HISTORICAL

It’s almost impossible go around some Madrid quarter as Malasaña or Lavapiés without watching hundreds of graffitis. This type of art, common to every big city, makes us question who make them? What is the goal? Which materials are used?

First, there is a difference between a painted message and a graffiti. First one is a ‘wall message’. Graffiti is oriented to ‘experts’ that can understand its content. Both of them are marginal and almost illegal.

Wall messages started in Roman Empire: political messages, love messages, prices... decored walls in Pompeya and Roma.  In 1943, whem U.S army arrives to Túnez, it’s the first time the famous sentene Kilroy Was Here appears. It was also seen in Italy, Frace and, finally, Germany.

El proyecto definitivo recayó en la dirección de José Grases Riera, que decide que el monumento se ubique en el Parque del Retiro, junto al Estanque Grande y en un lugar donde no fuese necesario talar ningún árbol: el antiguo embarcadero Real -obra de Isidro González Vázquez-, que, aunque empequeñecía el estanque, le otorgaba visibilidad con el futuro monumento.

Wall message is dead, long live to graffiti

Modern graffiti is born in New York in the 60s. A young deliver boy, Demetrius, went around Maniatan leaving his name and number of his house in every place he had to deliver, also in bus stops and Metro stations. Soon, all Maniatan was full of his tags. A New York Times journalist interviewed him, and a lot of imitators covered the streets with protest messages and signs that delimitate its territory. 

In Filadelfia born bombing: repeating the same message all over a big area. Bombing evolved in New York as a form of social-racial protest. Here stars the “writer”-audience dialogue that continues today, now associated with hip hop aesthetic and ideology.

Graffiti arrives to Madrid

Graffiti arrives to Madrid at the end of 70s beginning of 80s during the  “Movida Madrileña” sponsored by the mayor Tierno Galván. Twelve years later, this movement dissapeared and it’s replaced by the hip hop style “writers”.

The “writer” is inmersed in break-dance and rap music, dressed according to this style with sneakers without shoelaces, sweatshirt with big pockets and hood, wide trousers and a cap. These “Writers” join in groups united by a music-social ideology. They signed their messages with a sign in english. 

They have certain cultural and artistic interests. They are individualists, apolitical, dissapointed, ‘black culture’ lovers, antiracists and anti-posh. They are not inmersed in drugs. They consider themselves as legitimate artists, but socially misunderstood. Their survival is their anonimity.

The work

Graffiti for normal audiences is something marginal, free, spontaneous, young and radical. For “writers” it’s a visual message in a place difficult to be removed. It is created for other “writers” to see and judged, that appreciate the style, risk and message. In 2000 Dier made an alternative political campaign with posters and slogans.

How to become a “writer”

The beginner or toy starts bombing a determined area, covering it with tags. This way is more stimated. Later he has to make a ‘line’; cover with his tag al the ads in a Metro station or a complete Metro line. After he decored and make his tag more elaborated, choosing a type of letter and color. With more practice his style becomes more polished.

Relationships inside the group are regulated by some norms. First one is ‘most expert authority’ norm: no toy will put his tag over a graffiti made by a “writer” with more prestige than him. Second, the ‘hierarchy’ norm: a tag can be replaced by a spray made graffiti, and this one also can be replaced with a better graffiti. Third, the ‘intellectual property’ norm: a graffiti can only be changed by his author.