«GRAFFITI»

Городская научно-практическая конференция

«Малые Ломоносовские чтения»

ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКАЯ РАБОТА

«GRAFFITI»

Агзамова Элина, Кутузова Анита, Смышляева Юлия, 6 класс

МБОУ «Средняя общеобразовательная школа № 169»

Научные руководители: Ахметзянова А.Р., Байрамова Ю.И.

Казань, 2014

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION                                                                                  3

1. WHAT IS GRAFFITI?                                                                       4

1. 2. Background of modern graffiti                                                           5

2. MODERN AMERICAN GRAFFITI                                                   6

2.1. Graffiti kinds and language                                                                 8

2.3. School of graffiti                                                                                8

3. GRAFFITI IN RUSSIA                                                                       10

4. Attitude to graffiti                                                                               12

4.2. Pupils' attitude to graffiti                                                                     13

Conclusions                                                                                             14

Bibliography                                                                                           17

Supplement                                                                                             

INTRODUCTION

Passing the streets of our city, we often see a lot of inscriptions and drawings on fences, walls of the houses, bridge piers, in subways and other places. Most of writings only spoil the look of the city. But some drawings, in my opinion, are quite unusual and attractive. We suppose the authors have tried hard to perform graffiti paintings of good quality.

Our teachers of  English lent me the magazine "Speak out" which contained some information about graffiti art in the United States of America. We have learned that until relatively recently, graffiti was considered to be an example of anti-social behaviour, the work of vandals. Nowadays, many of those 'vandals' are treated as respected artists, and some of them made it to the world of business.

       We have always been fascinated by painting as well as by music. We got interested in street drawings and wanted to know more about this kind of art. We found different information in newspapers, magazines, books and websites and decided to study the subject seriously.

Much material on graffiti art is presented in the book by G. V. Dyatleva, S. A. Khvorostukhina, O. V. Semyonova "Popular History of Painting". The authors discuss the background of ancient graffiti paintings on rocks and simple subjects. Some articles are devoted to research of tools which were used in ancient times for making graffiti drawings.

The Internet site contains different information on modern graffiti art in America, its language and school.

The aim of our project is to bring to light and summarize all the knowledge about graffiti, so as to understand if graffiti another form of expressing art or vandalism is.

For achieving this aim we made following tasks:

1.                                         First, to define the notion of graffiti and to study the background of graffiti;

2.                                         Second, to gain knowledge about the modern graffiti;

3.                                         Then, to find out about graffiti in Russia and to investigate young people’s attitude to this kind of art.

1.     WHAT IS GRAFFITI ?

According to the definition from the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture “graffiti are drawings or writings on a wall etc., especially of a rude, humorous or political nature’.

The Small Soviet Encyclopedia of 1959 says that the word ‘graffiti” comes from the Italian word “graffito” which literally means “scratched”. Earlier this word had appeared from the Greek word

‘‘. Graffiti are ancient drawings and inscriptions on walls of buildings, rocks and vessels which reflected scenes of every day life.

Graffiti is an encoded text which symbols reflect definite events of cultural, political and public life of society. The performers of wall drawings are representatives of society.

The phenomenon of graffiti is human’s passion to contact. It is caused by people’s thirst for communication.

Graffiti are drawings and paintings often performed in a form of a caricature, a poster, a naive or complicated picture and inscriptions of a certain style. The style is determined by definite technique of painting: artists use sprays with paint of certain colour and work fast, spontaneously and without any corrections.

 Nowadays, it has the status of “street art” and you get graffiti in places where you wouldn’t expect to – in advertisements, on clothes, on toys, and even on the Wall Street Journal’s official website!

So, preliminary studies showed that the notion “graffiti” has been around since ancient times. Graffiti is a kind of street art that is represented by different wall drawings or writings of certain style.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF MODERN

GRAFFITI

Graffiti became element that changed outward appearance of streets in many cities all over the world at the end of 20th century. It was shaped in the midst of young people in the USA. The first modern graffiti were writers’ signatures performed with spray paint. In the late 1960s a lot of places in New-York were marked with the mysterious signature ‘Julio 204’, first appeared in the subway of the city. In the 1970s the phenomenon of leaving signatures became popular, when a reporter from ‘New-York Times’ interviewed the author of numerous signatures ‘Taki183’ the 17-year-old Greek Demetrius by name. The article ‘Taki 183 spawns pen pals’ that explained to readers the sense of young man’s message became the first article dedicated to graffiti.

A lot of names and slogans appeared on the walls of poor neighbourhoods and subway trains in New-York and other cities of the USA. Most people associated graffiti with something menacing and an example of urban decay. In many cases citizens had every reason to fear. Certain graffiti signs could be seen in the streets, on pavements, bus-stops and near schools. A lot of them were evidence of possible presence of gangs. Their street disputes in the deserted places kept in fear outskirts of the city. Up to the late 1970s, elderly and middle-aged people hated graffiti, considering it as an eyesore that was illegal and punishable by fines.

But young people have always had a particular relationship with the world. Leaving scrawled names and slogans, young people tried to express their individuality.

In the late 1970s simple inscriptions were forced out by complicated signatures and drawings performed with spray paint. Graffitists painted on different street objects, but subway trains had huge attractiveness and were beyond comparison. Trains, covered with graffiti drawings, were idols for their artists who aspired to show their works to spectators and other artists. Graffitists preferred some subway line to others depending to surface of trains and their routs. The Carriages of Lexington Avenue Express-2 and 5 were places of best quality for painters because the trains went round extensive areas of the city. It helped to win the recognition and become well-known.

The following conclusions may be drawn from studying the background of modern graffiti. It first appeared in the poor ghetto areas of New York. It was given a hostile reception by citizens. The most popular places for graffitists were subway trains that helped to inculcate graffiti in new areas and connect authors of drawings with each other.

2.     MODERN GRAFFITI AND ITS ARTISTS

In the early 1980s, there was a real craze for graffiti. In the beginning dilettante graffitists painted with the help of spray paint the walls of buildings, subway trains, fences and other objects. Little by little, this distinctive creative work had more and more supporters and sophisticated Manhattan art world had displays of street art in its galleries. The trend was short-lived – until the arrival of hip-hop music in the late 1980s.

Graffiti, as we see it nowadays, is related to ‘hip-hop’ culture and people are now appreciating it for its styles. ‘Hip-hop’ is a type of popular music with a strong regular beat and spoken words, first made by black people in United States cities in 1980s. Hip-hop music is linked with ‘rap’, which is a style of talking\singing that is very popular. Hip-hop was originally black ghetto music, sung by young African Americans from the poor, run-down districts of American cities. When it suddenly got to the top of the American music charts, hip-hop culture was spread, bringing graffiti with it. Modern graffiti is a new and unusual kind of art. Its artists differ not only in the way of painting - most graffiti artists prefer to be called ‘writers’, not painters.

Nowadays, graffiti has the status of ‘street art’ and it is very popular. It can be seen in some museums and art galleries. Indeed, the Groninger Museum in Holland is one of the few museums in the world that displays and recognizes graffiti as an art form.

Today many companies are starting to realize the appeal of graffiti in advertising. Kel Rodriguez, who used to spray New York subway trains, was the artist chosen to design the Wall Street Journal’s website and it is obviously in graffiti style. “Some of that graffiti feeling, that energy, sort of got in there.” Rodriguez explained.

You also get graffiti in places where you wouldn’t expect to –on clothes, on toys, on covers of the books.

The well-known American artist K. Haring, who tried to draw people’s attention to youth problems in the society, worked in the graffiti style. His works (among them the collection ‘Silence is Death’), performed with coloured chalks, are exhibited in many museums in the world.

Many of graffiti artists give lectures on developments in their art. Lee Quinones is having a lot of success in Europe and feels that European galleries and museums are more open to his art form.

“They want to support an artist as he develops”, comments Quinones, who can get up to 10,000 dollars for his paintings.

Another artist, Blade, has his own website devoted only to the world of graffiti. This website has a ‘merchandise page’ where Blade sells things with his own original designs all over the world – everything from baseball caps to yo-yos!

Leonard McGurr, a street artist for 25 years, went from painting subway trains to designing and marketing graffiti inspired clothes for young people. “Graffiti has been a story of survival,” he says. “There is a way to benefit from your work without spoiling public property.” To sum up, this unusual kind of art is beginning to enjoy people’s favour and become the usual run of things in American cities nowadays.

2.1 GRAFFITI KINDS AND LANGUAGE

An uninitiated observer may think that graffiti paintings are all alike, whereas both in technique and contest it has been developing with each year. Graffiti artists also use their own language. Here are some examples of most common words.

Most graffiti artists prefer to be called ‘writers’.

A writer’s signature with spray paint is called a ‘tag’.

Communities of writers who are friends are known as ‘crews’.

Those writers who are inexperienced or new to an area are called ‘toys’.

There are three basic forms of graffiti which are simply recognized among graffiti writers. The forms are characterized by their complexity, position and sizes.

The easiest form of graffiti is a ‘tag’. Writers use tags to put their names in front, to be notable for spectators and other writers. The more tags the better. Though most tags look similar, a tag is like a finger-print for the graffiti specialist – the only one of its kind mixture of writer’s peculiarities.

The most valuable form of graffiti is a ‘piece’. This term is used for important works –‘masterpieces’. Pieces usually have a larger number of letters than throw-ups and they are performed more carefully.

2.3 SCHOOL OF GRAFFITI

A lot of people consider graffiti as activities of teenagers who hang around and paint all that comes to their hand. Actually, this kind of work is not an easy matter. If you want to become a graffiti professional, you should get systematic training. To be a success, you have to follow certain rules.

First, you should learn the background of graffiti: it will help you to make the style out. If you know the steps of development, you can go into the heart of the matter more easily.

Second, you should keep certain rules. If you break the rules, you can be left out from the group of writers.

Tips for the graffiti beginner:

Study graffiti styles as fast as possible.

Learn everything about spray paint, aerosols and their caps.

Create a clever signature and write it in a bigger size each time.

Don't be jealous to other writers, jealousy is a feeling of a weak person.

Don't spoil the works of other writers, be respectable.

Don’t use thin markers and dirty surface.

Don’ paint houses of cultural value and inhabited houses – don’t thrust your views on people.

Don’t write on signatures and works of other writers. Those ones who do this deserve contempt and can be punished by the owners of paintings.

Don’t write on gravestones, memorial walls and cars – beware of death!

Third, you should work out your own style. But before you are experienced enough, imitate good methods of writing, colour combinations and letters in general. At first try to depict everything on paper most carefully. Try hard and you will learn soon how to interlace letters and drawings and how to achieve a rhythmical pace of work. You will see one day that the colours of your painting on the wall look wonderful and they show your feelings that you want to express. And then you will understand how to invent new kinds of letters for self-expression.

It should be mentioned that modern graffiti art has a close link with rock paintings in ancient times: many thousand years later mankind still uses the same ways and forms of expressing feelings and conveying information.

Graffiti didn't even change its name; as it was in former times, graffiti is art for masses and is available for everyone who wants to leave his massage on the wall. Although paints and technique have changed dramatically, the main character of graffiti paintings is man.

Having studied modern American graffiti, we arrive at the following conclusion:  it is a new form of art that has a link with the history of man's self-expression; it is very popular now and it has started its way to official recognition; it is not widely recognized yet because it has sometimes ugly appearances in the form of swear words or other awful inscriptions; it has got certain language and school for getting skills and performing technique.

3. GRAFFITI IN RUSSIA

In Russia graffiti appeared in the early 1990s and is very popular now. Empty and dull inscriptions in porches of the houses made with cheap markers are being replaced by virtuous letters and complicated drawings. As a rule, the authors of the drawings are representatives of advanced youth. Among them there are a lot of rap and hip-hop fans. As American graffiti artists did, Russian writers use their own signatures and nicknames. They talk a special language mainly derived from the New York street slang.

Graffiti in our city is considered to be a popular activity for teenagers who paint porches and walls of houses, whereas Graffiti artists in Kazan as well as in other Russian cities make every effort to express in paintings their attitude to the world around them. Their most active representatives would like to change the look of the city for the best. They want to be socially active and do anything for putting graffiti in good order. Graffiti painters understand that their art appears strange or unattractive for many people but hope to make it usual. Reasoning in such a way, they take into account impressionists painters whose wonderful creations weren’t recognized by contemporaries.

The biggest in Europe street-art festival “Like it. Art” was held in Kazan on 17-22 July 2012. For the first time in Russia it was carried out in full scale having featured the leading graffiti artists from Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, Russia, England etc.

Large and medium scale graffiti appeared on the walls of around 40 objects across the city. The festival arranged under the project Made In Kazan also encompassed public master classes, lectures of the European artists, the best canvases exhibition, “Trash-truck hunting” night painting session and a graffiti contest.

The painted venues became immediately spectacular and even enjoyed the attention of the Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, who together with Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin visited one of the festival sites on 20th July 2012. Ilsur Metshin said that the street-art festival would be held in Kazan annually. “There are a lot of industrial and residential objects for talented contemporary artists to work on. The street art festival knits interests of the city and artists”, stated the Mayor.

The festival was really international. Young artists from Serbia, Germany, Czech Republic and neighbouring foreign countries came to show their achievements and to exchange their creative experience. The participants of the festival which was held under the title ‘Images of my town’ presented the native places as they see them. Among the numerous newcomers who only try out their abilities in graffiti there were writers for whom this kind of art had become a life style.

Kazan has realized the importance of using artistic talent and aknowledged that art takes unconvential forms, such as graffiti, and is proud to decorate parts of the city with such artwork. At least it will keep the talented graffiti artists from painting unwanted places by giving them a large canvas to work. We together visited many places with graffiti painting and took pictures of most interesting ones. They are quite different but all of them have at least two things in common: original performance and writers’ ability to use surface of buildings organically. The results of our study showed that the paintings are performed with cheaper spray paint compared with American graffiti pieces. They don’t surprise spectators with bright original pictures made with expensive luminescent paint. They are more artistic and organic.

The German artists shared their skill secrets that can be helpful for those who want to take up graffiti:

be patient;

before painting a wall, train on paper, make a sketch;

start with elementary drawings (a round, a square, waves);

don’t forget to think over the colour of the painting, the colour in graffiti is the most important thing, it helps to express the idea.

Remember that graffiti is not a cheap kind of activity. One aerosol with spray paint costs 200 - 300 roubles and it is enough for covering of one square metre of surface. However, you will get free spray paint when you become a professional artist – it will be your prize or present for creative work on different festivals.

All these pieces of information lead to the conclusion that the modern kind of graffiti has traveled not a long but successful road in Russia and in Nizhniy Novgorod. Efforts, achievements and ambitions of young writers prove that this art can be interesting and useful not only for a certain group of young people but for the general public.

4.  ATTITUDE TO GRAFFITI. TEENAGERS^´ FEELINGS ADOUT GRAFFITI

Despite the considerable evidence of developing and perfecting graffiti, this word evokes different objects in man’s imagination. The sphere of people’s attitude to graffiti is broad and disputable. Some people recognize it as another form of art; still others think that graffiti is vandalism which means intentional and needless damage or destruction of buildings and other public property. Although graffiti as poplar kind of art can be seen in many museums and art galleries, it is still illegal in many places and writers can be fined. We suppose the subject of graffiti is topical nowadays. It doesn’t awake indifference by people in the society. The art presents much interest for people who support it and follow its development. Others are totally against graffiti and insist that it should be forbidden by authorities. Here is what teenagers from different countries think and say about graffiti.

FOR

I think graffiti is definitely an art! There is no other word. The only reason some people call it vandalism is because we paint on public things – but we have nowhere else to express our talent.

John, 14, USA

I think graffiti is just another form of art. When I walk past any, I look to see if there is anything new.

Sarah, 13, USA

In my opinion graffiti is an interesting art form – unless all you are doing writing swear words and gang names everywhere. I think that if you gave the artists somewhere to practice their art, then everyone would be happier. It works where I live!

Catherine, 14, Canada

I think that graffiti is just any other art; it lets me paint my feelings.

AGAINST

I don’t like graffiti. If people want to draw, they should do it on paper. How would they like it if they’d spent hours repainting a wall and the next day some kids came and drew all over it?

Anna, 18, Germany

I think graffiti is vandalism. It makes our cities look really run-down and ugly.

Natasha, 16, Russia

It’s very annoying when you walk round a corner and you see graffiti. Also you don’t know whether there is going to be a gang of teenagers there who are going to upset you in some way because that’s usually where they hang around!

4.2. PUPILS^´ ATTITUDE TO GRAFFITI

As far as we studied the subject seriously, we decided to research graffiti paintings in our city and students' attitude to them. We made up a questionnaire and started opinion poll with the students of our school. The questionnaire includes three parts: the first one designates the name of a participant, the second part clears up the students’ interest to graffiti, and the third one concerns the degree of interest.

96 pupils from different classes were asked about their feelings in terms of graffiti. The opinion poll showed that 62% of teens are quite indifferent to the art, 26% have much interest in it, and only 12% have negative opinion about graffiti.

The analysis of the second diagram showed that 93% of pupils often watch graffiti paintings, the rest 7% are active writers.

The following conclusion may be drawn from these figures. As graffiti is still developing king of art, attempts of young talents to create something new and unusual seem rather strange for a big amount of people. That's why the majority of questioned young people are indifferent to this art. It is also useful to emphasize a big amount of teens have an interest in graffiti. Its opponents are in the minority.

CONCLUSION

Now, having considered all the tasks which were posed at the beginning of my research, we can sum up all the information and answer the main question of our work: "Is graffiti a kind of art or a form of vandalism?"

Having taken into account definitions of graffiti from different sources, we come to the following conclusion:

"Graffiti is a kind of street art that is caused by people's aspiration for self-expression and is represented by certain paintings or inscriptions on street objects".

Graffiti has been around since ancient times. Ancient drawings on rocks and later on walls of buildings served as ways of self-expressing and conveying information to descendants. They were the first sprouts of huge and marvelous trees that we call now drawing and painting. There is no doubt that graffiti promoted perfecting of human skills in various spheres of life and development of mankind in general.

At present times, graffiti has found new forms. It has passed the way from being an example of anti-social behaviour in the poor ghetto of New York to the status of 'street art'. The art is very popular now in the USA, European countries and in Russia as well. It has got a certain language, school and technique. Graffiti has both supporters and opponents. Graffiti opponents consider it illegal and tend to put a veto upon it. Its supporters understand its role in life of people and try to get the most of this kind of art. They organize graffiti exhibitions in art galleries and museums; they hold festivals and competitions and even use the trend of graffiti in different spheres of business.

Graffiti is still developing in Kazan is as a new kind of art, graffiti meets with warm approval, indifference and dislike. The art has already started its long way to people's recognition. Though many people oppose graffiti and call its artists ‘vandals’, we are sure most of them feel disgust mainly to hideous inscriptions on buildings which were performed by hanging around local boys.

The main conclusion to be drawn from our research is that graffiti is not vandalism but a special kind of developing art that deserves official recognition, studying and introducing into practice.

We think that authorities should pay much more attention to both the look of our city and young people who are keen on expressing themselves in graffiti painting.  We  sure that involving teenagers into fascinating work on creating drawings will distract them from damaging walls of buildings and other street objects. More than that, it will occupy their life with interesting events and the look of the city will be changed for the best.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.             Малая Советская Энциклопедия, 1959г.

2.             Барт Р. Риторика образа. М., 1999г.

3.             Г. В. Дятлева, С. А. Хворостухина, О. В. Семенова. Популярная история живописи. М. «Вече», 2007г.

4.             Журнал «Родина» №№ 11-12, 2002г.

5.             Журнал «Speak out» № 7, 2012г.

6.      The Kazan Times. Written By: Landysh Welieva|July 24, 2012

7.             Dictionary of English Language and Culture. Longman, 2000

8.             Gastman R. Free Agents. A History of Washington D.C. Graffiti. Bethesda, 2001.

9.             Thiel A. Graffiti and Censorship. http: //users.aol.com/archivel/cc.html

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