Graffiti Art

A drawing, inscription, or stencil made on a wall or other surface usually seen by the public is as old as humankind itself. For instance, ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used graffiti as a popular medium of expression. Over time, graffiti has been used by gangs to mark territory, by political activists to make both conservative and radical political statements, and by disenfranchised youth as a means to challenge the status quo and construct alternative social identities. Often made synonymous with hip-hop culture, graffiti is also intimately tied to punk culture and various other subcultures.

Over the decades, various political groups, especially those outside the mainstream, have used the walls of buildings of major metropolitan cities across the globe as a cheap, yet highly visible, means to make political statements and advertise political events. Often considered “propaganda” graffiti, this practice often includes strong symbolic and iconographic content that would typically be censored by mainstream media outlets. Although some propaganda graffiti articulates fascist and racist ideologies, like swastikas and other fascist imagery, anti-capitalist, anti-war, and anarchist messages tend to be the norm.

Individuals and small collectives not affiliated with specific political groups also use graffiti as a medium of political expression. More specifically, many politically oriented graffiti artists use existing mass media, like billboards, and add their own pronouncements and iconography in order to produce negative commentary about itself. This process, known as cultural jamming, is also similar to a technique that takes the form of a new image or slogan and makes a caricature of existing and contemporary political and corporate advertisements, known as subvertising. Unlike propaganda graffiti, cultural jamming and subvertising tend to illustrate radical and liberal viewpoints. Although not exclusive to graffiti, these forms of ideological expression are increasing among its practitioners. To this end, graffiti is an important tool of resistance for political groups and activists.

In relation to hip-hop culture, graffiti, also known as aerosol art, began in the mid-1960s in Philadelphia's neighborhoods of color. Its earlier practitioners, known within the culture as writers, included CORNBREAD and his protégé TOP CAT, who would later take the style of graffiti popularized by his teacher to the subways and buildings of Harlem. Other early New Yorker writers included Julio 204, CAY 161, EVA 62, CHE 159, and a legendary group of writers known as the EX-VANDALS.

Although graffiti was born in the mid-1960s, it was not until the early 1970s that it began to develop elaborate styles and widespread visibility. In 1971, the New York Times ran an article about early writer TAKI 183, which struck a responsive chord among thousands of New York youngsters, hailing them to pick up spray cans and permanent markers to make their own name and to be recognized. The most famous years in graffiti's modern history were the years between 1972 and 1989, when graffiti was developing through activity on subway cars themselves.

In many respects, the graffiti of early hip-hop writers were not political statements; rather they were simply a strike against their generation's invisibility and alienation. Although political statements have become more common among writers, graffiti still serves as a means to assert a public identity. Further, many writers see graffiti as politically and culturally subversive, as a manifestation of civil disobedience.

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