Urban Art Association

yep, but it don't smell and wont kill your plants

i see you got a smiley face dood there so i won't really rant, but i always find it funny when people praise "street artists" but then complain about graffiti.

i guess the marketing is more important than the medium these days.

FVCK ART! DO GRAF!!!

With "respect" mate I don't think anyone is complaining about graffiti here,merely using a metaphor to describe the fact that it's a territorial thing...like showing people in the know that you've been passing through

Nombei, there may be some truth to that and I don't doubt that many do buy because of trends and even prestige attached to certain artists, especially Banksy. However the age old question of "what is art?" will rage on. It's actually quite difficult to answer without getting caught up in one's own tastes and preferences, which create a certain amount of bias. I think that no-one has addressed this better than Neate, by leaving pieces on the street that may have taken him anything from 1 minute to quite a few hours to produce. Then there's "Morons."

I find tagging in it's more raw form, pretty uninspired, unoriginal and very primitive in nature (and I love Manty's analogy and even think it fits well), but I must accept that there is some kind of invisible line somewhere, because once it's jazzed up a bit and jacked up in size I find myself pretty impressed at times, by even a single word or name. Where does the creativity factor in or begin to count for something? I think that it may just be different for every beholder, such is the subjective nature of art.

Another question for you, do you think that artists such as Guy Denning or Micallef (as easy examples, but there are many others) came out and said, "we're street." The way I see it is that galleries and promotors will pigeon-hole anything into a sellable market sector - exactly what you said - marketing. I don't think it's in any way fair to persecute the artists that just get on with their art and happen to have galleries successfully attach thos works to this new and flexible "genre." Any piece of art, simply is what it is. It's made to be liked or disliked. This marketing is not always down to the same artist that produces the work.

i've actually wondered how guys like Micallef and Denning got mixed in with the "street art" thing too. to me neither really have a "street" feel to them and i don't know if they ever did actual "street art". ? ? ?

i think with Micallef it's just due to his ties with POW / Laz. not sure how Denning got in there?

Denning got there because Micallef said "You gotta check out this guy in Bristol called Denning"
(I'm not dissing either here, I love GD's stuff, just explaining a connection. :-) )

Is being a banker the same as being a wanker?

if you look here farm4.static.flickr.com/3063/2527969977_a879a53e04_o.jpg, there is a little interview with miscallef and he says he isnt a streetartist, pretty interesting...

some tags can be very clever, anagrams and so on. Not every 'grafitti' artists has a crappy tag. Yes your average 16yr old on the top deck of a bus is gonna scrawl but lets not forget banksy started of with tagging his name on a wall.

Tagging is the core of graffiti and the essence of this whole thing. It's about getting up, it also has a few functional side effects like letting people know where you've been, showing the current state of decay vs. regeneration and the only tool graffiti heads/street artists/whatever the f**k you wanna call em have against gentrification of an artform that relies on placement and shuns acceptance, which is in sheer contrast to say traditional art which craves acceptance and makes no use of location (other than using a gallery name to promote something). It's also a great tool for a street artist to "test the buff", they can hit a clean wall with a tag and wait to see if it gets buffed quickly so that they can invest more effort in a time consuming piece that they hope to stay up for longer than a week.

Do you like Anthony Lister? Because he tags as manman. Like mighty mo? He's tagging as elmo, I could do this with just about every street artist with roots in graffiti as opposed to street artists who came after the fact and pay no credit to graffiti for paving the way for what they do.

There is art in tags, there is creativity but it is hard to notice if you don't know about the fundementals which to me are that the art is the act, then you have the calligraphy the connects, the flow of the letters, the structure (it's hard to be original with letters and have them ledgible) plus you wouldn't have 2 of the same letters together a lot of the time (e's and o's are different though) then your tag is about efficiency too and with a variety of instruments. Flow with a can is different to flow with a marker, so to achieve a uniform look between the two takes skill and that comes with practise. The reason you don't like tags is because they aren't for you, it's about getting up to other writers, it's about saying I am apart of this sub culture, which is in sheer contrast to putting up something with very readable text that would get you up in the mainstream. Writers are very aware that you hate tags, writers are very aware that you think tags are put up by children (2 names I have been seeing everywhere lately, nook and ares... both not kids), it's a for us sort of thing.

The tags set up the whole game to be fair, they are the core of this very thing and have their place, especially because they aren't and won't be accepted. Remember this whole artform was thought of as vandalism, now it's just certain aspect of it, that's a good thing, it's good because that is part of the attraction to artists, it also makes it an anarchistic act, which is great for creativity and tells everyone that you might not be A OK with society.

Nylon has fine art and graff pieces, both of them are accepted and appreciated by normal people, but for the writers... it's special when they see a nylon tag. It's very much a neccessary evil if you are in the mainstream and like this artform but hate the tags.

FYI: when you see a larger piece, be it a dub or a piece, if it's saying someone's name.. that is not ever called a tag, I've seen throw ups and pieces called tags around here, just thought you should know so you don't sound like a cop if you ever have a chat with a graffiti artist.

I'm glad you added your FYi. Tagging Joe publics property is done by scum only! I had someone tag my front door and about 10 other houses in the same street. I found out who the tag belonged to and needless to say a good kicking in front of all his mates appeared to reabilitate him!

Why on earth didn't you make this much sense in your posts the other day thebleedingedge ;D

Great response and a good read, thanks for the insight!

Great posts bleedingedge