Glenn Lynch
December 16th, 2004
SOC 328
Professor Hoslin
Unit Four Integrated Paper

“Graffiti – The New Expressionists”

Beginning in the 1960s, American society began to realize a shift in its dominant cultural values. After long years of conflict in Europe and the Pacific, Americans began to bond together, seeking to unite humanity under equal rights rather than to divide it by its differences. Like the empty promises of our Declaration of Independence and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Men in the eighteenth century, however, the ideals of a completely equal society would never fully materialize. Racism, gender and class discrimination, and a suppression of the “unmentionables” or “invisibles” still divides us to this very day. Having no real political or economic voice, many frustrated urban youth have lashed out against the dominant factions of society through the use of graffiti, reminding all of us that although we have come a long way, we still have a long way to go to ensure true social and economic equality. Graffiti, while ephemeral, is a fluid art form which helps us measure our long term progress as a free society.

Graffiti, as an art form, lacks all of the defining characteristics of art established by the dominant cultural gatekeepers but shares many of the same characteristics of art as the Dadaist, Cubist, Surrealist, Expressionist, Pop-Art, Abstract and Postmodern genres. The incorporation of every day “ready-made” materials found in Dada and Constructivist art forms can be found in the placement of graffiti. Often it is the placement of the graffiti and not its aesthetic quality that lend to the integrity of the piece (Youthward). The angular lines, primitive energy, raw passion, and intentional non representational aspects of Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism were once thought of as too shocking and lacking to be construed as accepted art forms but their eventual acceptance and understanding have led to the evolution of Neo-Plasticism, Abstraction, Modernism, and Postmodern art forms. Aesthetically and through representation, these art forms have more in common with the application of graffiti than the more classical forms of art. While classic art and artists were created as a reflection of the dominant social mood of the time, providing insight for the accepted or ideological social constructs of the age, the 19th and 20th century artists and their works have become more concerned with the artist as an individual and the realization of a society as they would like it to be interpreted.

Modern artists like Jackson Pollock, Willen de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, and Mark Rothko captured the emotion and automatism of the Surrealists and the Expressionists to create works that were more about the act of creating art than of capturing a moment (Benton DiYanni 568-570). Similarly, Graffiti is much less about the representation of a particular subject and more about the emotion of the piece (Youthward). Buford Youthward’s article “Seize the Context” asks us to consider the context of graffiti rather than its aesthetic value, suggesting that we aren’t merely gazing “at the icing on a cake but the summation of experience” (Youthward).

The artistic quality in graffiti is found within its context, the reasoning behind its creation. In 1976, Judity F. Baca coordinated a diverse group of urban graffiti artists associated with the Citywide Mural Project in Los Angeles to create a mile long mural on the walls lining the Los Angeles River. While the mural displays multiple subjects narrating the unwritten history of minorities in Los Angeles (Benton DiYanni 592). it is the context of the graffiti in conjunction with its wall medium that creates the real quality of the art. Baca asserts that the concrete wall is nothing more than a “giant scar across the land served to further divide an already divided city” (Benton DiYanni 592). By highlighting the wall with aesthetics, Baca hopes to draw attention to this scar on the face of humanity. The act of creating the mural, for Baca, was a way to heal wounds by bringing people together to recreate a sense of community (Benton DiYanni 593).

According to the text “Arts and Culture” many forms of art were “ignored or dismissed in Western society by the dominant cultural gatekeepers” (Benton DiYanni xxiii). This ignorance left out the works of women and minority artists but it doesn’t mean that women or minorities did not participate in art or create works of art, their art simply wasn’t recognized by those who held the influence to classify individual works of art as true art. The same can be said for graffiti. While not accepted by the cultural gatekeepers of our society, we cannot ignore the fact that graffiti exists and that artist using this medium as a node of information, a “record of human experience and concerns” (Benton DiYanni xxii). In the same regard, the chances of graffiti becoming an art form accepted by the mainstream must be fairly slim. While many of these ephemeral works are beautiful and meaningful, the negative connotations associated with the art form, the anonymity of the artists, and the lack of a define role for the artist (unspecialized, untrained, and unsolicited) degrade the historical representation of their work, without comment for its social context. In time, these works will fold in the fabric of time, lacking the durability to be accepted as classical, contextual representations of humanity but the spirit of their meaning and purpose will continue forever.

Works Cited

Benton, Janetta Rebold and Robert Di Yanni Arts and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall (1999).

Jean-Michel Basquiat – “Charles the First”

Judith F. Baca – “Great Wall of Los Angeles”

SLICK-ster. Abosulution. http://www.graffiti.org/911/slix_absolution.jpg

Youthward, Buford. Seize the Content. http://www.artcrimes.org/byline/buford_2001_06.html

Youthward, Buford. Exposure for Moderns. http://artcrimes.org/byline/buford_2000_5.html