STREET ART
Hello, my name is Willehad Ellers. I am 17 years old. I attend school in the 11th class
at the Schulzentrum Holter Feld. In my English course we got the task to do a report about
something we are interested in. Besides the fact that we were asked to relate this report
to our hometown, the topic was left to us.
Because I am very interested in cartoons and graffitis I decided to do my report about one
of these topics. In the end I chose Graffitis because I think there is a lot more to say
about them than about cartoons. In the library, by browsing through several books about
graffiti , I realised how clcse together graffitis and
"ordinary" murals and wall-paintings are. In fact, they both belong to the same
kind of art: STREET ART. Through these books I also got to know that Bremen is very well
known for its quantity and quality of murals. Regarding that I decided to write some words
about murals, too. Now I expanded my topic to STREET ART that includes graffitis and
murals. I hope you will enjoy it.
GRAFFITI
Graffiti is a contemporary kind of art. It has existed for about 25 years and it is still up to date. Although many people do not accept it as art I am sure that it will make its way into art history. You have got to realise this: There are youths all over the world illegally spraying their letters on walls, taking the risk of getting caught and having to pay thousands of pounds, just to get other graffiti-artists and the public to notice their artwork. By situating their "styles" and "characters" on striking places, like for example on main-streets, they force people to take a look at them.
At first I would like to tell you a bit about the history of Graffiti.
It all started in New York around 1970. Some kids, mainly from the poorer areas, started
to write their names or nicknames on walls, subway trains and other things. They wrote
these names everywhere they went, some say they did it to mark their territory, others say
they just did it because they liked the feeling of other people noticing and recognising
their names. Soon there were many of these "writers", because of that they had
to style their name in a very own and special way to be noticed: for example some of them
outlined their name or they wrote it in funny-looking, cartoon style letters. Also they
started to use spray cans instead of felt-pens. With a spray can you can go much bigger
than with felt-pens and besides that you can put your name up anything with a spray can,
regardless what kind of ground. By the time those early graffiti artists created more
complex, more dynamic letters with much more swing than former letters and slowly
developed what we call "style" today. The leaders of this style development were
artists like: SEEN, ZEPHYR and P-JAY. Even today, about 25 years later any graffiti artist
knows at least two of them and pays deep homage to them. They designed their letters as
costly and colourful as they possibly could. There were so many graffitis spread over New
York that even completely uninvolved citizens could not avcid noticing them. Almost any of
the subway-train comuters went to work with was fully painted with graffitis. Of course
not every body liked these graffitis, but many art-interested people got really into it.
Graffiti became fashionable. There have been some art galleries making graffiti
exhibitions and some movies dealing with graffiti have been produced, the most famous
were: Wildstyle and Stylewars. These movies have also been released in Europe. At first
many youths in Europe got very amazed by them and started writing graffitis themselves. By
these films graffiti came to Europe and finally to my hometown Bremen.
In Bremen the first artists, inspired by the film Wildstyle, started writing graffitis around 1980. One of the first artists was called KENO. He is still writing and very well known for his complex and elegant styles. In those days most of the writers concentrated on spraying on trains and along the railway line. The trains carried their names to other cities. They are like rolling adverts for a graffiti artist. By doing graffitis along the railway line other artists travelling to Bremen by train noticed these styles at first. Another reason for attacking trains and railway line might be that there are not many people around and so they were able to do their graffitis without being disturbed or getting caught. Up to today a huge graffiti scene has developed in Bremen. But not everybody likes graffitis. In fact there are many people who definitely hate them. This is probably due to the large increase of "street-bombing" (very simple, usually silver letters on houses on the main streets)
. Some people hate them so much that they want graffiti artists to be punished like real criminals. Therefore a special graffiti-police called the SOKO has been set up. I will just try and explain to you how they proceed in their work. They take photographs of illegal graffitis try to decipher them and puzzle them together. They collect these photographs in special files. There are some artists who have got a whole file just for themselves. A friend of mine who once had trouble with the SOKO was called to police headquarters and was shown some of these files. He was asked whether he knew any of these artists. When they catch someone doing graffitis they compare his style to others they took photographs of. They try to find links between them and in case they do, they try to charge him for those, too. I have even heard of cases they tapped the telephone of someone they suspected of doing a lot of illegal graffitis. But there are also other ways they try to catch graffiti artists: for example they once set up a reward for people to tell them the names of the most wanted graffiti artists. When I was in England I once heard of a remarkable incident: A graffiti sprayer who has caused a millions "damage" was caught and, of course, charged for it. He did not have the money and was sent to prison. He was a really famous artist and everybody in his hometown knew him. So some bands from his hometown started raising money to bail him out. Usually a bit of the money you spend when you buy a graffiti-magazine or video is used to pay bail-money for arrested graffiti artists. In my opinion graffiti artists should not be punished so hard. I can understand that people really hate them when they write on their walls, but I would prefer the Dutch laws about graffiti. They say that a graffiti artist who gets caught has got to clean all his illegal Graffitis by himself instead of paying heaps of money to let them be cleaned. I do also reckon the educational aspect of this law that will prevent an artist from relapsing, not like paying the money - that wasn’t his own in the first place. The advantage of the Dutch law is that it takes the sprayer about two or three months to clean all his graffitis up, while it can take him a lifetime to pay himself of his debt - if ever. On the whole in my opinion graffiti artists should be punished for their illegal graffitis, but I do not think their life should be destroyed by having to pay more money than they possibly can raise in their lifetime.
The worlds largest Graffiti
Right now I will introduce you to the worlds largest graffiti. It is also the graffiti I like best. I can not promise you that you will like it, too because everybody’s taste is different, but I reckon that because of its large size anybody is going to be very impressed of it. It is in Hamburg. Six famous graffiti artists worked together to create this giant Graffiti (DAIM, LOOMIT, HESH, VAINE, OHNE and DARCO)
. They called it "Zeichen der Zeit". I will just try to describe you what is shown in this picture: On top of the graffiti you will find a huge clock, when you look at it very carefully you can see that its pointers consist of letters. They say LOOMIT. There are also styles by the other artists, the most striking is the one DAIM has done: A very costly 3-D style with some amazing fadings, In the centre there is a subway-train, with graffiti written on it, coming out of a kind of future city. At the bottom you will find a large lava-wave or something, I do not really know what it is supposed to be, it looks good anyway. Spread all over the picture there are panels, showing some developments of arthistory. In the last one you can see someone writing on a train with a spray can. This graffiti is just the most impressing picture I have ever seen. I cannot understand how they managed to do such straight outlines. There are many other graffitis I reckon to be just amazing, but I will not tell you about them, because I think this is too much related to myself and probably not very interesting for you. On the whole, to me, anyone who is doing his own thing is amazing, creating his own "characters" and "styles" without looking at what the others do. Anyone, who is innovative and not merely a copyist.
Where you find good graffitis in Bremen
In fact, you will find graffitis in almost any part of Bremen, but there are only about two really remarkable places to go to when you are looking for some quality graffiti.
The first one is situated in Bremen Neustadt. Here you will find some really costly graffitis. They are usually cooperations of at least three artists. This "Hall of Fame" is very well known for its technically perfect pictures. Almost every week you will find something new there.
You can get there quite easily by tram: From the main railway station you take the tramway 1 (destination Arsten) and leave it at Buntentorsteinweg/Bruchstrasse. You will find the hall behind the supermarket. The second place I can recommend you for good graffitis is Blockdiek, also called the "EASTSIDE". Here you will not find just one huge hall of fame, but many small legal and illegal Graffiti walls. The fill-ins and backgrounds are not as costly as those you will find in the Neustadt, but the styles are really good, some say they are better than the Neustadt-styles. I myself have not really made up my mind about which styles I like better. Everybody can decide for him/herself.From the main railway station you take the tramway number one (destination Osterholz), you leave the tram any where in Blockdiek, it does not matter where, because you will find good raffitis anywhere in Blockdiek.
MURALS
What are murals and why do people want them? Murals are huge wall paintings, they advertise, reflect society, show better ways of communication, remind of historical events, or do just look good. Normally they are done with paint-colour. A mural usually is required when a building suddenly is used in another way than before and the architecture does not match with this new image. In those cases the mural shows that there is something new in there. For example when an air-raid shelter is used as a communication centre or something else. Sometimes people ask for murals when their wall is "filthy" with graffiti. In this way graffiti supports the increase of murals. Bremen has got a lot of murals. This is due to the large restructuring processes of ship yards and other branches of industries. Thrcugh this many people wanted or needed murals for their walls. Usually these murals illustrate the new things happening inside these buildings or they reflect their surroundings, for example a mural on an old air-raid shelter next to a playground shows playing children, old people and chatting neighbours etc.
But these are not the only kind of murals. There are also murals criticising society or the government. The most critical murals are probably those that have not been organised by huge undertakings, but by ordinary people, or the artist himself decided what he was going to draw. Another topic that murals often show very critically is historical events.
Murals and history
Why is
it necessary to put murals, reminding of historical events, into public spaces in the cities, when the city itself, through its architecture and different memorials, just is a huge historical memorial?In my opinion this question is quite easy to answer. History does not only consist of splendid cathedrals, impressing palaces and some memorials for old kings and war-heroes. What I want to express by this is that you can not only look at the nice side of history and just ignore the other side. The history of the working class and the poor. All the churches and the residences of kings give you a wrong impression of what was going on in those days. There have also been poor people in history. You do not get to know much about them through magnificent buildings. In many cities that were completely destroyed during the Second World War, today you will only find a small memorial reminders of thousands of people that died during this terrible war. In some cities that were also destroyed you will even look in vain to discover traces of the Second World War. Murals show these aspects, too. The artists are not afraid of shocking people with their pictures. There are murals showing concentration camps or how bad the conditions were people had to work under. Murals are the art of the working class and the poor. The probably most famous mural, reminding of the damage caused by the Second World War, is the one Sigurd Wendland did in 1983 in Berlin. It shows a street that was bombed in the war and was completely destroyed. He painted it as close to reality as possible. It nearly looks like a giant photograph that was attached to the wall. I guess this mural wants to assure that people will keep in mind what a catastrophic damage was caused by this terrible war. I think these murals are very important because we cannot just ignore this side of history.
Murals and what they mean
Bremen’s most famous mural is definitely the one at the Rembertiring. Everybody in Bremen knows it. When you read a book about murals and there are some words about Bremen in it you can be sure to find a picture of this mural. It was drawn in 1976 by Peter K.F.Krüger. Up to today he has already had to restore it twice. It shows an old couple looking out of a window. They are very large, the window nearly covers the whole gable wall. They both look very content and quite happy. This is meant ironically, because they are facing a huge, noisy road. Where this road is located today it used to be the part of the town where they lived. The houses that used to be there were pulled down for building this road. A mural as a kind of social criticism. I do not know for which other murals Bremen is especially famous, but I can give you an example of a mural reminding of wartime, in Bremen. I do not know by whom it was done and I can just guess that it was finished in the mid-70s. It shows a concentration camp with a lot of people in it. The guards look like clowns, not like funny clowns, but like evil ones. The picture is drawn in black, grey and white. I do not know what the artist wants to express by making the guards look like clowns... I think everybody should build up his own opinion about it. There used to be some tags on it, recently a house owner living next to it painted the whole bottom grey. It looks pretty tattered now. In case anyone wants to have a look at it: It is in the Rosenberg. The part of it closer to the Hastedter Heerstrasse. Another mural with an educational function is the one Arno Bojohr did in 1977. It reflects the playground, situated in front of it. It shows Turkish and German children playing together. He did this mural as a protest against the prejudices against Turkish people.
Now that you have read my report I hope you know more about graffitis and murals than you did before. Perhaps you now will notice how many graffitis are around you. Of course there are a lot of graffitis in your surrounding environment no one will ever be able to understand in case he is not involved in this movement, like tags or very quick T-ups. But there is also some stuff that is enjoyable for anyone who is open minded enough to be sensitive to them. I hope you enjoyed reading my report. ADIOS
Explanation of uncommon words
TAG:The name of a graffiti-artist. A tag usually is written with felt pens or spray cans on walls. You can compare it to a signature.
STYLE: The style of a graffiti-artist is the way he designs his letters. There are many different styles. For example the
WILDSTYLE (which is a very complex way to style your letters with a lot of arrows and links between the letters.) or the ILLSTYLE (Very strange looking letters regardless to the proportion-laws.).CHARACTERS:Usually comic like figures graffiti-artists draw around their letters. A very traditional kind of character is the B-BOY (Very simple characters wearing sports wear and weapons. The B stands for blues. B-BOYS have the task to defend the Graffiti. (Underneath you will find a quick sketch of a B-Boy.)
WRITER: A writer is what a graffiti-artist calls himself. Writer just means someone who is doing graffitis.
HALL OF
FAME: Usually a privately owned wall that is open to some Graffiti artists. If you want to contribute to the paintings you have to ask the resident artists.