英美文化概论期末英文论文3

Art Crimes---Graffiti

模具101 205100236 张轶非

Graffiti as one kind of street corner art, with the street dance, talkative, DJ compound is four important elements of the street corner culture. Graffiti can be traced back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Graffiti refers to a drawing or writing scratched on a wall or other surface .it is understood as an unusual art form today, but it was originally recognized as a contrary behavior or the release of discontented.

Graffiti originates from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in 1966.At first, graffiti is only the concept of tag. And graffiti writers also write their nickname or house number. However, during 1971 to 1974, more and more writers have lucubration in the font and effect, and the wall is not the only medium for them to show their art enthusiasm. Writers play graffiti in the surface of subway cars or trains, even in the toilets.

Graffiti and Hip-pop are come from Bronx, the poorest district in the New York. Since 1960s, this area is occupied with Black and Latino. With the rapid development of city and large wealth gap, in these slum areas, some small anti-culture groups are founded. They usually doing bad things, like stealing, fighting etc. Graffiti originates in the edge of the destruction of the New York society. A group of brave child who dares to fight with the American government plays an important role in this crisis.

Firstly, it is common to see the ugly tag everywhere in the city. The Bronx is considered a barbarian aggregation. In common sense, it is a damage to draw any paints in the surface of buildings. So, some gifted person started to redesign their tag, other artists realize the wall is the cheapest materials. As a result, graffiti come to people?s view as a new kind of art form.

Graffiti is not only the rebel to the authority, but also a form of art. Due to this unique action, it can easily catch the whole society?s attentions. People use this creation against the system, express their dissatisfaction and protest against the society.

By 1976, some graffiti artists, such as Lee Quinones, started to use more advanced technology for graffiti, his famous works are political, such as demanding to stop arms race.

The real graffiti artists have nothing with the clan. They are the poor man from the bottom of the society. They have some new ideals ,these artists play graffiti only for others can see their creations, they called themselves “writer” instead of “painter”, that?s quite different with others who doing this for some finical or political purposes.

The early graffiti culture is fond of a single color, such as the symbols of smoke bits, and Hello, etc. then, the arrows in characters change into a crown. Later, with bright, marked, outstanding as the goal, start painting in the subway or write their name on a wide street and using comparative color or black around it, in order to make their name apparent. The 1970 s, the film's hero and some cartoon characters are common to see in the creations, they are usually appeared negatively. The background of graffiti become more and more complex, and the painting device are improve red to the extreme. The burning sun, stars and scenery give birth to another interesting picture

An investigation on graffiti has taken place between aesthetics and sociology. Once talking about graffiti culture, he usually gives a depolarization view. Most people saw it as a bad, defiled, crazy, threatening campaign, but there are also some people argue that graffiti is a real aesthetic creation, they call for the real freedom. For example, John Cage thought that we should cherish every graffiti mark. Instead, Norman Mailer appointed that the phenomenon of the graffiti is the rebel of the evil industry in her published book.

All the pronouns of graffiti art have become the fashion and character that young people chasing for now. However, this kind of American punk culture has suffered from strong decay. The mayor of New York City even force-out some designers and the LAPD asked for more funds to handle this phenomenon, they considered to use more heavy crimes to put the graffiti writers into prosecution.

During the last few decades, many great masters come into the public?s views, for example, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, etc.

Jean-Michel Basquia t isn?t a graduate, but his creations are one of the most representative examples about colored races problem in American. He used to use colorful Africa images to show his feelings.

The china in today has more access to the foreign culture. In the recent years, graffiti is becoming more and more popular among the teens in china, more and greater writers spring up, like the MIG (professional graffiti team in Guangzhou) and the Blcakhands.

Some places where gathered a great deal of perfect works have sprung up in shanghai, Guangzhou, Fuzhou and Zhengzhou. Each of them is a legend.

In my opinion, graffiti?s existence has its own reason.

One of these reasons is suffers. The United States is a nation of diversity, culturally and socially, and the major body of its population consists of millions of immigrants and many ethnic groups. America is god?s crucible. So racial discrimination and differs in the culture became a great problem in the later American society.

Later, an economic condition of both continuing inflation and stagnant business activity, together with an increasing unemployment rate, these social problems cause the unfairness and wide wealth gap and they have something to do with the background of the society. Graffiti called ……the Renaissance? in the slum?. People were suffering from unfairness and poorness in New York in the 1960s. Graffiti is the way to release the poor?s anger.

Just as what a graffiti writer said, "When you are writing your graffiti on the wall, you will spend all the time on how to make your signature more cool more attractive. You?ll find 340 font changes for an “A”; we are in this way to understand the balance and harmony in aesthetics". Many designers who once played the graffiti said that graffiti is their starting point for understanding art and design.

In their eyes, graffiti influence the mainstream, and it has a closely relation with street culture. It is derived from the street culture. Many famous designers used to have the impulse writing graffiti in the street, because it is a state of freedom and improvisation with no reference and copy, they just looking for a kind of pure pleasure.