6 Important Moments in Graffiti History
Graffiti as an art
Everyone has own point of view and attitude to the art. Some of its kinds receive mostly positive opinions from all people, others call ambiguous feelings in human’s minds and are not understood by lots of people. An example of them is graffiti art or vandalism, which is not appreciated by everybody but still is mastery of its own specifics and history.
6 important moments in graffiti history
- Cornbread
The most important moment in graffiti history is undoubted, connected with the name Cornbread. He was the boy whose real name was Darryl McCray. The beginning of the story is hidden in his love with one girl. He wrote on the local territory a slogan that claimed: “Cornbread Loves Cynthia.” His aim was to attend her attention and prove his feelings. The boy discovered that this activity brought him joy and pleasure and he started living his nickname everywhere all over the state, even on the plane and elephant.
- Taki 183
Taki 183 had become famous when The New York Times had completed an article about him. At the end of the 1960s, New York Streets were full of the tagged name of Taki and his address. It became so popular that created a crowd of children who wanted to be his followers and tagged their own names with their addresses too. It was like a competition, and those kids, who had more taggers had become more popular in their group. Taki is not the first street artist but attracted great attention.
- Bubble writing and Phase 2
Phase 2 is appreciated for developing the new and very common for these times graffiti style. His way of street art, bubble writing had become really popular and was copied by lots of other people. It had a great influence on the hip-hop culture as Phase 2 was involved in it in some ways, being DJ at their parties and b-boy. One can find the visible results of his graffiti style’s influence even in today’s street art.
4.Graffiti documentary Style Wars
The film was released in 1983 and stated the history of street art at that level of development. The director of the movie was Tony Silver, and Henry Chalfant was a producer. The film had a story about hip-hop culture with the great accent on the graffiti development. It showed many street artists and pictured them expressing themselves through the tags on the streets. It included lots of real names that made an effect of the growth of the street art.
- Samo and Jean-Michel Basquiat
At the end of the 1970s, SAMO graffiti had become popular as well as its author, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who became a legend. This style had always been connected with his name, though it was actually created by Basquiat and his friends, Shannon and Al Diaz. It was developed in the Manhattan area and was combined with the short poetic phrases, most of which were sarcastic. People started noticing this graffiti but not each of the friends wanted to act openly, and some keep the anonymous.
- Stencil graffiti and Blek le Rat
In 1980s Paris was involved in the street art, and the figure who became here really famous was Blek le Rat. He is considered to be a father of stencil style as he started picturing the rats’ stencils all over the streets. His pictures always had a hidden meaning and were created to reach the consciousness of the society.
The richest and most famous graffiti artists
From the first view, street art and money is not connected. However, we live in the world that is constantly changing, and there is nothing strange in the things that were not usual dozen years ago. Nowadays, graffiti is the way of life and method to find money for living for some people.
In 2014, the list of the richest street artists was published, and it included Retna, who earned $5 million, Mr. Brainwash who had $10 million, Shepard Fairey who earned $15 million, and Banksy with 20 million. But the most estimated was David Choe with $200 million. Graffiti has been changing its method and meaning and without any doubt, has a big future.