A Research Paper in Vandalism
Graffiti art is constantly changing. Twenty years ago, traditional typographic graffiti was the most widespread street art medium in the World. Every city across the globe was defaced with spray paint words and slogans known as `Tags.' Since then, various artists had felt that there was no progression. Graffiti had become a competition, where spray-can technique was more important than style or ideas.
Artists today are doing things differently. We still see the occasional typographic art, and indeed artists' still use spray-can's to form a basis of their art, but they now have the free spirit to be able to evolve their work from their sketchbooks and onto an urban setting using all available mediums. Whether it be typographic art, or using stencils to spray their artwork more effectively and efficiently, artists now also have the option to avoid using spray-cans. Stickers and posters are becoming a global phenomena, allowing artists to express themselves in ways that a spray-can wouldn't allow, as well as the spontaneous benefits of marker pens.
Artists depict their own style using logos and characters rather than tags. Using different mediums to graphically communicate their ideas, artists will vary their work from posters to stickers and from stencil art to spontaneous marker pen art. Propaganda and hidden messages are often loitered around city blocks also, as well with a varied range of mediums. Which ever way they decide to portray their art, Graffiti has now earned itself a more in-depth definition from the usual label of “Spray-Can Vandalism”
Tagging
Making your own personal mark is the essence of graffiti culture. Writing your name or tag on walls, trains or any other available surface is where it all began. A `Tag' is a small piece of art, usually in the simple form of text, written in graffiti style type and often completed quickly and efficiently with large thick marker pens.
In the late 1960's Hip-Hop music had become very fashionable and fuelled a boom in graffiti. Graffiti writers began writing stylized names in their neighbourhoods in New York and Philadelphia. Each tag was individual to each writer, and a personal mark of their work. Repeated `Tags' could be seen across the city, each either marking the work and style of an artist or more commonly, marking out territories, which was undertaken by gangs or by individuals looking for recognition from other graffiti writers. Over time, `Tags' became more about personal style and less about legibility. Graffiti writers had developed a highly-sophisticated level of urban calligraphy whose main audience was other graffiti writers or `Taggers,' due to the illegibility of the `Tags,' many untrained eyes were not able to decipher what the actual `Tag' was saying.
Armed merely with a marker pen, writers would venture into subways, or the vast maze of alleys within the city limits. Here they would seek shelter from prying eyes whilst doing their `Tag,' shying away from the authorities. Working quickly and effectively, the writer would complete their `Tag' and move onto the next spot, producing their artwork purely to mark their territory, and not for the public eye.
After many years, copy-cat artists began to emerge and elaborate the style of `Tags' and they began to release them into public domains, rather than within the secrecy of a subway or alley. Writers would begin `Tagging' on the exteriors of trains, allowing their work to be seen by thousands of people as the trains travelled through various US Cities. This is how `Tagging' and graffiti was first introduced into other cities.
Writers soon began to evolve their art work and `Tags' into typographic art or `Pieces' as they are known within the graffiti circle. But the original `Taggers' did not succumb to this art movement until the end of the 1980's, when some graffiti artists began to feel that `Tags' and their style of writing had become to standardised and started looking for new inspiration. This new inspiration turned out to be typographic art.
Typographic Art
Otherwise known as `Pieces', typographic art evolved from the original tagging undertaken by individuals and gangs in New York and Philadelphia in the 1960's. Other cities across the USA and the World stood up and took notice of this artistic expression being completed by such people from New York and Philadelphia. This began the art movement of typographic art.
Artists would form their work on the basis of the simplified `Tags' undertaken in the 1960's. To achieve greater street fame and respect, artists would add eye-catching devices to their `Tags,' such as stars, crowns and quotation marks. This began to shape the evolution from `Tags' to `Pieces.' As `Pieces' continued to evolve, artists began to become more elaborate, eventually evolving into bubble lettering and finally into the large scale typographic art that has become a global icon for what graffiti stands for, as well as the stereotypical label of vandalism that comes with any form of typographic artwork.
Typographic artwork has always been, and will continue to be, labelled as vandalism. Many graffiti `Pieces' are in fact legal and completed on designated surfaces, often shied away from public contact. These legal `Pieces' are often undertaken by professional graffiti artists, who produce their art work on a designated urban canvas to showcase their work, in the way that an artist would showcase their work in a gallery. Their goal is not simply to deface public property to impress the passing public, it is to produce an artistic masterpiece and to gain respect from other artists. It only seems to be the illegal art work that is displayed upon urban surfaces that gains any press, which offers a bias approach towards graffiti in the public eye.
Continuing the evolution from `Tagging,' artists would shy away from the marker pen and resort to the bright colours available from a spray-can. This medium was soon to become an iconic figure in the graffiti World and is still the weapon of choice among most graffiti artists. Although spray-can's allow artists to create highly detailed masterpieces, it proved to be very time consuming and the downfall for illegal artists, often being arrested for their actions. For legal artists, spray-can is the only medium of which to work with. Each professional artist is highly-skilled with high quality techniques of a spray-can, including manipulating their equipment with different levels of caps, such as fat caps and thin caps, which provided artists with an array of spray thicknesses, due to the larger or smaller radius of the nozzle on the spray can. Due to working on designated areas and working with in the law, professional artists could take their time with the medium relinquishing fear of the authorities.
Stencil Art
Ever progressing to gain the publics attention, graffiti artists began to derive a new chapter of art movement in the ever growing graffiti world. Stencil art was a popular branch from the typographic art movement. Graffiti artists were able to create smaller versions of typographic art `Pieces' in a matter of time, with highly detailed results on a smaller scale.
Originally beginning with artists creating their `Tag' in stencil form for them to re-generate their personal style accurately and an exact replica each time the stencil was used. This also allowed for the `Taggers' to complete their work in half the amount of time, decreasing the risk of entrapment by the authorities.
Further evolving throughout the years and keeping up trends with society at that time, graffiti artists began to explore stencil art further. Now the second most popular form of graffiti, stencil art has got bigger and bigger. Stencils have gotten bigger and more detailed, and have moved away from `Tagging' and typographic art and concentrate more on political messages.
Armed with a spray-can and stencils, artists will continue to deface urban surfaces with their artwork using this medium. Politics and current affairs often the form of messages portrayed from artists. World renowned for anarchy and rebellion, it would be a crime in itself if graffiti artists did not let their voices be heard with regards to recent turn of events in current affairs. In modern times, stencil art has evolved strongly into political art, with a high quantity of today's stencil art forming views against the government, militia and current events in the World.
Armed with a PC and a printer, Artists will create their work keeping with modern society, using such tools as desktop publishing and image editing software packages. Art work is then printed, and then transferred into a stencil using a sharp scalpel to cut away the desired lines. Artists will create stencils using transparent acetate; helping artists to create large detailed scaled works of art that require a build up of different stencils. Using transparencies allow artists to view their work as they load up the layers of a piece of work, aligning where the next layer is required.
The sheer quickness of the stencil allows artists to complete artwork thoroughly at home, decreasing the amount of time required to complete an art piece upon an urban canvas. This gave artists the freedom to create highly detailed `pieces' to greater accomplishment. Producing crisp lines with no effort, replicating exact replicas each time used and offering multi-layered artwork, it is easily realised why artists have evolved into the stencil art phenomena.