The art of Graffiti Essay

Graffiti is as old as human civilization, "Graffiti (sgraffiti), meaning drawings or scribblings on a flat surface and deriving from the Italian sgraffio ('scratch'), with a nod to the Greek graphein ('to write'), originally referred to those marks found on ancient Roman architecture" (Manco 9). "Tagging" is a modern form of scratching one's name in the wall. It is usually done with spray paint or markers. The first 'tags' appeared in New York City in the late 1960s (Manco 9).
According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services there are different types of graffiti. The major types include
ideological graffiti, such as political or hate graffiti, which conveys political messages or racial, religious or ethnic slurs.
conventional graffiti, often isolated or spontaneous acts of "youthful exuberance," but sometimes malicious or vindictive
tagger graffiti, ranging from high-volume simple hits to complex street art
gang graffiti, often used by gangs to mark turf or convey threats of violence, and sometimes copycat graffiti, which mimics gang graffiti(Weisel 3)
In addition to the above listed types of graffiti, "graffiti writing," (or tagging) is separate from graffiti, and is the movement most closely associated with hip hop culture. The graffiti writer's main concern is the "tag" or name of the author (Lewisohn 15).
The tag is the core of graffiti writing. A graffiti writer might be insulted to be called a "graffiti artist" or "street artist." Within this subculture there exists one main delineation between graffiti writers and street artists, and that delineation is marked by the intention of the artist. Street art is a subset of graffiti writing. Although there is a distinct difference between the two, they are closely related and there is a great deal of crossover between the genres. Because graffiti writing has a bad public reputation as a destructive and vandalistic behavior, many artists prefer to be called "street artists." Conversely, many graffiti writers, specifically "taggers" are out to destroy and vandalize public property. They find the term "art" offensive and are happy to be known as "saboteurs" (Lewisohn 18).
Because they are conceptual artists, street artists want the general public to not just see their work, but to interact, understand what they are seeing and have an emotional response. Although a street artist may have a tag name, most don't use just a tag to get their message across (Lewisohn 21). Their artwork may contain their tag name, but it is not usually the focus of the artwork. If a tag is used, it is more like a signature at the bottom of a painting or a form of branding. Street artists generally focus on iconic visual symbols, rather than tags. "Street Artists have taken the concept from Dada and Pop art that iconic images of popular culture or even unremarkable objects can be elevated into symbols of expression" (Manco 150). Because of this use of symbolic imagery, it is fairly easy to visually differentiate street art from a tag.