This morning went met in class then carpooled to Joyce Gordon Gallery on 14th Street @ Webster, just below Broadway. I wanted students to meet one of the artists in the current exhibit, AeroSoul, closing tomorrow, Sept. 4. Joyce opened her gallery early and Refa One, jumped on his bike and met us at the gallery at 9:30 AM.
Students looked at the art and then Refa gave a talk and answered students questions about the art: composition and process. Students were instructed to take notes from the talk and on the art they wanted to talk about in an essay. Certainly politically motivated, yet personal, the work functions on several levels, some even utilitarian.
One could see that Refa One is a teacher and has a lot to say, although he told students that their goal as an artist collective, he and the other two artists: Toons One and Chris Herod, was to stimulate thought and make one see he world in a way one hadn't noticed before--his comments were both cryptic or mysterious and challenging, sort of reminded me of Michael Moore films--all the surprising proof is right under our unsuspecting noses. Most Americans love their blinders.
I instructed students to read the section on Can't Stop, Won't Stop, on street calligraphy or what Refa One called writing, not graffiti. The first draft is a freewrite. The question I'd like you to consider is: where does this art form fit philosophically in hip hop culture? How is it hip hop?
When I checked the index there were quite a few references to graffiti culture: 73-75, 91, 102, 104, 109, 111, 118-125, 134-135, 334 see also hip hop culture. I will have an essay for you tomorrow "The Politics of Graffiti" by Craig Castleman. (When I was walking in the area Friday, I walked down Webster and noticed a lot of tagging on some property close to 14th Street. I am reflecting on this in light of Refa One's scathing comments on the practice.)
I've seen a few good films about the culture also. Most were docs and one was a feature. I will see if I can track down any of the titles :-)
There is no wrong way to respond to the assignment. The freewrite is to be minimally 250-500 words. The final draft will be due in a week, next Friday, posted. As I said, we'll talk about street writing and the scholarship around this art form in class.
10 comments:
Aaron Lederer
“where does this art form fit philosophically in hip hop culture? How is it hip hop?”
In my opinion, this art form derived from the hip hop culture. Hip hop was born out of struggle and strife. It was a way of creatively expressing yourself while simultaneously touch on important issues that affect inner city neighborhoods throughout the United States.
The first picture that comes to my mind is a simple one, “Justice,” one word that can mean so much. When I listen to hip-hop, at least some of it, I hear the d-boy’s rapping about selling crack on their corners in their hood. Every day people get arrested for selling drugs, but there is a bit of injustice behind it. I’m not justifying the sale of drugs, but the legal system obviously has a prejudice for the black race. How come the consequences of crack are so much more severe than cocaine? Is it because crack is more common with the poorer citizens, while cocaine is mostly used by the richer Caucasians? Maybe, maybe not.
Either way, this art-form (graffiti) is expression at it’s finest, just like hip-hop. Just like hip-hop has meaning and messages in it’s words, graffiti art has meaning and messages in the picture. Hip-hop is a little more self-explanatory. You hear exactly what they mean. Graffiti art is left up to your imagination to do the interpreting, which is what separates it from hip hop slightly. Everybody can have a different view of the same picture.
Kimberly Peterson
English 1B Tues/Thurs
09/05/08
Graffiti
Poeticly artistic, but only on the page can you really say what you want by all of the colors and images that you lay down.
Walking into that art gallery, AEROSOUL, was really inspiring. Art starts from a peice of paper, a wall or a peice of wood, etc.; and becomes something from someones past, present and future. On one hand we naturally use thoughts from the languages we know to form into words and sentences. Art on the other hand, tells us a whole story without a word.
Refa one reminded us that a graffiti crew is just like a band. They tell their stories all around town on buses, trains and billboards. It is self expression for themselves and for other people. They remind us to not become sellouts.
Deon Johnson
English 1B: (Tuesday/Thursday)
September 07, 2008
“Where does this art form fit philosophically in Hip Hop culture? How is it Hip Hop?
What defines a cultural movement? Is it the way the people dress that follows it? The answer is no, because the defining characteristic of a cultural movement is its purpose, whether it be the movement’s purpose in history or in the lives of the people who follow. In this paper I have chosen to talk about an elite form of self-expression and cultural movement known as graffiti.
You can’t exactly pin point where a movement like graffiti started when the only real forms of documentation are photos and stories. The documentation is a really important aspect of graffiti because of how temporary of an art form it is. Since graffiti is so temporary most writers take a picture of their work right after they finish it because a piece could get painted over by another graffiti artist, or buffed (when a wall that has graffiti on it gets painted over by the original color of the wall) by the city within minutes. It is also hard to find where graffiti started when a lot of graffiti is about respect and being known, so who wouldn’t say they were the first, to gain the fame that would come with it?
From what I’ve researched, the act of writing on walls has been occurring since the beginning of humans but it wasn’t until around 30 years ago that graffiti became a lifestyle, movement and culture. Since then graffiti writers have taken the art form to so many different levels. Well-known graffiti writers like Twist and Giant from San Francisco have taken graffiti to the streets and to the galleries, which has made them stand out because they are known on the streets of San Francisco and in the conventional art world. There are thousands of writers that have become well known over graffiti’s life so it would be tough to pick and choose which ones to talk about. The main thing that it is important writers that have become well known is that they are all known for being unique in their own ways, whether it is in their letter style or their color schemes.
Graffiti art is commonly called "hip-hop" or "New York style" graffiti and derives from a tradition of subway graffiti that originated in New York during the 1970's. Graffiti has many styles and many Medias because, like conventional Hip Hop, graffiti is a mode of expression that is subject to the artist and as an art form there are choices to be made by the artist. In comparison to Hip Hop, some of the choices to be made by the artist would be the use of language, which is color, or what genre to relate to, which is the piece and part to paint; the environment of where the graffiti is done, is also part of what the artist is trying to express. Just painting anywhere shows that you have been there and many times that is what each environment is trying to express. Graffiti include pens, stickers, spray paint, and etc. The styles include gang graffiti, piecing (complex 3-d versions of the letters), tagging (stylized signature), and characters (stylized cartoons). Graffiti has been done pretty much anywhere but it is commonly found on doors, garage doors, trains, buses, bathrooms, trucks, rooftops, and on freeways. That alone makes it fir philosophically in Hip Hop culture. These environments have become common because everyone who does it knows to look in those areas and those environments are good ways of getting a writer’s art seen by the public.
Graffiti is about presenting yourself, just like Hip Hop, a simple writing of your name as often and noticeable as possible, is the same as an recording artist using promos and billboards to aware the public; it ‘s validation that, hey, my album is coming out, it’s mine and it’s the realest. For example, trucks drive around the city all day, so writer’s paint them because there is a high chance that more people will see them driving around with art on the sides of them than art that stays in one place under a bridge, no different from commercials and advertisement on buses. Graffiti and Hip Hop go hand and hand, there’s no Hip Hop without Graffiti, and no Graffiti without Hip Hop, get familiar!
“where does this art form fit philosophically in hip hop culture? How is it hip hop?”
It was a way where restrictions, discriminations, racists, sexists, everything didn't matter. In was a way of art. A way of freedom of ideas and speech. In a way, hip hop music including art which was incorporated by the history of hip hop is a way to shout out ideas of agreement or disagreement with the community. Those who felt the same way would familiarize themselves with songs and graffiti in order to support their ideas. I think that teh meaning of hiphop back then was to communicate through creative means. Something that people can enjoy and agree with. If you look at it, it is a way that young adults look up to. Back then it was about how life was tough, it was hard and there were many disagreements within teh community. The use of songs and art(graffiti) is what people use in order to take out the serious tone of just talking with only words. You can tell that hip hop and rap are very similar almost exactly alike. Depending on what it is during the time that people rap and or hip hop, you can tell from our younger generations how they react. Nowadays you can see that people kind of hate rap which is hip hop now because of how it misrepresents them. The people who fought so hard to create respect for this culture has been failed by people who have misused it. For the purpose of money and power, for teh purpose of their own selfish needs. It is that which makes hip hop such a controversial idea. It once was very respected very fun and very free. Now it is looked down upon, dirty dancing, dirty words... It is this which makes it hard to accept hip hop as a whole
“where does this art form fit philosophically in hip hop culture? How is it hip hop?”
It was a way where restrictions, discriminations, racists, sexists, everything didn't matter. In was a way of art. A way of freedom of ideas and speech. In a way, hip hop music including art which was incorporated by the history of hip hop is a way to shout out ideas of agreement or disagreement with the community. Those who felt the same way would familiarize themselves with songs and graffiti in order to support their ideas. I think that teh meaning of hiphop back then was to communicate through creative means. Something that people can enjoy and agree with. If you look at it, it is a way that young adults look up to. Back then it was about how life was tough, it was hard and there were many disagreements within teh community. The use of songs and art(graffiti) is what people use in order to take out the serious tone of just talking with only words. You can tell that hip hop and rap are very similar almost exactly alike. Depending on what it is during the time that people rap and or hip hop, you can tell from our younger generations how they react. Nowadays you can see that people kind of hate rap which is hip hop now because of how it misrepresents them. The people who fought so hard to create respect for this culture has been failed by people who have misused it. For the purpose of money and power, for teh purpose of their own selfish needs. It is that which makes hip hop such a controversial idea. It once was very respected very fun and very free. Now it is looked down upon, dirty dancing, dirty words... It is this which makes it hard to accept hip hop as a whole
Fayad Faraj
9-10:50
Where does the art form Graffiti fit philosophically in hip hop culture?
Hip-Hop is a culture bringing together four elements, Djing, break dancing, emceeing, and graffiti writing. These are the life styles that make up this great genre. Yet to me hip hop is much more than just that. Hip hop is life. Every thing going on in this world relates to whats talked about in hip hop songs. Hip hop is made up of pure talent so, for one to understand or be a part of the hip hop movement it will take more than just liking it. You blend into hip hop, walk hip hop, talk hip hop, and live hip hop.
I have become what most hip hop fans call themselves, a “hip hop head”, because my community is populated with people who are interested in hip hop. My friends and I evenly like the same emcees, even though we have different opinions in which songs we like. More or less, influenced by this culture, in 2005 six friends and I began notecing graffiti and admiring the creative pieces done by older writers on the building sides of Oakland and Sanfrancisco. We started out by practicing on paper and soon enough we gave each other names and called our crew the “Hip Hop Vandalz” (HHv). By 2007 we were using cans and going to train tracks also known as “the yards”, to put up our art.
We always knew graffiti was concidered a crime but never really looked at it that way. I always did it because it was a hobby that I loved doing and I had friends to share my art work with and get tips on what I could do to make a piece stand out more. The crew began to work together on fixing some of eachothers art and putting a little of our own styles into it and like REFA said worked as a band when making a production . Soon enough we all became masters at art but a few members left the group because they just didn’t enjoy doing it as much as the rest did, which left me and two others to carry on and represent the group name.
When asked the question, does graffiti fit philosophicallt in hip hop culture? With no dought the answer is yes, because, the ability to have the patience and skills that one puts into a piece doesn’t come naturally, it takes talent, something you and I are born with. Not anyone is able to enter the world of graffiti and get noticed before they quit doing it, one must be born with the skill to cook up a piece of art work.
Benjamin H.
English 1B: (Tues/Thurs)
Sabir
“Where does this art form fit philosophically in hip hop culture?”
“How is it hip hop?”
Graffiti or street calligraphy as some people might refer to it fits perfectly in with hip hop because it is the same thing in terms of expressing yourself through some sort of way to an audience. This art form is hip hop in many ways starting with the idea that hip hop artists put there songs out there for the whole world to see just like the writers of graffiti put themselves out there and both have to deal with all the types of criticism. Street calligraphy is hip hop in that both the writers of graffiti and the artists of hip hop have almost all the freedom in the world to express their inner most feelings about whatever they want in their art form. Graffiti writers and hip hop artists have another thing in common, and it involves one of their motives to doing what they do. Both of them do it so they can get popular among their own group and become almost like a king, and be looked up on by their fellow peers because of their own style of work.
Another way you could say that hip hop and graffiti are very similar is that both of them have a great impact on the youth. These two art forms still to this day influence the youth a lot, and this also why both became so popular in each of there eras because of the younger generation that kept it going. Even though many older graffiti writers don’t think that their art form is hip hop like Sandra (Lady Pink) an old school graffiti writer said in the book “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” by Jeff Chang, “ I don’t think graffiti is hip hop” (111). This writer also goes on to say, “There’s a long background of graffiti as an entity unto itself” (111). In my opinion hip hop and street calligraphy are one in the same, but I could see were old school writers might get the idea that there not.
John Rawson
"where does this art form philosophically in hip hop culture? how is it hip hop?"
To me this art form "Graffiti" perfectly compliments hip hop culture(or at least from the origin of hip hop culture. It is an art form defined by expression, like hip hop it speaks againstmainstream conformaty and asks those people in our communities and our daily lives to "wake up", from the constant pressures of a life based on consumerism living in a capatalist society.
As an artist myself I never understood the drive to vandalize things with letters, but now i see things differently.I thought it was vandalizing things in disrespect, and though some is done with this intention, real "writers" try to alert the "sleeping" general public, and send stiff and stern messages to peoples minds and eyes. That to me strongly correlates to the fundamental messages of hip hop. The strong contrasts of style, color and differences in the artistic variation allows both hip hop and graffiti to share the beauty, diversity and unmistakeable originality distinct to the hip hop culture.
"The Man" throws huge amounts of propaganda and pushes consumerism on the general population, and though hip hop has slowly but surely shited to pushing consumerism as well. Graffiti has stayed as a beaken to wake up the population. Hip hop should wake up and bring itself back to its roots. Classic hip hop was about reaching people, having fun, preaching positivity, awarness and most of all rhyming. Hip Hop should take the message from graffiti and wake up, and be what it used to be.
The term “hip hop” is not just limited to music and beats. Art, can be another style, another way to express hip hop. Hip Hop allows people to express their thoughts. These thoughts and ideas can range from the way they feel about music to what they think on certain political issues. Art us also like music. Art allows people to express how they feel. Instead of singing or rapping their feelings, art allows everything they feel to go on paper; using colors and brushes instead of rhythms and beats. Hip Hop is something that does not “stay in the lines,” rather; it steps “outside the box.” With hip hop, there are no rules, everything works as long as it’s your own. With graffiti, everything is exaggerated. With the lines, and the pictures, nothing is what it seems to be. It isn’t always easy to depict graffiti; sometimes, it is almost impossible to figure out the message that the artist is trying to portray. Refa One uses many forms of art to reveal his ideas. On certain works, one can find a collage of words on drawings of colored trains; others contain brilliant colors sprayed together to form a picture. Each picture has its own meaning or theme. His works are inspiring and meaningful conjured into each canvas. Hip Hop has inspired people of all ages for decades; to express their feelings on anyway imaginable. Art is just a choice out of many possibilities.
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