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Definition: images or lettering scratched scrawled, painted or marked on property.
may appear in the forms of simple written words to elaborate wall paintings.
The word originates from the Greek word "graphein" (to write) and the word "grafitti" itself is plural of the Italian word "graffito."
A tag or a mural for graffiti artists is an advertisement for them as an individual. The goal becomes to get your name known and recognized by the people who see your tags everyday. It becomes your marketing strategy, the most effective way of getting your name well known. That is exactly what in modern days all of us are doing on twitter every day or facebook. We use it to promote ourselves or our business. Companies with money use billboards and TV ads, people with less or no money in the 70's, 80's, and 90's used graffiti.
Graffiti began in ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire and some believe maybe as early as cave men times, based on the wall paintings found in caves around the world.
Modern graffiti actually began in Philadelphia in the early sixties, when Cornbread and Cool Earl scrawled their names all over the city. By the late sixties, it was flourishing in Washington Heights, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The New York Times took notice in July 1971, with a small profile of a graffiti artist named TAKI 183. But Julio 204 was using a Magic Marker and spray paint on city walls as early as 1968, and in 1971, writers like JOE 182 began “bombing”marking as many surfaces as possible.
Towards the end of the 1960s the modern culture began to form in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The two graffiti artists considered to be responsible for the first true bombing are "Cool Earl" and "Cornbread". They gained much attention from the Philadelphia press and the community itself by leaving their tags written everywhere. Around 1970-71, the center of graffiti innovation moved from Philadelphia to New York City. Once the initial foundation was laid, graffiti "pioneers" began inventing newer and more creative ways to write.
Some call Taki 183 the godfather of modern graffiti.
His tag was short for Demetaki, a Greek alternative for his birth-name Demetrius, and the number 183 came from his address on 183rd Street in Washington Heights.
He worked as a foot messenger in New York City and would write his nickname around the New York streets that he frequently passed, during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
On July 21, 1971, The New York Times ran an article about him on the front page of its inside section, titled "Taki 183" Spawns Pen Pals.
TAKI 183's newspaper fame created competitive tagging in NYC.. His tag was being mimicked by hundreds of youth across the five boroughs. The people who got their names up the most and developed signature tags became heroes in their communities.
Graffiti became a way for many young kids to communicate and express themselves, their graffiti is a vital part of their culture and without TAKI 183 and its media recognition, it might not exist today.
Andrew Zephyr Witten is a graffiti artist from New York City. He began creating graffiti in 1975 and first signed using the name "Zephyr" in 1977. He has been identified as a graffiti "elder", who along with Futura 2000, Blade, PHASE 2, Lady Pink and TAKI 183 invented styles and standards "that continue to be used and expanded upon today".
Witten was part of the first wave of graffiti artists to make the transition to galleries, collectors and commercial work.
Witten's influence on New York City's self-image is exemplified in Suzanne Vega's 2007 song "Zephyr and I," which uses a conversation between Vega and Witten as a framing device to create what Vega describes as "sort of a little snapshot of what West End Avenue used to be like in the 70s."
Donald Joseph White, "DONDI" is considered one of the most influential graffiti artists in the history of the movement.
Born in the East New York section of Brooklyn, Dondi was of African American and Italian American descent. By the 1970s East New York became an unstable region with racial tensions and social conflicts such as the prominence of street gangs.
In an interview with Zephyr, Dondi stated that he had joined several gangs in the 1970s to avoid being attacked. In 1980 he began to indulge his interest in graffiti.
Graffiti became a serious part of Dondi's life in the mid 1970s. He tagged using “NACO” and “DONDI”, and worked on refining his style, gradually moving from simple tagging to more elaborate pieces. He became a member of TOP crew (The Odd Partners) in 1977. In 1978, Dondi formed his own crew, named CIA (Crazy Inside Artists). For the next 20 years, Dondi became recognized as the stylistic standard, influencing a generation of graffiti writers.
Phase 2, aka Lonny Wood was another well known New York City graffiti artist. Mostly active in the 1970s, Phase 2 is generally credited with originating the "bubble letter" style of graffiti writing, also known as "softies".
He began writing in late 1971 under the name Phase 2. Part of the appeal of graffiti writing for him was that it allowed him to get his "name" known yet remain anonymous. He said later that tagging provided disadvantaged urban teens "the only significant vehicle to represent their 'existence.'"
It was in late 1972 that Phase 2 first used an early version of the "bubble letter" or "softie", a style of graffiti writing, which would become extremely influential and is considered a "giant leap" in the art form.
The puffed-out, marshmallow-like letters drawn by Phase 2 were soon copied by other artists who added their own variations. Phase himself quickly embellished on his original form, creating and naming dozens of varieties of softies such as "phasemagorical phantastic" (bubble letters with stars), "bubble cloud", and "bubble drip." He is also credited with the use of arrows in graffiti writing around this same time. Hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang has noted that Phase 2's canvasses from 1973 have "been widely recognized as defining the early genre."
Fernando Carlo is a famous graffiti artist from the South Bronx, New York. He has been writing graffiti since 1978-79, and has gained international credit for his work. Though he is now known worldwide, he didn't receive recognition in the mainstream graffiti world until the mid 1990's.
Other than simply showing off the artist's name and artwork, graffiti has been employed for other purposes as well. It has been used in the past to spread social and political messages, and as a form of advertising. It is also considered a modern art form, and can be seen in galleries around the world.
Initial groundwork for graffiti began around the late 1960s. Around this time, graffiti was mainly a form of expression by political activists. It was considered a cheap and easy way to make a statement, with minimal risk to the artist, often at the time a hippie.
Modern (twentieth century) graffiti predates hip hop by almost a decade and has its own culture, complete with its own unique style and slang. The belief that the two are related arises from the fact that some graffiti artists enjoyed the other three aspects of hip-hop, and that it was mainly practiced in areas where the other three elements of hip-hop were evolving as art forms.
Modern graffiti is often seen as having become intertwined with Hip-Hop culture as one of the four main elements of the culture (along with the Master of Ceremonies, the disc jockey, and break dancing), through Hollywood movies such as WildStyle.
In addition, graffiti has been made synonymous with the anti-establishment punk rock movement of the 1970s, with such bands as Black Flag and Crass stenciling to gain notoriety, thus bringing it into punk culture.
As the foundations of graffiti began, gang graffiti also began to arise, used largely by gangs to mark territory. Some gangs that made use of graffiti during this era included the Savage Skulls, La Familia, and Savage Nomads.
The MTA (Metro Transit Authority) began to repair yard fences, and remove graffiti consistently, battling the surge of graffiti artists. With the MTA combatting the artists by removing their work it often led many artists to quit in frustration, as their work was constantly being removed. It was also around this time that the established art world started becoming receptive to the graffiti culture for the first time since Hugo Martinez’s Razor Gallery in the early 1970s. In 1979, graffiti artist Lee Quinones, and Fab Five Freddy were given a gallery opening in Rome by art dealer Claudio Bruni. Slowly, European art dealers became more interested in the new art form. For many outside of New York, it was the first time ever being exposed to the art form.
Style Wars depicted not only famous graffiti artists such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne and Zephyr, but also reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip hop culture by incorporating famous early break dancing groups such as Rock Steady Crew into the film which also features a solely rap soundtrack. Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s.
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti there has come commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." However due to illegalities some of the "street artists" were arrested and charged with vandalism, and IBM was fined more than US$120,000 for punitive and clean-up costs.
Marc Ecko, an urban clothing designer, has been an advocate of graffiti as an art form during this period, stating that "Graffiti is without question the most powerful art movement in recent history and has been a driving inspiration throughout my career."
Graffiti has become a common stepping stone for many members of both the art and design community in North America and abroad. Within the United States Graffiti Artists such as Mike Giant, Pursue, Rime, Noah and countless others have made careers in skateboard, apparel and shoe design for companies such as DC Shoes, Adidas, Rebel8 Osiris or Circa[22] Meanwhile there are many others such as DZINE, Daze, Blade, The Mac that have made the switch to gallery artists often times not even using their initial medium, spray paint