Graffiti is, by definition, a defiant and public exhibition. The author Gastman contends that there is an earned respect and craft to graffiti work done outside in the street. Looking at the history of drawing on walls, the first drawing was thousands of years ago in caves. Then Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. In 1960s, the first modern graffiti have appeared in Philadelphia, which is considered to be Cornbread by a high school student. He started tagging city walls to get the attention of a girl.
Then, the graffiti, in late 1960s reached to New York. In 1970s, the graffiti expanded all over the subways even trains, which was called’ masterpieces’. As we saw in the video, the first taggers were gangs who were concerned with marking their territory. Some people look at this kind of work as an art, but others believed in vandalism. In my opinion, giving an opportunity to the graffiti artists, as we saw on the video, can be helpful not only to those artists, but also for the graffiti art to improve. These artists can create many interesting art works on the street walls and as they said they can give the city live and beauty by using different colors and shapes of writing without worrying about arresting by the police. Artists who master the craft of painting on the street can create perhaps even greater work in studio setting too. But, off Corse, they lose the volume of people who see their work on daily basis. In 1980s, galleries began to showcase graffiti as artwork, and today, auctioneers and collectors shell out thousands od dollars for graffiti works. As we know, the british street artist Banksy’s documentary, ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop”, was nominated for an Oscar.
Another example, is Frank Shepard Fairey, one of the American contemporary street artists, who became widely known during the 2008 U.S. presidential election for his Barack Obama ‘Hope” poster.
rannahdreams 