Before one can begin to scrutinise the graffiti world and determine its significance, it is important to establish the founding environment and context from which graffiti emerged. Some have argued that graffiti, if seen as wall-writing, has then been around “since earliest civilisations” in reference to cave paintings dating back to prehistoric times. Over the decades, historians and archaeologists have found pictures of deer, horses and bison tumbling across cave walls, depicting certain hunting rituals. These are marks made by hunters living in the caves in a prehistoric past. The pictorial images then, or the graffiti, which we find on the walls of our contemporary society are merely more stylized and colourful personal marks. However, the graffiti focused on here is particular to inner-city graffiti, which originally grew out of “the black neighborhood culture of New York City”, Philadelphia and Detroit in early and mid 1970s*.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the repercussions of America’s economic crisis in the 1930s were still strongly felt, particularly in places on the outskirts of the large cities such as New York, where many lived in poverty. Many living in these ghettos struggled with the symbolic image of New York City, with its business centre and sky-scrapers, compared to their overpopulated, poor and derelict neighbourhoods. Graffiti then was a cry “in response to the brutal and destructive processes of neighbourhood decline, unemployment, crime, drug use and violence”. It was these circumstances and a contempt for the city social structure that led to the growth of graffiti and what would become a whole new culture. It emerged out of an effort of young, rebellious people to inscribe their living space with meaning again. These bright and stylish wall inscriptions and images became part of a “home-grown, do-it-yourself hip hop culture” including “new forms of music (rap, sampling, scratching) and dancing” sparking “an unstoppable craze”. Graffiti then was seen as becoming the language of a marginalised, most often black, city youth that was very much centred on musical and artistic expression. Many also viewed graffiti as a way of forging a identity and a name for themselves. During the mid 1970s, it was seen by some as being a “streetwise alternative to gangs” providing a means of escape and “a medium for gaining respect and resolving disputes based more on image and aesthetics than violence and intimidation”. It seems then that graffiti was about being a more passive and creative outlet for many urban youths.
* for further reading see:
P. Craw et al (2006) ‘The Mural as Graffiti Deterrence’
T. Manco (2004) ‘Street Logos’
J. Ferrel (2001) ‘Tearing Down the Streets’
N. Ganz (2004) ‘Graffiti world: street art from five continents’
