Final Blog: Top Artists

This is a quick list, after the past week, of whom I consider 2 of the top graffiti writers and street artists in the world.

1. Inkie: Born in Bristol, England and started as a street artist in the 80's with a crew called Crime Incorporated Crew (CIC) and further went on to form a different type of graffiti, which is now called 'holy trinity'. He is one of the most well known artists in England, Europe and now the world. In a recent interview by Topman, a retail store, he was asked what style of graffiti he performs and he answered that he performs a New York 'wildstyle'.

2. Banksy: Another artist from Bristol, England and a huge part of this 'holy trinity' movement. He was named one of the most influential people in 2012 and is well known for his political movement and powerful quotes and art. He has also managed to make a fairly decent career out of selling his artwork. 

Both of these artists, especially over the past week have had and sent key messages through my brain and even though sometimes there work is not appreciated, there messages are undeniably extremely powerful.

Below are some other graffiti and street art:

Bibliography Sources

http://magazine.topman.com/category/culture/inkie-the-graffiti-king-on-the-evolution-of-street-art/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6575345.stm
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/dr.%20revolt
http://whenthepencilhitsthepaper.blogspot.com/2013/01/keith-haring-energy-in-art-never-dies.html
http://picturesforcommunication.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html

Graffiti and War

Graffiti can portray many messages but one message that I think graffiti can and has been used to help is the idea or peace and war. This piece below by Banksy provided a key message showing soldiers painting a peace sign. The message that I retrieved from this was that even most soldiers want peace between sides and that the majority of the time there is no need for such violent events. 

I also found a project named The Graffiti of War project, which is essentially a project to enable soldiers of war a chance to tell there story and explain there experiences through graffiti and art. The idea of this project is to portray a different side of the war, a side and perspective that can be seen only through the eyes of the soldiers. The URL for this video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H__KrhchUUw#!

Below is several images that was a part of this project and all of these have powerful images associated with the Iraq war. 

Bibliography Sources

http://www.icanvasart.com/banksy-soldiers-painting-peace-print.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H__KrhchUUw#!
http://halogentv.com/articles/in-pictures-graffiti-of-war/

Public Space and Graffiti.

What is Public Space? This is a great question and in the video seen this morning this question was asked over and over again. The reason why this is an important question is because if public space was defined then technically graffiti artist would be able to use these spaces are there canvas. The issue lies when there is graffiti on private property and this is a problem, as seen in the image below where a school including other property like cars were vandalized using graffiti. This I believe is where people start the argument that graffiti is not art, when lines are merely sprayed over other peoples private property.

The image below is by Banksy and this is most probably my favorite piece by Banksy and having grown up in England and knowing that London is one of the most watched cities in the world this image is extremely powerful and questions this idea of public space. What are you looking at? This question asked by Banksy is clearly a attack on the idea of public space being invaded by the extreme number of CCTV cameras in place. Items like this by Banksy clearly makes you think what is public space and how can it be defined. An individual in the movie this morning stated that public space is what taxpayers pay for, but the issue with this is when something is public space it is available for everyone and people have conflicting views on this form of art. 

However Banksy has posed an important question here and the issue of public space is difficult but needs to be solved in order to fix any graffiti issues. 

Bibliography Sources 

http://pervasivegames.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/graffiti-and-the-struggle-over-public-space/

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/west-forsyth-high-school-vandalized-by-graffiti/nQfRg/

The danger behind the art

The interesting thing about graffiti and why some people do it, is because it is essentially outlawed. This not only adds more risk to the activity but forces people to perform this form of art in places where they may not normally roam. 

 This image to the above is an image taken in Brazil on a bridge where these three men were caught on camera attempting to perform graffiti in a place where most would not. This may be to create a more powerful image but the danger these three are taking to portray this message is high. One step in the wrong direction and I would bet they are dead. Now unfortunately this happens to graffiti writers all the time, which is what happened in the below image. Police in Vancouver discovered a young man dead with spray cans above him so they assume he was attempting to perform a high rise graffiti piece on an 18 floor apartment building. Graffiti is art but with another entire level of risk involved in it and the writers of today seem to think that the more risk taken on a piece the more powerful the image or message will be. 

Bibliography Sources 

http://thebegissues.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/why-why/

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Craig-Fugate-man-identified-in-high-rise-graffiti-death-201081251.html

Graffiti Theme Parks

Amusement parks exist because people like to attend them, whether it be for the thrill of the ride or the enjoyment of what is going on around them. This is extremely similar to graffiti where people go somewhere and do something for enjoyment but also to express themselves. The key thing about graffiti and street art is that people need to express themselves in one way or another, so why not make somewhere that people and especially children can express themselves through graffiti. That is where I came up with the idea that a graffiti park would be a hit in these type of areas.

The strange factor is it could serve as originally a graffiti park but also as a gallery, a place for people to express themselves in a way that be seen in a safe and secure environment. The image above shows a graffiti park in Austin, TX and how it has been a huge success winning a Best of Austin award in 2012. The interesting factor would be to see if people would flee to this park like they are below in a theme park. 

The other factor is reducing the risk for kids and trying to channel there need to express in a much safer but yet effective and meaningful way. The image below shows the risk these graffiti artists take in order to 'tag' a location or brand a location with there name just to be heard or recognized. 

Bibliography Sources

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Awards/BestOfAustin?Award=1377847
http://favim.com/image/222121/
http://animalnewyork.com/2012/daredevil-graffiti-writers-take-the-bridge/

Tattoo's & Graffiti: Art?

The questions some people ask is whether activities such as graffiti and tattoo's are and should be classified as art. I find this mind blowing and the question was slightly answered in class on Wednesday but I can't believe that this question is even asked. Is the sky blue? Yes. Is a circle round? Yes. These answers are not subjective and based on opinion, they are all facts and the answer is whether these different forms of art, are art is essentially a factual answer. The criticism of these forms of art is people who are scared of art moving forward and creating new and different branches that could develop art and encourage different sectors of society to be involved and thrive through art.

 For example, both of these are forms of art, one being a graffiti piece of a lion and the other being a tattoo of a lion. The tattoo is personal to me as it is mine and lions can mean different things to different people: strength, courage, power or authority. But the amazing thing about art is we can all interpret and use different art forms and have our own opinion on them. But the one subjective piece is that these different forms of art is most certainly art.



Bibliography Sources

http://getinspiredart.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/dime-one-lion-graffiti/

The Magic behind the Gardens

The Magic Gardens of Philadelphia was not only only a surprise to me because of the cleverness of the art itself but also due to its location, size and altogether composure. First of all I cannot even imagine the amount of time and effort that was put into the composition of a piece that is so in depth and large but the other factor is that it is much smaller than what I had imagined. I imagined it as more a sprawl, a maze of mosaic art, bottles, bike pieces and dramatic quotes. The strangest factor for me however was the location, a small plot on south street managed to be turned into a masterpiece by Zagar and some other artists.

Locations of art such as this can add such character to a city and with all the powerful quotes added to the magic gardens, key messages are being thrown out to society and visitors of this wonderful creation. 

Bibliography Sources 

http://www.visitphilly.com/music-art/philadelphia/philadelphias-magic-gardens/

Philadelphia: A city of art

Today brought an interesting experience in Philadelphia. A city that, as an international student, is not known for its art anywhere else in the world was surprisingly buzzing with beautiful art pieces. The Philadelphia Mural arts program was one of the most successful and powerful art programs I have seen.

A self guided tour led us to first receive a small speech on the history and the development of the mural arts program, leading to a tour around several mural art pieces surrounding Philadelphia. A key message that I retrieved from the first speech was that all the mural art pieces are picked specifically to fit individual neighborhoods and that the program works closely with neighborhoods to ensure they are comfortable with the murals in there neighborhood.

The most interesting story heard today for me was the mural of Dr. J. and even though we didn't see this particular mural, the story of the artist intrigued me. The fact that the artist wanted Dr. J. to be portrayed in a suit shows a key message that artists want to portray to the children within the city of Philadelphia, that individuals are more than what they appear to be.

Bibliography Sources

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/city-guides/philadelphia-photos-2/#/philadephia-doctorj_2400_600x450.jpg

English Roots

The only ever graffiti artist I had heard of growing up was Banksy and purely because he was the most well - known writer in England when I was growing up. During 2010 he was named one of the most influential people in the world, this shows how much of an impact his art and he as a person has had on the world over the past decade.

An article named The Story Behind Banksy explains the true story of how the famous and the mystery of Banksy started and where it is today. The most interesting component of this story for me is how influential an English born graffiti artist from Bristol has become in this world. This story truly shows how meaningful graffiti and street art can be and the subliminal message that this art can show. The image below shows my favorite Banksy piece, this is because I grew up at a time in England where football (soccer) violence was everywhere and this image portrays to me how violence isn't needed around this sport and that we should be celebrating the success of the sport not ruining the reputation of it and our country.

Bibliography Sources 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Story-Behind-Banksy-187953941.html

Introduction to Graffiti Terms

As an accounting and finance major, my awareness and education of art in general is extremely limited but my interest in graffiti and street art is not limited. My first experience in art and graffiti art was the introduction to the key terms in street art. These terms were far different to what I used to refer to particular street art or graffiti, for example, I used to refer to all graffiti art as 'pieces' but after some individual investigation as well as an interesting powerpoint explaining the different graffiti and street art terms I realized that 'pieces' are a particular graffiti and street art that requires an extreme amount of planning as well as key execution.

So, key graffiti terms are important when referring to street art as the differences between them may only be small but the terminology for the art may change. Compare the 'piece' above to something called a 'throwie', which in the graffiti and street art world has much less respect, purely due to the fact that is seen to be less complex and have much less of a meaning and message than a 'piece'. If you refer to both images you can identify which of the two is more complex and therefore most probably a 'piece'.

Bibliography Sources

http://www.crayone.com/graffitiburners.html