Coming back from Art Basel Primary Flight 2010 i was surprised firstly about the turnout of so many talented artists in one place, Secondly the direction it seemed many artists where taking. I noticed a very Conceptual and Abstract direction in many writers gallery and wall work. I was very impressed. My question is in this Post-graffiti age as some like to label it, where do you see the art form progressing and Why? Second part to that question is how has your personal work evolved in this current state of post-graffiti if it has effected it at all.How & Nosm:
First of all we think the term Post Graffiti sounds like the graffiti as we know it, which was based mainly on the art of stylizing letters, is completely out of the picture or even dead. Yet if you look close there is a lot street bombing and train writing going on all around the world like back in the days. Anyway, in our eyes graffiti keeps just evolving like it has in the past. Having new talents from different parts of the planet , the internet and better work tools helps our movement grow faster and it keeps bringing original styles to the surface. And yes graffiti has fused with other ” art forms” but it still stands strong on its own and always will be called graffiti. It is one of the most talked about art forms right about now. I mean we still use the spray can, right?Jurne:
First, I’d like to say that I don’t like the term post-graffiti, or post-graffiti age. I think that it is important at a time when there are many influences from other art forms: painting, sculpture, photo, design, etc, as well as the influence of media on graffiti, and vice-versa, in a cyclical fashion so that media and advertising informs graffiti, graffiti informs these things, they are adopted into media outlets (television, print campaigns, etc) and in turn reshape graffiti as a response to them, and so on and so on…it’s important to call graffiti what it is: graffiti.Moneyless:
If it’s illegal and it’s main focus is the letterform(s), it’s graffiti. Calling it post-graffiti takes away from the potency that graffiti has as an illegal art form. We shouldn’t feel the need to re-describe what we do in light of aesthetic changes. What is important is the urgency and power that graffiti has, regardless of the image quality.
“To me the traditional rules of graffiti started to be a constriction and I felt I didn’t wanted anymore to feel linked to a culture that gave its best in the Eighties and Nineties”. So Moneyless’ solution has been refusing those norms, trimming what was becoming dead wood to him, to allow something new to be born. “Letters were too strict a bond with something I had enough of, especially in this period invaded by logos. I felt the need to take distance from the letter”. That process started was irreversible. Letters had to fade away, becoming just shapes first. And disappear then.
2. And reduce it to the lowest terms
Abandoning lettering was the first step of Moneyless’ artistic sublimation, a matter of conceptual subtraction: his artistic research relieved by the weight of a fixed form made his style flow into pure geometry, defined by Johannes Kepler “the archetype of the beauty of the world.”Part2ism:
Only the letter and the letters mechanics and futurism’s have the weight to re claim this art form’s infra structure.Erris, Graphic Surgery:
Post- Graffiti. I am not sure if we should call it post graffiti or is just a direction (some or as you say many) graffiti artists are taking it? Everything changes. Everything has to change and evolve.SP One:
Graffiti is an art form built on fast progression. If you put it in the context that 35 years ago people were still doing bubble letters and now people are creating elaborate pieces – we are still expanding on that simple idea. Letters are ripe for reinvention. The possibilities are endless for abstracting and fragmenting letter-forms.Mare 139:
I believe I once called it all Post Century Art but I was referring to the new intersects that my work was pointing too with the Avante Garde and their works of the earlier century. We are all now in retrospect in an attempt to push the work further, either we are painting in traditional means of graff or looking to history to bridge us or validate us.SHOK-1:
I’m conflicted about labels, I try to avoid them. On the other hand, I do see the wisdom of labeling yourself before someone else does it for you. In this noisy over saturated era it would be useful to have a flag, a rallying point for difference (is that your intention for this site? I would support that idea.) The culture has progressed as all cultures do. We have large proportions of traditional and retro, we have a diluted mainstream/commercial side …it’s natural that an avante garde should also be a part of it (or maybe “apart from it” is more accurate)... Democratization of media – the internet – has only led to international work becoming more globalized, homogenate. Strongly defined regional styles / personality are rare. Marketing has made many want to be someone else rather than themselves, as it does... Abstraction and graphics are well-trodden paths. I like both but the more interesting direction is conceptual for me. We are at war and should not take our ability to take and control space lightly. I believe in a Renaissance.
