Brief history of graffiti and street art
Today’s street art has been said to start in New York in the 70s, but many argue that it started even before the rise of civilisation. This literature review first explores the origins of the art form and how it has spread across the globe.
Through the years, street art has become a wide-ranging term for a variety of media and techniques. Graffiti, for instance, is also generally considered as street art. It was derived from the Italian word sgraffio, meaning, “to scratch” (Ganz and Manco 2004). “Tagging” or “bombing”, which is to sign the graffiti artists’ name on surfaces (Macdonald 2001), is the modern form of scratching on the wall. Murals are another form of street art that is referred to as socially sanctioned urban art (Halsey and Pederick 2010). Street art, mural, and graffiti are indivisibly linked, and so like most literature available, this study deals with street art, as it is popularly understood, which is all forms of art in a public space.
Because of the differences and similarities of street and graffiti artists, this literature review also looks at their relationship within the subculture. While some artists would unquestionably call themselves graffiti artists, there are still those who veer away from the label due to the negative connotation that it has acquired (Ganz and Manco 2004). On one hand, there are artists who grapple with legalities, but on the other, there are artists like Banksy whose works have forayed into commercialism.
Literature on the commercialisation of street art is explored in order to understand how a supposedly illicit pursuit becomes a profit-making activity. The illegalities of the art form are also studied in order to illustrate the struggle between artists and authorities. Moreover, the literature review touches on contemporary street art in London as the research focuses on the increasing popularity of the art scene in London’s East End, the creative heart of the city (Foord 2012).
Global and historical practice
As mentioned, modern day street art has been known to start in the 70s. However, Ganz and Manco (2004) claim that the art form started in ancient times. Pictures carved to cave walls and the process of blowing coloured powder through hollow bones have been found in places such as Lascaux Caves in France (Ganz and Manco 2004).
Fragments of clay with carved notes were also found in Ancient Greece (Ganz and Manco 2004) while medieval and Renaissance church graffiti dominated in England (Fleming 2001). By the 1900s, during the Second World War, the Nazis in Germany used drawing on public spaces as a propaganda movement against Jews. At the same time, graffiti was used by a group of German nonconformists called “The White Rose” to speak against Hitler (Ganz and Manco 2004).
Today’s graffiti developed in New York and centred on spray-painting letters but new approaches have since emerged. As these New York artists travelled around, the graffiti phenomenon spread across the USA and then eventually in Europe (Ganz and Manco 2004).
Many of the places in which graffiti has seeped through have been identified to be economically poor areas (Fleming 2001). The art form then lends itself suitable for an artist dwelling in these places to voice out their frustrations since graffiti, as described by Abel and Buckley (1977), is “a form of communication that is both personal and free of the everyday social restraints that normally prevent people from giving uninhibited reign to their thoughts.”
Anti-authoritarian undertones
A majority of the literature on street art has political undercurrents primarily because it has been known as an anti-authoritarian platform, both historically and at the present time. According to Lewisohn (2008), during the Roman era, people gathered in a place to complain about authorities through drawing on the wall. Come the 70s, student protestors made their views public with posters and painted words (Ganz and Manco 2004).
By the early 80s, the youth in urban communities sought to make their mark in the world through street art during the post-civil rights era (White 2014). As most of the places where graffiti thrives have been known to have fraught conditions (Lewisohn 2008), street art has been used as a tool for them to rebel against people in power. Up to this day, street art on its own can serve as a form of protest. It also acts as a supplement during campaigns and demonstrations. While leaflets, banners, and slogans are more conventional ways of protest, graffiti is no less effective (Posener 1982).
Since street art is highly visual, books that cover the subject matter tend to be graphic-heavy. Posener (1982 and 1986) presents a collection of photos of graffiti that demonstrate the political involvement of the artists to their art. In Posener’s (1986) book, Louder Than Words, issues ranging from the lack of decent housing to angry responses to rape attacks are showcased. In another book, Spray It Loud, Posener (1982) features more photos of political graffiti, focusing on women’s issues as her way to redress patriarchy in society.
Ganz and Manco (2004) also chronicle street artists from five different continents featuring pieces in varying styles — others extremely political while some purely visual. True graffiti, however, in Perry’s (1975) book, The Writing On The Wall, Melly (1976) states that there should always be “an element of anarchic revolt, of opposition to the neat and tiny world of bureaucrat, policemen, town planner, lavatory attendant.” Graffiti, Melly (1975) adds, is a rebellion of the individual and of the community against society.
The community of artists
Because of street art’s accessibility and anti-establishment reputation, it has presented the prospect for people from marginalised areas to make use of the art form to be recognised within their own community. This involvement provides an opportunity to become part of the dialogues taking place on the walls of the city, mainly for those with little to no voice in society (Lewisohn, 2008).
When graffiti started in New York, artists sought recognition through the amount of trains they were able to vandalise (Ganz and Manco 2004). The more names they have up, the more respect they get (Macdonald 2001). The artists are not concerned about getting recognised through their personal identity, but rather with their branding as a graffiti writer (Lewisohn 2008). Similarly, Macdonald (2001) claims that there is indeed a very clean line drawn between who the artist is as a graffiti writer and who he or she is outside of the subculture. When artists join the subculture, they are expected to leave “all traces of ‘real’ life” including their background, identities, and baggage (Macdonald 2001).
When artists talk about their works, the emphasis is always on the self. Their names on walls offer them an image of the self, an expression of the self, and an extension of the self (Macdonald 2001). A theme also consistently runs through the artists’ status: “people don’t know you, but they know you; you are famous, yet unknown” (Macdonald, 2001).
Macdonald (2001) also suggests that it is rather atypical for a woman artist to be part of this subculture as unlike male writers, females are “laden with the baggage of their gender.” Even when they have been involved with graffiti art for nearly 40 years, their contributions to the art form have been largely overlooked (Gentry 2008). However, Hughes (2009) argues that female artists are presently making a name for themselves both in the streets and in gallery spaces.
Within the subculture, Miller (2002) suggests that many street and graffiti artists are primarily adolescent males. Macdonald (2001) supports this claim as she found that British Transport Police figures confirm that most graffiti writers in their records fall within an adolescent age bracket. These adolescent artists have been found to use graffiti as a way to experiment with their individuality (Othen-Price 2006).
On top of their personal experiment with the self (Lewisohn, 2008), there is also a significant amount of peer pressure to stay within a group. Macdonald (2001) also goes into the concept of “masculinity” in the graffiti subculture, which had made certain groups more competitive with each other.
These groups are then easily associated with gangs especially for spectators who view graffiti solely as vandalism (Chalfant 1987). Curwen and MacGillivray (2007) state that artists often work as a group they call “crew”. While having a “crew” may be interpreted as having a gang, the artists differ from members of a gang in that gangs only want to establish territories whereas artists are more inclined to want fame through creating art in the streets (Curwen and MacGillivray 2007). Artists have subsequently recognised fame as the point of the subculture since they were mostly inspired by pieces that became popular in their respective communities (Macdonald 2001).
Bowen (1999), as quoted by Hughes (2009), argues that the artists don’t do it for fame, but rather for their art to be a contribution to society, which is a vital aesthetic component to any urban space. Since tagging is seen as a nuisance, a common practice is for writers to expand their artistic style to make more elaborate works they call “piece”. This, together with “tagging”, then becomes part of what the public generally knows as street art (Bowen 1999).
Commercialisation of street art
The interested public has been the main reason for street art’s success because for artists to earn fame, an audience is required. The public’s attention on the art form, Abel and Buckley (1977) suggest, roots from street art being an intriguing product caused by its contradictory values — anonymous yet famous — and street art serving as an insight for the audience to identify the subversive culture into which the artists belong.
However, the anonymity of street artists and the illegal pursuit of spreading art becomes a difficulty as the artists face “real life” responsibilities. Financial concerns begin to rain on them so that a mainstream career becomes the more logical option (Macdonald 2001). When the artists reach this kind of crossroad, they usually work legally by doing gallery exhibitions, commissioned works, or even clothing design (Macdonald 2001).
During the art boom in Manhattan in the 80s, graffiti that were transferred unto canvas became a big hit that art establishments started to take notice of its commercial benefits (Dickens 2010). In Dickens’ case study, he looks at Pictures on Walls Ltd (POW), a screen print company that UK street artist, Banksy, and his agent, Steve Lazarides, started. The study explores how street art can be a form of commodity by way of demonstrating the production process of Banksy’s company — from the printing and pricing of the screen-printed products to its distribution to a group of fans and Internet collectors.
In the same study, Dickens (2010) also demonstrates the magnitude of the Internet as an audience. POW’s screen prints were solely sold via online marketplace eBay and other Internet forums, but this has caused some problems within the company because of people buying bulks of the prints and re-selling them in other platforms online. Banksy has also acknowledged the power of the Internet in Ellsworth-Jones’ (2012) book, Banksy: The Man Behind The Wall. In the interview, the famous artist said: “All you need now is a few ideas and a broadband connection. This is the first time the essentially bourgeoisie world of art has belonged to the people. We need to make it count.”
With Banksy’s popularity and street art gaining more attention, its marketability becomes more obvious to advertisers and companies. Brands such as Sony, Ikea, Porsche, and Diesel among many others have acquired the aesthetics of street art to promote their products (Visconti et al. 2010).
Street art being a form of advertising, Parikh (2011) implies, is a natural progression as both try to “awaken the viewer’s curiosity.” But, Borghini et al. (2010) contend that rather than carrying messages of consumption, street art carries messages of activism, critique, and even enjoyment.
Street art has also been found to be an effective tool to alleviate communities’ economic hardships as it can attract tourists. In Chemainus, the first mural town in British Columbia, Canada, street art draws 400,000 tourists a year to a small village of 4,000 people. The effectiveness of murals in a tourism scheme confirms that there is a market for them (Fleming 2007). Fleming (2007) says that the affinity of people to street art results from the allure of the craftsmanship that commercial posters cannot match. Fleming (2007) adds: “Part of this is the magic of the medium, and part is the fact that unlike with billboards, people still trust the non-commercial sincerity of murals and are more open to their messages.”
However, the commercialisation of the art form has become problematic as it makes it hard for dwellers of the public spaces to distinguish between authentic street art and commoditised ones (Borghini et al. 2010). Large corporations and advertisers have already been known to deliberately masquerade as something else to promote their goods (Spiegel 2008). In Germany, for example, telecommunications company E-plus, commissioned street artists to advertise their products to the dismay of the local artists in the area (Spiegel 2008). Banksy (2006), in his book Wall and Piece, asserts that advertisers are the ones defacing communities for making the public feel inadequate for not being able to purchase the products they market. He adds: “People who run our cities do not understand graffiti because they don’t recognise anything’s existence unless it profits.”
Ellsworth-Jones (2012) suggests that this puts Banksy in a strange place: on one hand, he is the artist that collectors compete for at fancy art auctions like Sotheby’s and Bonhams and on the other, he is the artist who still tries to preserve his links to the streets.
Legalities and Illegalities
The contradictory elements of having street art as commercial practice and at the same time an illicit activity, Barnes (2015) claims, prove that it is viewed in such an antiquated, hypocritical way. Barnes (2015) also argues that while the establishment and media applaud Banksy and his ilk, their works covered in glass to protect it, others are facing legal charges for doing the same. He further contends that the lines between what is legal and what is not become even more blurred when street art is corporatised.
Elias (2015), nevertheless, maintains that street art, in its purest form, defies the law as it is usually made without consent on either private or public properties. Essentially, it is this illegality that attracted and inspired most artists into the practice in the first place (Macdonald 2001). In Macdonald’s (2001) interview with a street artist, the artist says that if their goals were legal they would go to art school, not the streets.
Local governments have also used street art as an urban enhancement strategy. Fleming (2007) discusses the ideologies of Karl Schutz, the pioneer of the Chemainus mural town, and his belief that in order for mural programs to work with national or local governments, it is necessary for the artworks to veer away from involving politics or religion (Fleming 2007). This is in sharp contrast with the plethora of crude graffiti in society that reflects socio-political problems (Abel and Buckley 1977).
Another example of the ambiguity on the legality of street art is Ellsworth-Jones’ (2012) experience in Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry for the opening of a travelling exhibition of street art prints in London. He recalls that there were street artists that have been invited to spray on the white walls of the gallery with the city councillors around in the event. It is unclear, he claims, where these authorities stand, as the city council in London has been known to condemn graffiti.
The subculture also has their own “halls of fame”, which are legal graffiti sites, like basketball courts or playgrounds where reputable artists can paint without police intrusion or other illegal disruptions (Macdonald 2001). The uncertainty of where the legality of street art stands is even made more complicated as Elias (2015) found that under the current law in the UK, although artists experience difficulties with respect to claiming ethical rights, they are entitled to the entire scope of copyright privileges, regardless of the illegality of their work.
Contemporary street art in London
Despite the tension between the UK authorities and the members of the subculture, a study by the Arts Council of England shows that the cultural sector in the UK is concentrated in London with 34% increase of cultural occupations between 1981 and 1991. However, research on contemporary street art focused on London is limited. Most of the literature available is mainly about themes of art in the 21st century.
Wood and Perry (2004) discuss that what sets contemporary art apart from traditional art, besides aesthetic and technique, is its relationship to cultural fields such as mass media and the Internet. Yet, the research carried out by Wood and Perry only includes contemporary art that is within the confines of a gallery. Kresler (2012), in an interview by Nguyen (2012), argues that street art in London is not a distinct movement from contemporary art but is rather a movement within the field of contemporary art that is constantly evolving.
In Beyond the Street, a book that features 100 leading figures of street art, Nguyen (2012) showcases a question and answer format with London-based street artists among many other artists from around the globe. Harrington (2012), one of the artists featured, claims that while he does both works for walls on the street and galleries, graffiti still has the bigger impact as he states: “That’s the unique thing about graffiti: it’s huge, it hits you in the face. You go into a gallery because you want to see art, but on the streets, graffiti gives you no choice.”