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The History of American Graffiti

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graffiti has been around in the all different parts of the world in one form or another whether it was you want to consider the cave paintings of lascaux on down people by the time they had walls they were writing on them early in the United States beginning Antebellum years people began to write on boxcars and that the role from Coast to Coast AM in the hobo years the depression that became even more prominent it was always gang graffiti dating back to the 30s and 20s in Los Angeles and other and other parts of California Southwest there was named base graffiti all over the place that was Kilroy was here which is actually sprung out of the suburb of Boston I went off and took came became this Global icon for the greatest Generation but when the odd combination of name and fame came together in the late 1960s and both Philadelphia New York it really exploded and what was so magical and so important in the history of American Graffiti where the years really 1971 to 1975 in New York and what happened was a generation of kids and it's really important to remember that these work they were sent almost nobody over the age of 19 involved in this developed whole art form that went from a simple signature Joe was here kind of thing all the way up to a mural that covered the entire set of a lot of subway car and this was something that I just never been seen in our history before an entire movement just completely develop my kids graffiti art is bigger than it's ever been keeps getting bigger no matter what symbolize the cities create the always be the next batch of young kids that just want to go out and right on things we all have that other kid in us still can retain an appeal for graffiti is this just amazing amount of color that is in a public space and then just a hole that they do that kind of factor CD is the rock and roll of visual art that came from America and spread throughout the world that took North War I've been very few American art forms that have lasted as long as it has graffiti whether you're talking abstract expressionism everything the Heyday of those periods was really maybe a decade it passed in some cases graffiti keeps going after 40 years and now there's a public interest in graffiti you have to capture that moment as historians I realize there really was no book that really told me what the history of Pittsburgh was the told me what the history of Oregon was what the history of Boston was he know they were little bits and pieces out but it wasn't there and so many of these people are disappearing dying photos are disappearing no getting trashed and it was time while graffiti in a way it's so hot right now and popular to start digging all these people up from all these scenes and really tell the story when we started to make the history of American Graffiti we wanted to highlight all of the the entire picture of it a lot of the books that come out in a big head taking a small bite of this so we decided to basically swing as hard as we could and do what we couldn't just that was a tough thing to do course but it involved finding hundreds of people and getting them to get their old shoe boxes down all these old photographs in the end remember in earlier zipper feeding adults were not taking pictures of the stuff they were removing it everyone will tell you a different answer to if their goal of writing graffiti is to become famous and going to a gallery or if their goal is straight their name as many places they can and get better at it and better at it and you know paint more trains paint more walls are freeway signs know everyone has a different reason Tiffany's real explosion into the gallery and world started in New York in the early 80s and it was the cool new thing to buy that whole movement definitely was the real early Gallery movement where graffiti artists were able to transfer their Works into gallery and make a living from it and some of them star graffiti and its purest at its Ross at its best and the true definition of graffiti is illegal illegal art on a wall for me that's what it means and how it works down the street towards best under a bridge or works best on a train rolling by you and that's what it is you know it's great that it's so much of its been documented and you can show it to storical relevance through different cities and if movements but bringing it into Galleries and museums is hard to do but there's several artists that dozens hundreds probably thousands that have made the transformation from things they've learned on the street and been able to bring it into Galleries and into museums and still make their work as exciting if not more exciting than it was on the street because of the extended mediums they have to work in and the time they have to do it where's that work both indoors and Outdoors as the girl there whether it's in Galleries and museums there's always a there is a difference of course but it's a question of audience on how to change an audience and then the other thing is working indoors there's some good things to that you can do things like make more money you can do things like not have to have your stuff be taken down by weather or the elements or if you know of a Vigilant per feeding so there's pluses and minuses you get to spend more time on it you get to work on projects you couldn't do out in the street so they're basically just two different creatures but the thing is that graffiti tends to attract suit credibly talented people who have incredibly big Ambitions you know it can't just go in and think you're going to do a little bit if you have to go Whole Hog and the people who go into graffiti and they want to go and see inside they didn't have good ideas on the inside as well and a very big Ambitions if you're really graffiti artist you're going to work with your setting you're going to look at the city differently you're going to see a rooftop going to see a spot someone else might not have seen you're going to work with the city so if you're really good at that and really good at choosing your color palettes and making that work there's a good chance you can become a better artist at the same time you know because you're going to have the same train of thought when you're working in the studio it's always hard to get kids for young people at all or just anybody into museums and galleries it's hard to get people through the door that's the constant Challenge and then once you have where you have to present them with something that is you know that it's going to Captivate them and it's hard now it's also very hard to get your name 40 feet tall or 40 feet long on the side of a bridge abutment while a train was a spy but a lot of people see that and it's a funny little fact that you know it's a funny little Inconvenient Truth of museums that the front of them the front the facade of the museum will always be seen by more people than the inside in the art within in graffiti well they're not dumb they recognize that and they work in public spaces because they can be seen there

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The History of American Graffiti

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