Graffiti was almost synonymous with New York City in the 1980s. Billboards, buildings, and subways were decorated with hundreds of thousands of works in a myriad of different colors, sizes, and styles. In the eyes of most New York state officials, Graffiti was a crime which fell into two distinct categories. The first of these categories was that of criminal mischief. When viewed in this light, Graffiti was a public nuisance, an act of vandalism similar to that of breaking a window. However, Graffiti often took on a more sinister role within the second category as a societal threat. Graffiti had come to be viewed as an indicator of malicious influences on society, particularly correlated to urban gang activity. Neither of these two outlooks offer a nuanced understanding of Graffiti culture. While it was true that urban gangs used Graffiti to mark territorial boundaries, this was only a small portion of the Graffiti in New York, and Graffiti did not originate to serve these purposes. It is interesting to note that the Graffiti actually drew many New York teens away from urban gangs, which were dangerous and did not allow for much individual freedom. Graffiti offered a less destructive way to engage in territorial competition, as Graffiti writers could protect their geographical territories with paint instead of violence. To lump Graffiti in with other types of vandalism was to misunderstand its fundamental nature. Other acts of vandalism, such as the breaking of a window, were largely committed by random individuals, and obviously had a less communicative intent. In reality, Graffiti was far more nuanced than public officials recognized. Graffiti gave New York’s young urban poor ways to express themselves creatively, form dynamic communities, reshape the spaces they occupied, and otherwise “have a voice” when such opportunities were generally hard to come by.
Graffiti offered New York’s disadvantaged youth a means of expression through visual media. In an era of financial recession, such as New York was experiencing in the 1980s, public schools could not adequately meet these creative needs. Because they could not foster their artistic inclinations through traditional outlets, such as the educational system, and could not afford other “sanctioned” methods of artistic expression, such as extracurricular clubs, Graffiti was one of the only routes left open to these unprivileged members of society. Cans of spray paint were easier to acquire than sets of brushes, and walls were much greater supply than canvases.
While Graffiti was a way for New York’s urban poor to produce art, it offered something even more fundamentally important: the prospect of recognition. In the words of Ernest Abel and Barbara Buckley, Graffiti is a “personal testimonial to one’s existence… scratched, carved or painted onto some surface seemingly for the purpose of leaving one’s mark.” It was particularly critical for lower class adolescents to leave this “mark,” as they were far less likely to feel validated through customary practices (such as earning awards in school). The simple act of writing a name on a wall had immense value to these disadvantaged teens because it served as a means of memorialization in a world where it was all too easy to feel forgotten. Graffiti satisfied this need for “abstract recognition,” but also offered the promise of real recognition. Graffiti writers who were particularly prolific or skilled could acquire a great deal of notoriety on the streets, and ascend to a “higher rank” within the subculture. The social mobility that the Graffiti world offered was a refreshing change to the glaring socio-economic immobility that many poor New York teens experienced in other aspects of life.
Graffiti helped satisfy individual needs for recognition, yet also served as a critical tool in instilling a sense of community among New York’s young and urban poor. A crucial part of this community was “crews,” groups of Graffiti writers who worked together and drew influence from one another. Graffiti crews offered a chance for poor New York adolescents to form complex personal and “professional” relationships. Members of Graffiti crews could share ideas about lettering styles, as well as collaborate on individual works. These collaborative relationships were often also pedagogical, consisting of more proficient- and generally older- writers helping novices develop their abilities (much like traditional apprenticeships). Advanced Graffiti writers employed the assistance of their disciples to complete their works, exposing them to new and more challenging methods of creating Graffiti. The apprentice system extended beyond the actual creation of Graffiti works, with more seasoned writers giving advice to initiates about how to avoid confrontation with the police and rival Graffiti writers. As one Graffiti writer known as “Teako” notes, crews were instrumental in nourishing individual member’s senses of identity: “Graffiti has helped to inspire within me my own creative talents without the fear of criticism or failure.”
Graffiti also gave underprivileged teens new ways of interacting with the spaces around them. Subway stops were transformed into “writer’s corners,” where different crews could gather to update each other on their respective aesthetic achievements. While writing corners were important social hubs, Graffiti culture reshaped public space in other, more profound ways. The act of writing Graffiti made historically hostile spaces more accessible and inviting. A New York Graffiti writer, “Lee,” gave one example of this phenomenon within the framework of subway Graffiti: “Subways are corporate America’s way of getting people to work. It’s used as an object of transporting corporate clones. And the trains were clones themselves, they were supposed to be silver blue, a form of imperialist control. And we took that and completely changed it. We brought them to life. They came to life.” The political language used by Lee illustrates a key point: Graffiti, through its transformation of unwelcoming “corporate” spaces, allowed the disadvantaged youth of New York to make claims about their place in society. The act of writing Graffiti on subways was an affront to New York’s middle-class. It was a way of saying, “we, as New York’s underclass, have just as much of a right to this space as you.” Lots of New York’s Graffiti was located in wealthier areas of the city, places Graffiti writers did not normally occupy. This fact reiterates Graffiti’s importance as a way the poor could make their plight known to the generally disparate upper-classes of New York.
While it was looked down upon within larger society, Graffiti was an accessible tool New York’s young urban poor could use to enrich their lives. Graffiti filled in the gaps of the New York educational system, allowing for greater creative expression and more fulfilling student-mentor relationships. Despite its reputation as a malicious past-time, Graffiti supplied New York’s youth with close-knit communities and beneficial interpersonal relationships, allowing them to have a stronger collective influence on other social strata within New York. The case of Graffiti in 1980s New York is a powerful example of how activities branded as "deviant"sometimes arise out of necessity, and how they can largely be advantageous to their actors’ quality of life.
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Ernest L. Abel and Barbara E. Buckley, The Handwriting on the Wall: Toward a Sociology and Psychology of Graffiti. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.
Miller, Ivor L., Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002.
Style Wars. Directed by Tony Silver. Produced by Tony Silver. United States: PBS, 1983.
"Subcultures and Sociology." Grinnell College. http://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/graffiti-writers/.
Teako, "Teako's Story, 1997. Available from Art Crimes at https://www.graffiti.org/faq/tko.html
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