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eyes on
2
graffiti
E
arly
modErnist
graffiti
can
bE
datEd
back
to
box
cars
in
thE
Early
1920
s
yEt
thE
graffiti
movEmEnt
sEEn
in
today
’
s
contEmporary
world
rEally
originatEd
through
thE
minds
of
political
activists
and
gang
mEmbErs
of
thE
1960
s
.
The “pioneering era” o gra-ti took place during theyears 1969 through 1974. This time period was a timeo change in popularity andstyle. New York City be-came the new hub (ormallyPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania)o grati tags and images.Grati artists during thistime period sought to putas many markings up aspossible around the city. This was the ultimate goalo exposure. Soon ater themigration rom Philadelphiato NYC, the city producedone o the rst grati artiststo gain media attention inNew York, TAKI 183. TAKI 183was a youth rom Washing-ton Heights, Manhattan whoworked as a oot messenger.His tag is a mixture o hisname Demetrius (Demetraki), TAKI, and his street number,183rd. Being a oot messen-ger, he was constantly on thesubway and began to putup his tags along his travels. This spawned a 1971 articlein the New York Times titled“’Taki 183’ Spawns Pen Pals”.Julio 204 is also credited asan early writer, though notrecognized at the time out-side o the grati subculture.Other notable names romthat time are: Stay High 149,PHASE 2, Stitch 1, Joe 182,Junior 161 and Cay 161. Bar-bara 62 and Eva 62 were alsoimportant early grati artistsin New York, and are the rstwomen to become known orwriting grati.Also taking place during thisera was the movement romoutside on the city streets tothe subways. Grati also sawits rst seeds o competitionaround this time. The goal o most artists at this point was“getting up”: having as manytags and bombs in as manyplaces as possible. Artistsbegan to break into subwayyards in order to hit as manytrains as they could with alower risk, oten creatinglarger elaborate pieces o artalong the subway car sides. This is when the act o bomb-ing was said to be ociallyestablished.Example o a grati “tag”By 1971 tags began to takeon their signature calligraphicappearance because, due tothe huge number o artists,each grati artist neededa way to distinguish them-selves. Aside rom the grow-ing complexity and creativity,tags also began to grow insize and scale – or example,many artists had begun toincrease letter size and linethickness, as well as outliningtheir tags. This gave birth tothe so-called ‘masterpiece’or ‘piece’ in 1972. Super Kool223 is credited as being therst to do these pieces.
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photographed
by
/ t
homas
h
awksource
/
flickr
.
com
text
source
/
wikipedia
.
com
origin
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