Israeli Graffiti 101: the definitive guide and glossary
Posted on September 18, 2007 • By Deborah Kantor
Category: Art and Culture, Featured View Comments
Is street art – graffiti? Is graffiti – art? Or is it all just fancy vandalism?
These are the questions that face “street artists,” and their audience of viewers. Spray cans spell vandalism for most, while a paintbrush represents the artiste. But we all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; so can beautiful graffiti be considered art?
The Israeli street art scene is particurly developed. Visitors to Disengoff Square in Tel Aviv are privy to the names and swear words plastered on the benches. Street artists are particularly attracted to the old buildings and abandoned warehouses in Tel Aviv’s Florentine neighborhood, which has become a popular site for some of Israel’s most famous street artists including Ame72, and the crew ‘Style Must Die’ (SMD) which includes well-known artists Know Hope, Klone and Zero Cent.
Over the next few weeks, we will take an in-depth look at the street art scene in Israel, the artists and the art. But before we do, let’s first take a look at this unconventional field and its significance.
What is “graffiti”?
(A comprehensive glossary of terms can be found at the end of this article.)
Graffiti, or ‘graff,’ is all about letters. These letters are scratched, sprayed or marked onto a surface, using a range of styles and techniques, like ‘pieces’, ‘tagging’, ‘throw-ups’, ‘dubs’, ‘block busters’, ‘wild style’ and ‘top-to-bottoms’. Graffiti is the maverick of the art world and sits comfortably on the fringe of modern culture.
Graffiti ‘tags’ are considered to be the most common form of vandalism and tend to have a bad reputation due to some of the taggers who use this to get their names up everywhere.
Street artists will tell you that there are no boundaries between the image and the environment. The surface to which the piece is being applied is as fundamental to them as the art itself.
Da Vinci had it easy
Street artists put a lot of effort into their pieces. They’re like graphic artists working on huge canvasses (i.e. the city), with the added challenge of the law breathing down their neck. No Da Vinci luxuries of twenty years to finish a painting; for them, time is of the essence.
The street art process is three-fold: choose the site, schlep supplies over under cover of night and do their thing, and then come back when the coast is clear to document it.
Vandalism or graffiti?
It all sounds like an excuse for vandalism, some of you may say.
Well, Street artists claim they respect the street and work according to unwritten rules. For example, serious street artists won’t spray over someone else’s work since they consider that damaging and disrespectful to the scene. They’ll avoid causing permanent damage by staying away from burners that leave ink and burn into the glass. Spraying on private property such as cars, houses, etc, and monuments, nice stone buildings, and religious places is taboo.
Buy my street art t-shirt on eBay
Street art has become a profitable venture. Famous artists are now making big bucks because they have fought hard to get people to view graffiti as a valid artistic medium. Much of street art is hand-made originals, with no two pieces being identical. That’s why artists like Banksy in the UK can make millions off their graffiti.
You could even say that a new breed of artists is being bred today. It’s not just the back-street ‘El Barto’s’ – it’s something that is slowly evolving to become a marketable form of expression. Artists take care to ensure that their names are out there and they are getting recognition for their pieces, in the hope that their art will become well-known and begin to sell. The business-savvy artists now sell items through their websites, such as t-shirts, posters and prints.
They just want to make a difference…
But street artists say they’re not in it for the profit: they really just want their art to move someone. But making a buck along the way isn’t so bad.
Art? Vandalism? Who knows, but it exists, so let’s have some fun learning about it.
If you want to see work by some of Tel Aviv’s finest, check back for our in-depth artist profiles.
(Below you’ll find definitions of the terms used in this article).
Graffiti Glossary of Terms:
Tag: The most common form of street art, it is often seen as vandalism because anyone can tag. Using a calligraphic appearance, it is made with a spray can or marker and represents the tagger’s personal signature.
Throw-up: Not related to vomit, this is usually painted very quickly and done in a situation where the writer is likely to be caught. It is done by making a layer of paint in one color and a quick outline of the letters in another.
Wild style: This is a much more complicated type of letter style used to create a piece, involving hard-to-read, highly decorated letters that blend into one another.
Blockbuster: uses easy-to-read block letters. This style is often seen on larger areas such as trains.
Top-to-bottom: the most impressive pieces, these cover entire walls with elaborate art work, characters and letters, and can take up to two days or more to complete.
Street Art Glossary of Terms
Wheatpasting: is also created from recycled materials such as the backs of old posters. It’s the process of putting up paper posters using a mix of water and wheat, and often contains the artist’s signature work.
Sticker tags: more subtle approach used by some writers. These are seen all over the city – on street signs, dumpsters, mailboxes, and anything considered a part of the street. They are also made from recycled materials.
Stencils: a personal favorite, made from cardboard cut-outs and sprayed over to leave a perfect image, usually displaying some political statement, cool design or character.
Mosaic tiling: a small square piece of tile with a cool design or character on it. You may have seen these small tiles pasted in peculiar places around King George Street in Tel Aviv. People collect these as an ode to the aritsts.
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[...] Featured, Art and Culture | Tags: AME72, graff, Graffiti, klone, Street Art | A few weeks ago we published our first article in a series on the graffiti and street art scene in Israel. Today we are interviewing one of Tel [...]