NIU TAGGED Exhibition

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

Graffiti as Vandalism

1.1

NIU Tagged Exhibition in Room 214 was one that is not to be missed. It was about the evolution of graffiti art. Yes, graffiti is art. I was skeptical at first as to how much I would get out of the exhibition. It turned out that, I gained quite a lot of valuable knowledge. Alhamdulillah for that. Graffiti had always been known as an act of vandalism. It was used by street gangs as a means to rebel and threat people in public places such as playgrounds, subway cars, street tunnels, houses and buildings. Image 1.0 shows signboard of a playground that had been marked by a gang group SSK13 indicating their territory. The the swastika symbol sprayed on tombs in image in 1.1, on the other hand, reflect threats and hatred.

Graffiti as Art

1.2

1.3

In the 1970's, graffiti was accepted as art when the pop culture came into prominence. I found it interesting to learn that free walls were provided for street artists to express their artwork in public places. Now that they had their own space, they could legally do graffiti. They were also sought for and paid to produce graffiti backdrops. It then became one of the main elements that defines the pop culture (1.2, 1.3).

1.4

1.5

It wasn't until the 1980's that galleries began to showcase graffiti as artwork. Image 1.4 is an example of graffiti as a decorative art piece in a living room. At this point, graffiti no longer carried the notion of vandalism but rather expressionism within an art form. As graffiti art later evolved, we see that this particular art became the means of communication in so far as conveying political and social problems, of it is expressed through images as shown in 1.5.

1.6

Taking it a step further, when society began to read graffiti this way, the media took advantage of it as a medium of marketing and advertisement. The movie Planet Apes promoted its debut on a free wall likewise Coca-Cola in the middle of far right in image 1.6 and Mr. Clean ad down below as photographed on a zebra crossing.

Graffiti as New Media

1.7

Now you might have questioned, how is graffiti related to 3D art form (this whole review is actually for my homework) ? In the year 2004 there was an explosion of Yarn Bombing/Storming in Netherlands as portrayed in 1.7. The yarn bombing movement began when young knitters rebelled against the matronly stigma attached to their craft and applied their talents to more guerrilla forms of expression. The imprints were left on trees, fences, lamp posts, bicycles and buses, to name a few. Street knitters install their works at night time. Although the "damage" done is not permanent and easily cleared away, it could still create disturbance especially when a biker finds his bike being entirely knitted without permission. This is how graffiti came to 3D.

Moss Graffiti

1.8

1.9

The emergence of new media like yarn invited another guerrilla movement. Instead of using yarn, the green movement made a revolution by introducing the concept of moss graffiti. Using genuine moss, the movement hopes to sterile urban environments while striving to make the world a cleaner and greener place. Image 1.9 is an example of moss graffiti on a train. I find the graffiti evolution as new media very bizarre and staggering thinking the extent that these anonymous activist artists would go to in making a statement. Although graffiti has evolved so much from its original form, it still preserves some of its original characteristics which one of them is to provoke people in the streets.

Commenting of the exhibition overall, I'm pleased to say that the art works were set up strategically regardless of the limited gallery space. The layout had a systematic flow to it that drew viewers to observe each artwork after another chronologically. At the end of the exhibition, I found myself easily articulate the evolution of graffiti in a nutshell. The sequence was coherent.

In the midst of being awe-struck, I questioned myself, "Ive done drawings, paintings, ceramics, sculptures, batiks, henna drawings, face and mural paintings. Never had I looked into this medium. When will I ever create my own version of graffiti art?" I was so immersed by the exhibition timeline that I didn't realize there was a free wall for viewers to freely doodle and do graffiti on, right behind me. I thought that idea was awesome!

Tak gheti la. Along n anip pandai..

My favorite graffiti artists would be El Seed, Princess Hijab and Banksy. Check them out! (oh..and don't get freaked out so much by Princess Hijab's appearance)

EL SEED