When Graffiti was taken off the street and brought into the gallery in the mid-1970s, an ancient and ever-popular form of expression achieved overnight high-art status. With aerosol spray paint readily available early in the decade, large-scale, colorful Graffiti had spread... [more]

When Graffiti was taken off the street and brought into the gallery in the mid-1970s, an ancient and ever-popular form of expression achieved overnight high-art status. With aerosol spray paint readily available early in the decade, large-scale, colorful Graffiti had spread across the American cityscape, blossoming on the sides of subway cars and on every humanly reachable building. A loan word from Italian, 'graffito' means 'scratch', and the plural, 'graffiti', are drawings or images scratched into surfaces of walls. While certain high-art artists like Cy Twombly, Jean Dubuffet, and Antoni Tapies had included references to Graffiti in their work, their methods lacked the street cred evident in the output of Freddie Brathwaite, Keith Haring, Lady Pink, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. These artists gained fame after the elevation of Graffiti became a fait accompli with a show at New York's Artists' Space in 1975. The majority of Graffiti artists aren't technically trained; instead they are individuals (or crews) who find, according to art critic Lucy Lippard, that "writing on the walls of the nation's land- and over-lords gives voice to the pain and to the small victories in class warfare." Artists compete against each other for innovation and street presence; writing styles have changed from bubble lettering to the interlocking script of wildstyle, with artists adding stylized pictures, cartoonish figures, and social commentary. As hip-hop moved from the underground, so did Graffiti art. Promoted by groups like United Graffiti Artists and Fashion Moda, Graffiti kept gaining exhibition opportunities, and a distinct Graffiti-Cartoon style was developed by artists like Haring. With its first major museum exhibit in Rotterdam in 1983, Graffiti had finally made it to the top. Yet this was to prove a short-lived glory -- the art world only looked to the street for a brief moment, and then returned its usual obliviousness. During its reign, Graffiti sparked much controversy concerning its validity as art: some critics were unable to see it as anything other than vandalism, others considered it a form of urban folk art. Paralleling the cultural debate, a social debate developed around issues of exploitation. Graffiti art was a manifestation of social freedom for some of its practitioners, but at the same time, the art market was eager to separate the art from the ghetto youth who created it, then keep the proceeds. [show less]