Last time I wrote about dancing → Melting Pot of Dance Styles.
Breakdance’s sibling is graffiti.
The shortest way I can describe graffiti, which has morphed from it’s original days into “street art”, is this way: Rap and beats is an auditory experience and verbal expression. B-boyin’/breakin is kinesthetic. Graffiti is visual.
One of the most enjoyable and surprisingly easy things about this #37 series has been searching for a matching artwork that visually conveys something about what I’m writing.
It’s the ‘art’ form of hip-hop, one of its original elements. Everything about b-boyin’ applies to graffiti too: it’s liberating; it is joined to hip-hop; it borrows from everything; and it can be aggressive or smooth; and it is global.
It’s become something that is as ‘street’ as you can get to something celebrated in museums. It is controversial because critics say it veers into vandalism and it’s associated with other sketchy past-times (especially in USA). Me? I’m just grateful for all these talented people that add color to balance out grey, drab brutalist architecture. I hate how some cultures are often intentionally misrepresented, or how they’ll ascribe their worse (but still often misconstrued) elements to the entire culture.
I wish cities would support the art form more, especially stateside. Thankfully at least it’s now gradually becoming accepted in polite circles. I think if I ever ran for local political office one I’d add promoting/preserving street art to my platform.
“Advertising is accepted. Politicians writing their name is accepted. A kid writing his name, it is not accepted. Why?”
“Whose city is this? Does the city have an owner — or is it everyone’s?”
“Street murals convert the ordinary to the extraordinary”
Street Art of the Day — “Etnias” (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil)
(see timelapse above)
