 |
| Caves at Lascaux, France |
Drawings and paintings on cave walls from the Palaeolithic period are the first example of artist using the walls around them as their canvas (17, 300 years old)
Discovered in 1940 by four teenagers
The paintings depicted scenes of everyday life, hunting etc.
They were scratched on to the cave walls with animal bones, natural pigments
 |
| Pompeii, Italy |
Graffiti on the wall, from ancient Rome, Pompeii.
It was discover in 1749 , after it had been buried under volcanic ash for centuries.
Similar
vulgarities to contemporary sexual graffiti
 |
| Engraving on Kilroy on the WW2 Memorial in Washington, D.C |
20 th Century
Author
Charles Panati says
that in the US "the mischievous face and the phrase became a national
joke... The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but
where it turned up."
Kilroy spread by us troops around world
Humour out of hardship
Chris
Osburn
American freelance photojournalist and
filmmaker living and working in London. As a foreign correspondent for
publications such as Juxtapoz and Whitehot
Magazine of Contemporary Art, Chris covers England's burgeoning graffiti scene
from the frontline, often accompanying notorious street artists on their
outings.
A list of the renowned artists which Chris has photographed in action includes
Sweet Toof,
Cyclops, Sickboy
and Dan Witz.
He has interviewed significant contemporary urban artists such as Paul Insect,
David Choe
and Invader and has extensively photographed the works of numerous legendary
artists, including Jef Aerosol, Adam Neate,
and Banksy.
1970's New York
Spray can Graffiti arises
It evolves alongside hip hop culture
Making the Language of the streets visible, and noticeable they didn't want to be ignored.
Jon Naar 1973 (photographer)
Cleaning
the truck with Ajax
Writing with marker pen means that anonymity preserved.
‘Via trains and buses the writers
sent their messages to more affluent parts of the city as well as leaving their
mark on public spaces.”
He
makes a distinction between this kind of
work in the 70’s and the ‘permission graff’ of comissioned graffiti in designated areas which is
not illegal.
“you
will see that the vast majority of these writers came from the most run-down
and neglected sections of New York….predominantly Hispanic and African
American. The graffiti they sprayed on the fronts of their homes and on the
trains… were a cry for change from the ghetto to clean up the filthy streets,
to improve the quality of the schools, and to reduce the glaring inequality
between rich and poor.”
American
artist, Jean Michel Basquiat. His
career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in
the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist
painting. Basquiat died
of a heroin overdose on
August 12, 1988, at the age of 27.
In
1976, Basquiat and
friends Al Diaz and Shannon Dawson began spray-painting graffiti on
buildings in Lower Manhattan,
working under the pseudonym SAMO.
“the
same old shit,” then shortening the phrase to "Same Old", then
"SAMO"
“It
started…as a private joke and then grew”
Diaz and Basquiat
would later tell the Village Voice in
an interview. They took the joke out of the school,
giving out small stickers with SAMO aphorisms or the SAMO pamphlet on paper on
the subway, and writing down the phrases with marker pens as graffiti, often
with an ironic copyright symbol attached. In 1977, while they were still
students, Basquiat and
Diaz started to put up the first SAMO© Graffiti in Manhattan
 |
| 1979 |
Appeared
as poetic/sarcastic phrases.
 |
| 1982 |
 |
| 1983 |
Neo Expressionist Painting
Graffiti style turned into painting
TV,
film, music videos, band
In
1981, Rene Ricard
published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum
magazine, which brought Basquiat to
the attention of the art world.
Exhibitions,
celebrity
Painted
in Armani suits
 |
| Keith Haring, 1990, Radiant Baby |
Keith Haring an
artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City
street culture of the 1980s.
Friend
of Warhol and Basquiat
In 1981 he sketched his
first chalk drawings on black paper and painted plastic, metal and found
objects.
In
1984, Haring visited Australia and painted wall murals in Melbourne.
Other
commissions are in; Rio, Paris and Berlin
There are issues
of permanency in street art.
 |
| Keith Haring, Pop Shop |
Selling
t-shirts, toys, posters bearing his signature images, it became a celebrity
hang out
When
asked about the "commercialism" of his work, Mr. Haring said: "I
could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price.
My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking
down the barriers between high and low art.
Artist as a brand.
 |
|
Jenny
Holzer, Times Square Show , 1980 |
 |
|
John
Feckner,
Broken Promises, 1980
|
Truisms-
a self evident truth
They make
you think by their presentation.
 |
|
TATS
CRU , 1997, for Coca-Cola |
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. In NYC, Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV Sony.
Comment
on the lack of availability of brands and technology in the Eastern bloc.
The
Berlin
Wall was
a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic on 13th, August, 1961. It completely cut off West Berlin from
surrounding East Germany and
from East Berlin
In
1989, a radical series of
political changes
occurred in the Eastern Bloc,
After
several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9th, November, 1989, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin.
Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West
Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks,
a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the
governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest.
Graffiti in Video Games
 |
|
Jet
Set Radio (2000-2003) |
This game depicts a future Tokyo
where freedom of expression is outlawed. The user plays a character in the GG's, a
gang of in-line skating graffiti
artists who skate around Tokyo covering up rival gangs' graffiti, knocking over
Rokkaku
police, and dancing to the eclectic soundtrack. The game uses a cel-shaded
style of animation, and has been widely acclaimed for its unique music style,
detailed art, and gameplay.
 |
|
Bomb
the world (2004) PS2
|
Created
by graffiti artist Klark Kent
where users can virtually paint trains at 20 locations worldwide.
 |
| Sideways New York, PS3, 2011 |
 |
| Grand Theft Auto, 'Auto Tagging' |
Invader
Charcters
inspired by space invaders classic game of 70’s/80’s
French
artist, born 1969
First
mosaic in mid 1990’s Paris
Mosaic
tile which has permanency as it is weatherproof and more difficult to remove
than paper/paint
Tiles
are representative of pixels
The
‘invasion’ spreads first across French cities and then 22 countries worldwide
Re- Emergence of Street Art
 |
| Banksy, Kate Moss |
 |
| Shepard Fairey, 2008 |
Big
names in graffiti, like Banksy and Shepard Fairey, mean
that graffiti is once again brought back into the art gallery.
Street
art enters the worlds of art and politics
The New Yorker art
critic Peter Schjeldahl
called the poster "the most efficacious American political illustration
since 'Uncle Sam Wants You'
 |
|
Parisian
Photographer JR, Favela Morro Da
Provienda-
Rio, 2008 |
International
picture
Pasted
giant blow-ups of his photographs (usually of ordinary people). Highlight
social realities like the women of the Favela in Rio, their eyes looking down
protectively over the neighbourhood.
 |
|
VHILS, ( Alexandre Farto), London 2008 |
In
situ
Plaster
chipped off wall to create sculptural relief
Leke St
tunnel beneath Waterloo Station
Part
of Banksys Cans
festival
“The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km- the distance from London to Zurich. The wall is illegal under international law and essentially turns Palestine into the worlds largest open prison. It also makes it the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers.”- Banksy 2005
