Graffiti
Click on the picture top go to the post
Every now and again I come across a “gem” when surfing the internet, often from the most unexpected quarters. This week, Google sent me to a post on a website that I had never come across before – and to tell the truth, under normal circumstances, one that I would probably never visit: fatcap.com.
Fatcap aims to “ provide a top-notch yet simple product, to give an exhaustive snapshot of the street-art culture all over the world.”
For “Street art”, read “Graffiti”.
Graffiti is writing or drawings scribbled, scratched or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place. It can be simply words, (such as a slogan or name of a pop group or football team), or quite elaborate pictures, (“paintings”). Today, graffiti is often painted using spray paint or marker pens.
Graffiti has a long history, dating back at least to ancient Greece and Rome, (occasionally we see news stories about graffiti scrawled on some historic site – for example in the Catacombs in Rome or Pompei), and some argue that the cave paintings such as those in the Cave of Altamira near Santander in Spain, also constitute a form of graffiti.
Today, a lot of graffiti expresses social and political messages, (like a community in Northern Ireland laying claim to a neighbourhood by depictions of the Battle of the Boyne or the Maze Prison Hunger Strikers), and several genres of music have evolved side by side along with the development of graffiti as a method of artistic expression.
It can be difficult to decide what constitutes vandalism and “works of art”. In most countries around the world defacement of a wall is considered a form of vandalism, and therefore punishable under the full weight of the law, (and where it is seen as offensive or a nuisance, there are often special campaigns to clean walls). The way round for the artist this is to seek permission from the owner of the wall, and some actually welcome the adornment of their property, but not everyone is willing and city officials often complain that the resulting artwork does not fit in with, or enhance, the local surroundings.
A whole culture has developed alongside and around Graffiti, and hence the appearance of the website. It’s even become commercialized – sometimes even, used as a form of advertising – and some people consider it to be part of the mainstream of pop-culture.
Most of the graffiti artists are anonymous, or known by a “handle”, or nickname or “nom-de-spray” – like Chase312. Some have, however, have become famous and no longer shun publicity as they might once have done.
I said that it’s not a site that I would normally visit. I am not a great fan of graffiti as such. It’s not “my cup of tea” … but then, neither is quiet a lot of what Picasso or Damien Hirst has done. I “wouldn’t give house room” to a lot of the paintings in London’s National Gallery, for example, but that doesn’t mean that I think they should all be thrown out.
As a schoolteacher, (and also as a private citizen), I have spent a certain amount of time and energy in trying to remove examples from a wall – especially of rude and offensive slogans. That’s not to say, however, that I don’t appreciate the skill and imagination represented by several examples which I think could well be classified as “works of art” – after all if the Altamira cave paintings and Leonardo’s Last Supper can be considered “Art”, why not Graffiti.
The post I was directed to consisted of an interview with a Kyrgyz Graffiti artist Chase312. (312 is the telephone code for Bishkek – so he’s clearly stating where he’s from). The English is a bit eccentric in parts, but I think he gets his point across.
It seems he wrote a thesis on “Graffiti as social phenomenon in Germany” – so he obviously takes his “work” seriously … he is not just in it “for the kicks”. He suggests that the local graffiti scene is about 13 years old, but consists of a small group of individuals, (maybe 10-15 persons who are “spraying regularly”). There doesn’t seem to be much in the city centre and the examples seem to be in the suburbs … and that could be because of the attitude of the authorities … as seen in my favourite part of the article:
“you better don’t ask for permission by authorities, because if you do so you will get big headache with hundreds formal procedures and finally you get always the same answer – NO. It is easier to ask for permission by private walls owners, luckily we still have enough grey private walls in the town. But sometimes the local bureaucracy make real **** nonsense. For example the owner of one of the biggest malls in Bishkek gave us permission to spray on the mall walls, but local authorities had forbidden it. Explanation was – graffiti does not fit to the town’s visual environment and moreover could be dangerous. Stupidity. Bad adds are more dangerous for town’s visual environment, but they can cash money with them, with graffiti not.”
There were a number of photos depicting some of his work accompanying the article – and some of them looked quite interesting. I tried to rack my brains if I seen any of them around town, but didn’t recognise any of them – I probably don’t get out into the suburbs enough.
A short while ago, however, I a group of us went to a café for lunch and Andrei asked me to photograph him standing by some graffiti in Bishkek. I was surprised … it didn’t seem to be a particularly noteworthy example to me, but he obviously felt that it had merit, so I agreed.
I think it will be a long time before Street Art is recognized as a form of self expression with pieces taking their place in the Museum of Fine Arts … but who knows. The Kyrgyz do appreciate craftsmanship and their is skill involved - even if someone says, “it’s not my cup of tea” they can still appreciate these aspects of the work.
It’s an interesting article … click here to go and have look.
Bishkek