In Style Wars the act of making graffiti in the public arena is pertinent to the meaning of the work. Well, let’s carve it down to being in public first of all. It is a huge aspect of the work to do it publicly; the graffiti is seen by all who walk, ride, or drive past, and it affects how an individual may perceive their environment. When seeing all the people in the subways who were asked how they felt about the graffiti, most were against it. They wanted it to be cleaned up, and most looked almost depressed to have to ride in the subway based on the excessive amount of “bombing” and the lesser professional looking graffiti that takes groups of people over the course of many hours.
However, based on the war between bombers and the graffiti that isn’t based on the amount over the city, it seems that the bombers are doing what they want out of spite. It isn’t pushing the “art form” forward into being taken seriously. If anything, bombing has acted as the negative force behind graffiti art, like how stereotyped people in a society embrace the sweeping generalities applied to them, as if they are refusing to make a difference to become better people for society. This thought can be applied the same way to graffiti artists who actually do put hard work and the soul into the pieces. Why do they keep up this act of vandalism and second-hand destruction of public material if they know in the end, it will just make them look like the bad guys? It is because in this professional way of creating the art, they are making a difference between themselves and the bombers. They are not scribbling garbage tags over and over again. There is style, technique and an extraordinary amount of effort involved, as one can see in Seen’s graffiti on the side of the building (which eventually gets tagged over by a bomber).
Using the body as a means to risk themselves for their art, the graffiti artists make way for a different type of art style. It is out of the studio, out of the home, and into the general public. They want to show you the beauty of what they do, and perhaps it is in this way (in public), they are showing that they are indeed a lower class, but don’t they have a talent that is comparable to contemporary artists?
When one burner describes himself and his work as “going all city,” it is a reference to his art, him self, and his social standing. By viewing “going all city” as a strictly urban platform, it is evident to see that the act of spray painting is already notorious for being an urban activity (and so is the vandalism of trains, walls, etc.). The style of the burns is expressive, from what I can see, of lifestyle. Being in an urban environment, things such as architecture, transportation, and the basic design elements of all things urban are modernized, which rubs off onto the people who live in such urban environments. Jagged corners, sharp diagonals, overly stylized curves and added detail are very much relative to the area in which the graffiti artist is in. Without pre-existing urban developments, graffiti would be extremely different, and the propagandistic messages that are sometimes etched on the sides of trains would most likely be more imagery than text.
The idea that bodywork is involved in hip-hop culture is powerful in that these forms of art are highly important to the demographic of the people in Style Wars. There are white, black, Puerto Rican, Mexican people involved, and in combining efforts of creating such art forms as graffiti, break dancing, hip-hop music, et cetera, there is an outstanding bond that is shown. They may be of different races and backgrounds, but the fact that they all lay on the same level of society (a lower class), they are bound together not by race or of basic similarities, but of something that they create together. Break dancing plays a role in the language of freedom because it is a form of expression. Art as an expressionistic activity involves any individual who takes part, and immediately there is something that can be shared. In this way there is a community that forms right away, based solely on creating visuals, bodywork, or the spoken word that many people of the same social class can agree with.
When the one-armed graffiti artist states that “it’s a matter of bombing, that I can do it,” it refers to what he sees as what he’s allowed to do, or what he thinks he’s allowed to do. Being confined by these means, he works on graffiti as if it is his life. Of course, striving towards this art form in all seriousness as he does, he has created a deeper meaning to the act of bombing. There is no question of whether or not it is important to his life; after all, making graffiti is how he lost an arm. A constant reminder of what could be rendered as a mistake, he has embraced his loss to become a driving force to show how he can still make good graffiti (which is seen as a low art form to most of the city) with only one arm.
The tombs are referring to the origins of the tubes; original maps, as well as tags and graffiti from the first taggers and most all other graffiti artists of the city rest in these “tombs.” The tombs act as an underground collective, kind of an homage to themselves where they will not be censored since it isn’t above ground for all the city to see. The hip-hop kids who are involved in graffiti and tagging of the city not only have an involvement via the paint they lay down on the streets and trains, but they have reconstructed the lay-out of the city in greater ways. Because all classes of the city disagree with the amount of graffiti that litters their city (and so do the city council and mayor), the city was reconstructed to make the act of graffiti-making near impossible. The trains were spotless and fences were erected at every station so the bombers couldn’t get to them. All because it started with graffiti, the reflection of how others are so opposed has created a new realm of the city in which it has cost millions more to stop it from happening, as well as a totally different aesthetic of the city. Ironically, the “freedom” which graffiti artists wish to possess has been stifled by misinterpretations of the higher-ups in the city and also held back by those who have lowered the bar with nonsensical tags.
When it comes to the general tagging and graffiti done by city kids, there are obstacles to overcome in order to become taken seriously. Because of the wars between burners and bombers, it becomes more about differences in what each “artist” wants out of their act of spray painting in the area of the city. It doesn’t mean much more than means of defense against one another when it becomes a war of tagging. When it comes to Banksy’s work of stencils and graffiti, he creates ironic messages about the world we live in today – most people can relate to the ideas he’s trying to convey, as they have to do with war, famine, capitalism, etc. By applying his art in the form of world issues, it becomes open to all and thus has a greater meaning. On the other hand, with basic tags or graffiti in the streets of New York, not everybody can see what the message at hand is. There are cultural aspects that only certain groups may know about, or the who’s-who of the graffiti world. I found the most interesting burns to be when Mayor Koch was getting ready to rid the city of tags and the ability to tag by putting up fences. The burners and bombers knew about this and on a train going by was the message “Dump Koch.” This is exciting because there is a meaning to it that involves the artist trying to find his or her place in the city, rather than feuding with one another.
The imaging of hip-hop culture defies societal expectations and stereotypes of social scales (such as how hip-hop is more relative to the lower class) since there is a freedom that comes from accepting who you are, and taking what is defined as a lower-class level into what can be represented into an intelligent art form. I believe that wealthier white kids are attracted to graffiti making because it is evident to them that this is new art. Graffiti has definitely taken off since it’s beginnings and has become it’s own form of pop culture, developing genres such as pop surrealism, which defines urban living mixed with the surreal which graffiti did in the first place. There are no limits to who can do graffiti, which is the beautiful thing about it. As I stated earlier, all races of people have become involved in graffiti, and in this way it is established on it’s own as being a way to be free by creating art. Art is about no boundaries and no discriminations, and graffiti takes this on. If you like it, accept it; just as in the gallery of New York when the graffiti was “peeled off the train” and put up for all to see, the graffiti artists accepted that art-socialites were interested in their work – and they weren’t more than happy just for money.
Based on how one of these graffiti artists got injured, he literally puts his neck out for his work. “Yeah, I vandalism (sic), but I did something to make your eyes open up, right? So what are you talking about it for?” In order to make an artistic statement he has risked his own health… And at the same time he has created an artistic integrity in graffiti by putting much technique and “style” into each piece, making it more than just tagging or “bombing.” I agree with his statement since art to me is about justifying the integrity of the artist and mostly to the viewer. Whatever you view, you take into your own context and attempt at developing personal meaning before anything else. When you can apply personal meaning first of all, it becomes more important and says something about the personal observing the piece. While graffiti applies to the people who create it since it is also a per formative piece, there lies a deeper meaning in this involvement, and others who have not participated may not see any relevancy to how the graffiti communicates with community. It only looks like destruction.
Art in the gallery scene is viewed by some as a “good investment” and it’s “going someplace.” Graffiti in the art gallery as a fine art, however… is this what the artists actually want or is it important to make money off of it? I believe that the power of graffiti is the risk of getting caught, of the wars between groups like bombers and burners. There is a huge territorial aspect of graffiti that is lost when it’s put in the gallery. When this cultural message is put into a safe, cozy gallery space, where no one can touch it or change it, and only certain people are allowed to see it, it means something different, something about capitalism and money-making. Graffiti becomes not something about the self or the personal identity, but of fine art (which I believe it is in it’s own right, and doesn’t have to be because it is in a gallery or recognized in an art space). Fine art, also, has become about money; buying fine art means investing, and just as the woman in the gallery said, “It’s definitely a good investment and is going someplace.” Because graffiti is so fresh and different from the contemporary art of the time, it is seen as being the new art. It is groundbreaking and fresh.
As one of the city councilmen stated, “They should pick up brooms and brushes and clean up the city, do something that helps society.” This can absolutely be applied to ANY artist! Why don’t artists stop making art and contribute to the society? Why don’t they become doctors or teachers? Or, since artists are rarely seen higher up in society at all points of time in the world (with the exception of the late renaissance when art and science was considered a higher means of thinking), they should become the one’s who clean up society. The lowest class.
