer saying I was here, this I my city and I say where I go and how you will come to know me. This is what people donʼt understand, what they see as ugly and unnecessary, a completely illegal act void of purpose. But what they donʼt understand is that by leaving a tag upon a wall, the artist is giving himself or herself a sense of purpose. This is crucial in cities where graffiti exists, where the blank face, grey wall void sucks away all personality, the curvature or colour of a tag lets the city breathe.
Tagging tells a story, the best type, that leaves out the unnecessary vocabulary and digressing; its beginning and end are both set on the street, and you are the middleman who creates the middle of the story through your response to it. And if your response to it be repulsion, then surely as individuals who advocate the use of free speech in a society where people cannot speak up while showing their faces, this is a hugely important part to diversity in thought, in its challenging of what you see to be as acceptable or unacceptable. The beauty of the tag being; it couldnʼt give a shit what you think. The tagger never hangs around long enough for you to tell him. Surely the real vandalism is the billboards and bus-stop advertisements that plague the urban backdrop and tell us what to buy, what to wear, what to think and who to be, endlessly. A tag will tell you nothing, it is void of prejudice and bias and it will not attempt to dictate who you are or want to be. Bay Area artist Barry McGee summed it up pretty well; ʻa kids tag is a kids tagʼ. Itʼs nothing short of what it is, and nothing more than what itʼs supposed to be. Often, people see taggers are cowards, choosing night to lay down their tags across the cities in which they live. Obviously, tagging in daylight is a sure-fire way to get arrested, and nonetheless, although itʼs still possible to tag in the day, there is something completely right in tagging at night. At night the city comes most alive, and itʼs the act of tagging, the experience of going out into the night, that holds its appeal to so many artists. The cityʼs character comes out most when the offices are closed and the light that powers the monitors has been switched off, for the night is often uncontrollable and breaks free from the mendacity of the day. To tag anytime but in the night would be to skateboard in the rain, unfulfilling and damaging to your practice. Tagging is not just as a form of expression, but a statement to mark the wall as yours. Once meeting a skinhead punk in the city, laying his tag over the posters of an upcoming festival or promotion for a new restaurant, when I asked him why he was tagging there, in that spot specifically, he replied that the wall is covered with things he doesnʼt want to see, words that he doesnʼt want to read. Where most people would
ignore this, maybe choose to look down while they walk or turn off the radio while an advert is playing that they donʼt want to hear- it must be remembered that responses like this never did anything, never changed the world around us. Even a reaction as small and rebellious as writing over something you donʼt want to see- that where change happens, where art gets made. No one would paint or write or draw if they felt as though everything worth saying has already been said, or if they just plainly didnʼt care about their surroundings, where they come from and where they wish to go. Tagging is political and an assertion over property control. The deeper and complex meaning behind tagging goes far back in history, before graffiti was recognised as an art form, in order to demonstrate power citizens have over the state. “They hang the man and flog the woman, That steals the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose, That steals the common from the goose.” -
Anonymous, 17th century
To digress onto the notion of property itself, especially as a means of justifying tagging, itʼs necessary to think back to when the notion of ʻpropertyʼ first came about. As citizens born ʻequalʼ onto the world, we should be able to have equal share of the worlds resources, and to use the land available to us to subsist, to share ad to cultivate beneficially. The idea of a state owning the land is a criminal one, and putting all political affiliations aside, is a product of allowing a system to rule above you, dictating your life, implementing rules and standards for you to live by to achieve maxim harmony and social cohesion- for anotherʼs gain. By using artistic materials, and creative means to access parts of private property, to write your name on, is a direct response to those who claim the property as their own. Vandalism is described as destructive or damaging. But does the artistic statement not overrule the ʻdamageʼ done? Does it not seem peculiar that
a tag on a wall threatens people, thinking it ugly, more so than the blankness of the wall itself, unaltered since its construction? Itʼs almost like leaving a guestbook out and hoping that no one signs their name inside of it. For someone to call something vandalism, to see an act as destructive or damaging they must either feel as though their domestic sphere is being invaded and potentially abused, that there is danger involved, that someone has no ʻrightʼ to do what theyʼre doing, or the peacefulness and harmony of a neighbourhood, town, city is being disrupted. To challenge the first instance, the capitalist world that criminalises tagging (and graffiti) interferes with the domestic sphere in every possible instance. Of course itʼs much less ostentatious and works subliminally, as mentioned in the second section of this zine. The intrusion capitalism has on our lives is much more insidious, but less noticeable, therefore we donʼt complain about it or take action to see it removed. To claim that tagging is dangerous is only so because we make it out to be a dangerous thing, either because the person uses the urban backdrop as interactable obstacles to reach spots that transcends ground level. Taggers see excitement in this, as have artists through the decades. Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth would once choose a direction in which to venture, and simply follow it. All obstacles in their path were overcome through interaction, be it climbing over rooftops or under fences. It was, and still is, a simple means of tackling the world around them, and not letting it stop their journey. Who really owns the places we walk and live, and why should it be that only those with the most amount of money are able to advertise there? Wouldnʼt it be better argued that advertisements are the real vandalism in the city, holding no individualistic relevance, as opposed to a tag, that is done by hand, by an individual, with real human and artistic relevance? Tagging may be different from graffiti, although it is inextricably linked. It might wrong to say that a tag is a piece of art, but nonetheless itʼs artful, and the message a tag embodies is one of artistic rebellion that lies deep rooted in all creative endeavouring that sought to change the fundamentals of traditions that are obsolete.
And when people say that tags are ugly, that only colourful murals are real graffiti or art it seems as though they are missing the point.
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Graffiti is the ʻeverymanʼsʼ art, accessible to almost everyone, everywhere, made using the cheapest materials - a pen, a brush, and a stolen can of paint. It is the most dangerous art, not just because of its negative media attention, but because each night artists will risk their lives to reach ʻheaven spotsʼ across their cities. They will risk arrest and criminal charges to do what they love, to see something created, not just for themselves but also for people around them, for the people who share their city with them. Graffiti artists work under a system of control and fear (often to try and overthrow control and fear), with no protection of a studio and no financial reward waiting for them at the end of their work. But this also means that there are no barriers to their work, no gross trappings of the art world as graffiti remains entirely in a world of its own. The element of fear is used everywhere in society, and nowhere is it used more in the form of police control in threatening the artist. Already establishing that graffiti is only a crime because someone somewhere once decided to make it one it counter social imbalance and the socio-political threat of art, the artist must first understand that the primary purpose of legislation and policing is for the citizen to know that they exist. Their very existence, let alone action, is often enough to suppress the desires and will of the artist of the most amateur kind. A few hours venturing out into the night where alertness and paranoia are heightened for the first time when spraying up a piece of art onto a wall is overwhelming, and many are put off doing it again into the future, fearing that their face may have been caught on CCTV images or that they could only be a few moments away from being caught. The city is the artistʼs studio and if something goes wrong, if the artist begins their practice and sees it going nowhere, then they leave it for the entire world to see, without shame.
Once an experienced and established artist took on an apprenticeship from a very established practitioner. At the end of the day when the apprentice left to go home, his mentor went through the bins surrounding his workspace and salvaged the work the apprentice deemed of a bad quality. Years later when the mentor presented his now highly acclaimed ex- student with the salvaged work, it became known as some of his best. Often, you see graffiti art unfinished in car parks, on rooftops and of course, on the sides of walls. This tells a story to the observer, and whether the artist abandoned the work halfway through and left to find another location to re-start a piece, or whether halfway through he heard a police car siren ringing suspiciously close - you never really know. But that始s the beauty of it - it tells the stories of the cities, of all the wild midnight police chases through the alleys and avenues and of all the wild adventures into unknown territory for the sake of. Creation through destruction. Graffiti holds no promise of financial reward either. In art college your practice must be applied to something practical, in order for you to pursue to the level you see fit that will support you in the future, as this is what you are told and encouraged to do. Less and less are you taught that you can create for the sake of creating (primarily), because what始s time spent without the potential or financial reward in the 20th century with technology to buy. Graffiti holds almost no promise of financial reward unless you take your skills and talent of designing and writing graffiti and applying it to product design, illustration or graphic design. But it is wrong to think that while graffiti holds no rewards, that it doesn始t hold an intrinsic reward in itself. The main reward has always been, from the very beginning, the process and the reaction. The Process and the Reaction. Years ago, before the market for graffiti opened and a man named Banksy began selling his stencil work for million, the graffiti done on the streets belonged to the streets. The artist leaves his mark and it is no longer his own once he walks away from it. And that was the best thing about it. It defined a city, a town or a neighbourhood. It gives the character and colour to an otherwise blank void of nothingness, of lack of imagination and mendacity. And what is graffiti without a reaction? What始s anything if nothing stirs within someone who is exposed to it?
Whether itʼs negative or positive, it doesnʼt matter, as long as it challenged you and demanded you to think, to see beyond the ʻartʼ that is given to you for the sake of knowing what it is for conversations sake or for the sake of covering a wall in a house. Graffiti is an absolute return to the value of art, to art of the most primitive kind, that was born in the wildest hearts of people who wished to creative simply because they have to. Done with the most ancient of human resources that have developed, simple methods felt in movement, and by using everything around you to your own advantage. Here nothing is dismissed as unnecessary or unhelpful is serving the quest for truth in art. For one to understand the extent and potential of art on the streets it is necessary to disorganize the way we see the urban cities that are rigid and organised, ultimately reflecting the world in ourselves that was once also blank, and ready to be claimed by the colour and excitement of the world we once hoped for. And there is something happening now, right now, that will one day be recognised as the biggest art movement the world has ever seen in the history of humankind. Because the truest art, the art that demands you to see the unseeable, or to think the previously unthinkable, to exercise your imagination to the very point where you yourself are convinced that you too can change someone with what you create, is the art that comes from the bottom. Art made by the kids, the kids in spirit who have no interest in financial reward, who have their wealth inside, and their acclaim in the knowing that they took part in something that didnʼt require them to sell-out or be part of the general consensus of expectation. Graffiti art began with raw energy, and the willingness to do something you were not allowed to do, to say Fuck You to control, to the forces you to follow the slow progressing monotonous line of mendacity, that forcefeeds you advertisements and television. It is the same reason why
people skateboard - to tear shit up, to piss people off, the same thing that punk did, the same reason why hip-hop music was so relevant. It is uncut, unedited and unapologetic expression. It is Do It Yourself and made by people who forever donʼt want to grow up, and who create because they wish to see something tangible, something real that represents them, and where they came from. And so whether you tag your name to say that you were here, to vent the anger you feel against growing old, to express yourself in a series of short movements, or because ultimately whatʼs better than putting something personal upon a blank surface for the sheer reason that itʼs something youʼre not allowed to do, in world that is more and more trying to keep you as a softly-spoken, well-mannered, mature and responsible, , solemn-faced, consumer. So if you ever try to think about what graffiti is, and why it means so much to so many people, remember that it isnʼt always about what it is - itʼs sometimes about what it isnʼt.
Stay Free.
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