Originally posted by bleeding gums
[email protected] 14, 2007 08:06 am
Graf does not equal 'scribble on walls' - it takes ability to write well, how bout you go get a can and hit the streets, i guarantee your piece will be shit -> it takes practice, time.... experience, like any art, dismissing all writing as 'scribble' is ridiculous/ignorant.
um i do, and I'm not talking about pieces, I'm talking about tags. I used to get up alot but then I realized it serves no purpose. Graffiti should be revolutionary advertisement in a way for us communists
There is such a thing as art you know? As distinct from abstract political propaganda.
yeah and they can be interwined. But pieces take skill. Some people would prefer to just vandalize coporate property with inspirational slogans.
Not every piece has to be politically motivated, sometimes people write, put up pieces etc. as a form of artistic expression, creativity in action and out there for people to see - and there's nothing wrong with that, it's vital to the survival and growth of graf culture, and street art generally.
That said, i've probably done more political tagging than anyone in this thread... i dont say that to boast, but to make this point... i
I know that. But we can't be completely individually free until we are collectively free, we do that by directly creating public opinion for revolution in any way we can. If that means political tagging then yeah.
Don't get me wrong I think murals and pieces are beautiful, and if that's your thing than do it because it is resistance to capitalism, but at the same time, if you tag, make it have a meaning. Here in NYC the amount of mindless tagging there is... and the potential that these artists have to do something is a big contradiction. Also, revolutionary leftist artists should mix the two categories.
And you think you've done more tagging but you have no idea. I don't go out without stickers, paintpens, and spray paint. Even when I go to the corner to buy toothepaste or whateva, I take things with me.
This is a pretty naive POV IMO, sure some people will take something from slogans like that, but a lot of people wont care or understand what they mean, and others will be alienated by their obscurity of their militancy - you dont connect with people by yelling militant slogans at them (or writing them as the case may be).
bold liberating slogans have a better chance of reaching the masses then mindless tags and even beautiful pieces. Why? Because they don't have any consciousness too them.
Most people dont write or graf to convert others to their world view or ideology, they do it to express themselves, and yes - sometimes that entails an expressions of said individuals politics, but graf itself is not about inspiring the aphormous 'masses' to embrace the red light of marxism or anarchism or whatever. That doesn't mean explicitly political graf is ideologically driven bollocks, 'half' or not 'real' graf, its just another type - but its not the type, and its certainly not superior in any way. Least of when its proponents would place it high on a pedestal and shit on everything else... all the way producing work roughly composed of... dripping, over-sprayed abstract slogans in print style (coz cursive is too hard!!)... the audacity of it.
I'm not a lifestylist. Graffiti is what it is defined as, defacing property, preferably private. I don't have time to do pieces, its just not my thing.
But who knows? Maybe if you dropped the snobbery and hung with writers, practiced, learned some shit and produced dope propaganda pieces you might connect more with people, coz your styles not gonna develop in the communist ghetto - but whatever... maybe your're happy with childs-play political scribble... oooooooooh!
what the fuck is wrong with you? how do you know I don't? your lifestylist shit used to be what I obsessed over, but its not my self expression my expression comes through conducting mass line and through doing what it takes to get out revolution I guess, lifestylist graffiti is just not it.