Tag.....
I am currently the President of PBU's Cultural Awareness Assocation and we got the oppertunity to display artwork from a concert we did last year. This is a description of the art work and the history of the art form known as graffiti.
"I wonder, O, wall that you have not fallen in ruins from supporting the stupidities of so many scribblers".-Pompeii
“Philadelphia, 1967: In the city of Brotherly Love, in the summer of love, names like CORNBREAD and TOP CAT began to scream at the metropolis’s civilian population. A tall, exaggerated, free form script advertised the presence of a growing handful of inner-city youngsters, rogue street soldiers”. From Philly to New York, via TOP CAT a soon to be Harlem resident, graffiti moved into the city that never sleeps and awakened New Yorkers. Against the walls of the city, graffiti instantly possessed New York as its own: by writing its name on it.
"It begins"
This is renegade art. No patron. No audience. No respect. No love. Graffiti’s revolution: habitual. Graffiti’s momentum is determined by an aluminum spray’s can. The life span of a revolution’s beginning and end is in the life of his spray can. The artist, the revolutionary, fights until the vision becomes complete. While pointing to the wall and drafting his declaration, his war is fought and before his eyes his flag is hung. Time walk away from him and it is over as he stands lost in his piece yet vigilant of his surroundings. It is finished and an evacuation calls rings by the shake of a hollowed can. Practitioners of this art form spans from open slums of the inner city to the elaborate gated palaces of the land called suburbia. But what does graffiti mean to urban city youth?
Graffiti is a way to have the streets talking about you. The garbage can, the billboard, the light pole, or the window and walls could all advertise your name as you walk by. The avenue is now your avenue. You just had to be the first one to write your name on it. This is why it is called tagging. With the shots of a spray can, everyone knew you name.
If “the history of art is nothing more than the record of how people have used their minds and imaginations to symbolize who they are and what they value” then what does the urban inner city youth want? How different or irrational is this art form when compared to the art found in Lascaux (Dordogne) caves, France? Why are public buildings and private property the canvas of their robust statements? How is the use of public transportation a way of conveying their ideals or statements? What happens when an inner city youngster, who has ideas about neighborhood, is granted a way of communicating? Who gives it to him? No one does because he takes it. He colors his conclusions with the same precision he honed in, as a little kid with crayons, coloring in within his lines. Through his hands, his ideas travel to parts of the city he does not have the money or time to visit. His ideas communicate to people that would never acknowledge him. His audience are millions and his fans few. This artist has no patron and He has little time to paint his ideas. His cost is limited time, energy, the possibility of an arrest, dangerous death from unsafe locations and the price of the spray can. And as he finishes his piece, he pays only two of these costs, time and energy. He is too way quick and smart for the arrest and death and he stole the spray can.
Graffiti as an art form has never been modest in its approach. Graffiti has never been subtle. As renegade of an art form as graffiti is, graffiti needs the attention of people. Graffiti sits next to you on the train accompanying you on your ride. Graffiti speaks to you about its ideas. But this is not a dialogue. This is a monologue. Graffiti speaks but never does graffiti listen.
On Nov. 23, 2008, artists Harold Hairston Jr., Christian James, and Mike Dejessa created this piece during the “I. Am Hip Hop” show held by the students of the Cultural Awareness Association. The educational event was meant to inform the students of Philadelphia Biblical University about the artistic elements of the urban inner city. Charting through the history of Hip Hop, students experienced an interactive presentation of the now popular mainstream commercial genre, through the art form of Hip Hop itself. Students saw the stylistic changes of Hip Hop culture in conjunction to social events in the art form’s thirty-six year development. The piece represents just one element of Hip Hop culture. Out of the four elements of Hip Hop: DJin, Breaking, and Rapping, Graffiti was used as a way of charting through the decades of the development of the art form and the social events that accompanied them. On three wooden boards hangs, three glued black and white paper mosaics of the musical and social developments of Hip Hop, ordered and divided by decades (1973-1980; 1980-1991; 1991 to the present). On top is the colored and cohesive tag of the show that brings all of these pieces together. This tag made possible by the composition of lined, accented, and bold lettering via spray can. This tag is a declarative statement that defines and expresses the history and the goal of culture. If Hip Hop had a tag, we as Bible believing Christians pray with conviction, that this would be it. We pray that this tag would be the creed of the Hip Hop culture. This creed is what makes sense of thirty-six years of development. The goal of this event was to chart out the redemption of a culture. And by God’s grace it is happening all around us.
Out of place? I agree, yes very much so! This tag belongs on the streets making the avenue its own. This tag needs to move from borough to borough, city to city, and country to country communicating the nature and purpose of humanity and his culture. By God’s grace, this tag stands here communicating as boldly as graffiti has always done. But this time, graffiti showcases redemption rather than rebellion as it tags the message of Jesus Christ. But this is not a dialogue. This is a monologue. Graffiti speaks but never does graffiti listen. Graffiti redemptive revolution: habitual. This revolution is for now, as God’s ideals are not humanity’s social norms. But it will be, as the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ defiantly communicates to the world, including to His own believers at times. God’s revolution will be accomplished and a restored universe is His eternal tag communicating the more comprehensive ideal ever. GOD.
The Revolutionaries: *(left to right) Harold Hairston Jr., Mike Dejessa, Christian James
