Style Wars really deepened my understanding of graffiti and graffiti culture. Before seeing Style Wars, I had seen graffiti but I never really understood it. It was just something that was there pretty to look at but often illegible. I never knew what a deep culture it had and how much of an art form it was. The movie really showed how much of a culture graffiti is and it also explained the process in detail which answered many questions that I always had about graffiti. I never knew that it took so long to paint a piece, I always thought that some artist would go out for like 45 min and spray paint a wall or something, when in reality there is a carefully thought out plan that takes hours to complete.
Many of the adults in the movie seemed to criticize graffiti because it is technically vandalism and they thought it made the trains and walls that graffiti was painted on uglier. In my opinion graffiti is an art form just as much as painting on canvas or music or dance. In fact all of the trains that they showed with paint on them looked more vibrant and alive and were much prettier than the dull white-grey that was their original color. Also when the cars where cleaned they turned an even uglier color of muddy grey that many citizens agreed was worse than the graffiti itself. Vikram and Jack talked about a famous graffiti writer's works being sold for millions of dollars, the fact that graffiti, which is supposedly "ugly vandalism" could sell for the same price of modern "art" should be indication enough that graffiti is art.
Side Note: Did anyone else find it sort of creepy how excited that one guy was about graffiti writers getting caught in razor wire?
I agree that I didn't realize the kind of culture that came with graffiti until watching the movie. I always kind of thought of graffiti as an art form before, but with the movie showing the efforts behind it, I realized how much more of an art form it was than I had realized. I do think it's important for us to still look at the other side of the picture (no pun intended) though. Although graffiti can be a really interesting art, there are definitely some pieces I've seen in the past that do not involve much talent, and in my opinion do make the walls uglier. Pieces like that still make me question the reason behind them, if the "artist" didn't actually spend much time on it, and if it is just a very crappy writing of their name, then is it worth them painting it in a public space? I'm not sure. I think there are still things for us to question after watching the movie, about the art and culture behind graffiti, but I definitely agree that it opened my eyes about the commitment and social aspect of making pieces.
ReplyDeletegrace, you articulated what was in the back of mind mind throughout this discussion. I find lots of the graffiti very interesting, but there is a lot of seemingly random marks all over the place that are not attractive to me. This might be because the art form has grown in every direction since its beginnings as shown in the movie. It seems there are fewer stylistic "regulations" among the community that allows for a more diverse set of pieces, including some not as interesting ones.
ReplyDeleteThere is often a lot of significance behind graffiti. When looking at artwork, there are pieces that I don't really understand or find aesthetically pleasing. From the movie, I understand the significance of someone's name or a symbol spray painted on a wall. So although I may not see the reason behind graffiti, now I understand that there's more meaning behind them.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people don't like graffiti because the most common kinds are the usually high school kids who go out with a spray can and write obscene things. This can also be compared to rap. Many people, especially adults, seem to not like rap, mainly based off of the obscenities, or that it really isn't that "musical." I think people really appreciating graffiti as art will come with time.
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