Graffiti world: street art from five continents (original) (raw)

Graffiti: Commercially Accepted – Socially Rejected

2008

Graffiti and advertising; two contrasting forms of communication sharing a multitude of common themes, advertising being the very tool of a capitalistic society, graffiti, however occurring as a medium of visual freedom. At a time of a universal, even so incoherent identity loss as a consequence of society’s orientation towards materialism above all, commerce adapts new values, traditionally belonging to underground subcultures, which end up as brand values. Graffiti is gradually transformed from a form of urban art to an advertising medium, or a brand’s very value. In this discourse we are examining how this is conveyed in today’s world of fashion and electronics and what the motives fuelling the authorities judgement, between acceptance and neglectfulness, are; withal our consequential objective is to judge impartially the commercialisation of something that was brought to life in a pure, urban and in a sense, a very innocent environment: graffiti.

Graffiti Aesthetics • Some Notes

Graffiti may or may not be art, and that may or may not matter. To those ends I discuss a half dozen or so pieces in different styles, show that, whatever his particular style, Ceaze’s letterforms do not overlap, identify X-form and ‘crazy organic’ as styles, and distinguish between ‘old school’ and wild style. Moreover, because of its insistence on the name as the basic matrix of a piece, graffiti may represent a break from the past comparable to the adoption of 3D perspective in the early modern era and the creation of abstraction at the beginning of the modern. Finally, graffiti exists on at least a half dozen different quality levels.

Graffiti and Street Art: Reading, Writing and Representing the City

Avramidis, K., & Tsilimpounidi, M. (Eds.). (2017). Graffiti and Street Art: Reading, Writing and Representing the City. London: Routledge.

Graffiti and street art images are ubiquitous and enjoy a very special place in collective imaginary due to their ambiguous nature. Sometimes enigmatic in meaning, often stylistically crude and aesthetically aggressive, yet always visually arresting, they fill our field of vision with texts and images that no one can escape. As they take place on surfaces and travel through various channels, they provide viewers an entry point to the subtext of the cities we live in, while questioning how we read, write and represent them. This book is structured around these three distinct, albeit by definition interwoven, key frames. The contributors of this volume critically investigate underexplored urban contexts in which graffiti and street art appear, shed light on previously unexamined aspects of these practices, and introduce innovative methodologies regarding the treatment of these images. Throughout, the focus is on the relationship of graffiti and street art with urban space, and the various manifestations of these idiosyncratic meetings. In this book, the emphasis is shifted from what the physical texts say to what these practices and their produced images do in different contexts. All chapters are original and come from experts in various fields, such as Architecture, Urban Studies, Sociology, Criminology, Anthropology, and Visual Cultures, as well as scholars that transcend traditional disciplinary frameworks. This exciting new collection is an essential reading for advanced undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics interested in the subject matter. It is also accessible to a non-academic audience, such as art practitioners and policy makers alike, or anyone keen in deepening their knowledge on how graffiti and street affect the ways urban environments are experienced, understood and envisioned.

Getting Up: Graffiti and the Rise of Street Art

Getting Up: Graffiti and the Rise of Street Art You can spot it on walls, floors, ceilings, outside or inside, be it a scribble on the side of a dumpster, to a mural that beautifies the lengths of entire buildings. Chances are that if you have been to any urban area (or anywhere else) that you"ve seen graffiti, perhaps without even realizing it. Graffiti is a popular form of street art, which is a visual arts movement characterized by its presence in public space, and its wild diversity of mediums and styles. Many forms of street art, such as graffiti, often bear the stigma of vandalism, and this attitude is reflected in many parts of the world by punitive legislation. Even so, graffiti still pervades urban culture, and has even been integrated into society through formal galleries and commissioned work. Regardless of its con-

The emblem of agency and resistance within graffiti

At present, graffiti is reflexively devalued as a form of vandalism disseminated by lower-class citizens championing rebellion against the status-quo. Perhaps the graffiti artist"s disobedience to authoritative institutions is to blame for detachment of social appreciation from its potential for creative integrity. Street art is scarcely praised as an art form that requires intensive artistic skill to execute deeper messages and meanings. This essay therefore aims to open up graffiti"s place as a visual form of cultural practice and the extent to which graffiti employs agentive action. Moreover, it allows for the exploration of issues faced by researchers when analysing graffiti culture.