History Of Subway Graffiti Art Essay

Art. Art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” (google). That’s kind of a lot. Basically, art is anything created as a product of human creativity and imagination to portray a message, trigger an emotion, or just, look good. That being said, what isn’t art? Anything, from the mona lisa to the projects sitting around this room were made by human imagination and creativity to portray a message or just be beautiful. What if you were told, that all of the hard work that was put into those projects and paintings, was illegal? Not accepted by some people as art, and frowned upon.

Graffiti has been around for more than half a decade and practiced worldwide. However there is debate between whether it is a form of art or vandalism. Graffiti artists’ debate that many do not understand the reason most graffiti artist take the risk of incarceration, fines, injuries, and in some cases death to paint a wall. A graffiti artist can have the simple desire to become recognized, or to create a piece that speaks to their audience as a form of self expression. Because graffiti is associated with gangs and acts of destruction to some many cannot see the history and importance graffiti can have on a worldwide scale. Due to the fact that graffiti is usually produced illegally, meaning it is

Graffiti is derived from the Greek word graphien which means drawing on a surface such as stone. It was originally created as a word to describe the illegal drawings that ancient

In the early 70’s the common style of graffiti was tagging just a single lined tag, later on as the 70’s progressed a graffiti artist known as T-Bone who was the leader of the graffiti club, KCD (Klub City Decorators) drove up to New York City to check out the graffiti scene up there. When he arrived, he saw double wide lettering (like Bubble words) all over the subway and he was amazed. The lettering was filled in and not only had the name of the artist but also had objects drawn next to the name like a parrot on a tree. Something like that had never been seen before in Philly during that time. Upon seeing New York style and loving it, T-Bone and his friends brought the style back to Philadelphia with them. They were arguably known to start New York style in Philly. Later on this “New York style” would be called Throw-up, double wide lettering

You see it everywhere. You see on buses, on walls, on trains, everywhere. It has made many gawk while others just don’t see a reason to it. Graffiti has many connotations, some good and some bad. It’s the thrill that drives these crazy risk-takers to get their names known. Seeing graffiti through the eyes of an artist who only sees his masterpiece. Graffiti has been here longer then you think. Though you may see destruction of property he only see his art and freedom of expression. Being a graffiti artist is about feeling the rush of a finished masterpiece and not getting caught. Some are the quieter type but are still well-known. It has been here since the 1960s.

The roots of graffiti started about 1971 by a Greek American who tagged “TAKI-183” in all New York subway system, he declared that he “used graffiti to create an identity in which he is certain about” (Fortuna 3), then it emerged all around America and the world. (David 72)

Art has been around ever since the ancient city of Pompeii. The people of Pompeii used graffiti as a way to display their cleverness; from poetry contests to playful recombinations of the letters that form Roman Numerals. In the early ‘70s, graffiti was used as a way for young teens to mark their territory. During that time, many people – especially in New York City – saw graffiti as vandalism and prohibited it. Even though graffiti has been misused in some occasions, as long as the purpose is not to deliberately mischievous or malicious destruction, graffiti is art.

There are many associations with graffiti writing, Hip-hop being the first. Though the emergence of graffiti can be attributed to street gangs; which, they used to mark their territories (Chronopoulos 2011, pg. 79), graffiti began to merge with hip-hop culture in the 70s (Chronopoulos 2011, pg. 82). Ultimately, this combination promoted the public domination over public spaces in New York City through the use

This aspect of hip hop culture became so engrained within “codes of behavior, secret gathering places, slang, and aesthetic standards,” and thus had the most racially ethnic artists, which is why these people were mostly targeted by police for these actions. Taki 183’s graffiti was an act of political resistance against the “cleaning up” of New York City streets, which was a euphemism for whitening these neighborhoods economically and physically, with the displacement of poor, people of color. Specifically, his work is called tagging because the artist is “making his or her presence known and proclaiming his or her identity through a unique mark” (Orejuela, 2015, pg. 17). The artist of this graffiti artwork, and others like it were also a blatant display by people of color peacefully fighting back the state for its intended demise and who at the time, spent thousands of dollars to rid the streets of these pieces of artwork because of its direct connection to people of color. This work of resistance was so successful because other graffiti artists would try to compete with Taki 183’s work and thus, they too would create their own piece of work. This then made it almost impossible for the city to paint over every piece of work, but this also made it more dangerous for the artists themselves, as the penalties for graffiti became even more severe as people of color became even more policed. This artist specifically, made this artwork most popular as he performed it during such a tense time and received major exposure by the New York media. Phase 2 was infamous for creating bubble writing, also known as softies, but was also a b-boy. He also rapped and graffitied during the 1970s when the state of New York was in a war with the residents of color and the lower class. Phase 2 art is referred to

(Rhodes) Early on, artist limited themselves to just spraying their tags but by the mid-1970’s artists grouped up and began painting murals instead of just tagging things. (Rhodes)

Art had played an important role in building up civilizations from all over the world through thousands of centuries. It is and will always still the way of projecting artists’ ideas and thoughts into meaningful and tangible objects which we called “work of art”. In addition, It was the path through all these years that dug its way to reach to our current century to show us the beauty of every single era starting from the Upper Paleolithic Period of time (42,000 – 8,000 BCE) reaching to our contemporary artists of today.

The origin and history of graffiti is not what one might expect. Believed to have been created by a Philadelphia high school student named Cornbread in 1967, it was a bold effort to catch the attention of a girl (De Melker). In this same time period, graffiti sprung up in New York as well. It was “one among many forms of social protest” during

big canvas that he called "The Joy of Life" is actually the announcement of this style. Although

Graffiti has put a major impact on the way people look at their everyday life. It was not used so much here in the United States but was used overseas. Overseas, graffiti, or street art, was used or played as a sport, just like baseball is Americas sport. There are different laws that are put over there than what there are here. They can get away with some of the things that they paint or make over there. If we tried some of that type of work over here, we would get in trouble and possibly serve time for vandalizing someone else’s property. There are many biased outlooks on graffiti, but it should be considered art in all places because of all the time, effort, and design the artist put into their work.

Gropius, and many other artists and teachers, made significant contributions to the development of graphic design. Among its many contributions to the development of design, the Bauhaus taught typography as part of its curriculum. In Graphic designing use of red and experimental layouts, set strong design trends. The typography standing vertically or diagonally on the page – though this was a difficult technique to implement. Bauhaus was influential in the modernist