RSH: “At all levels, ultimately graffiti is an act of cultural insurgency. It is a rebellion; against the norm, against society at large, against corporations, against the city or “government.” Graffiti is the act of changing the visual environment in the public space. It doesn’t matter if its a quickly scrawled tag or a well developed painting, it shouldn’t be there and it is.”

James Curcio: To begin with, I’d like to hear what you think the function of graffiti art is. Maybe it has a purpose, maybe it doesn’t, but even if you don’t intend a purpose, a social action like that has a reaction, it serves a function. They don’t necessarily all need to have the same function but I imagine when you really cut down to it there is a fairly small range of possibilities there. What do you think?

Raymond Salvatore Harmon: Modern urban visual environments are controlled by corporations and city governments (which are in fact almost always corporations themselves). They decide where a road goes, how big signs can be, when a billboard can go up, etc. This is all dictated by financial gain. Advertising revenue plays a huge part in city planning.

When someone alters this visual landscape without permission they are fucking with the economic value of that environment. In doing so they are counteracting the attempt that the city government makes to control that environment. While the content and message can vary greatly within graffiti, the act is very clear. Graffiti is doing this act in violation of the law.

Increasingly we are seeing the growth of something that appears to be “graffiti”, in that it has co-opted graffiti’s common visual aesthetics and techniques, but it is done with permission. “Street art” is graffiti without the teeth. When it’s being done with permission it’s just the same as the advertising billboards. It’s part of the plan, and in being so it’s devoid of the same level of depth found in an act of true vandalism.

Read the interview on Modern Mythology

“Street art and graffiti are usually so male dominated,” Ms. Hemmons said. “Yarn bombing is more feminine. It’s like graffiti with grandma sweaters.”

Yarn bombing takes that most matronly craft (knitting) and that most maternal of gestures (wrapping something cold in a warm blanket) and transfers it to the concrete and steel wilds of the urban streetscape. Hydrants, lampposts, mailboxes, bicycles, cars — even objects as big as buses and bridges — have all been bombed in recent years, ever so softly and usually at night.

It is a global phenomenon, with yarn bombers taking their brightly colored fuzzy work to Europe, Asia and beyond. In Paris, a yarn culprit has filled sidewalk cracks with colorful knots of yarn. In Denver, a group called Ladies Fancywork Society has crocheted tree trunks, park benches and public telephones. Seattle has the YarnCore collective (“Hardcore Chicks With Sharp Sticks”) and Stockholm has the knit crew Masquerade. In London, Knit the City has “yarnstormed” fountains and fences. And in Melbourne, Australia, a woman known as Bali conjures up cozies for bike racks and bus stops.

Sometimes called grandma graffiti, the movement got a boost, and a manifesto, in 2009 with the publication of the book “Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti,” by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain, knitters from Vancouver, Canada.

Banksy rat graffiti, City Road, London, UK. Photo: LoopZilla (CC)

Gabriele Steinhauser reports on a Banksy backlash in London for the Wall Street Journal:

In the predawn hours of Christmas morning, a 40-year-old shoe repairman who goes by the name Robbo squeezed his 6-foot-8-inch frame into a wet suit, tossed some spray cans into a plastic bag, and crossed Regent’s Canal on a red-and-blue air mattress.

Robbo, one of the lost pioneers of London’s 1980s graffiti scene, was emerging from a long retirement. He had a mission: to settle a score with the world-famous street artist Banksy, who, Robbo believes, had attacked his legacy.

The battle centers on a wall under a bridge on the canal in London’s Camden district. In the fall of 1985—just 15 years old but already a major player in London’s graffiti scene—Robbo announced his presence on that wall with eight tall block letters: ROBBO INC.

The work, written in orange, red and black on a yellow background, had been in good shape for nearly 25 years and was considered a local icon, surviving long after Robbo himself vanished from the scene 16 years ago.

But recently, Robbo’s work was dramatically altered by an unlikely rival: Banksy, the stealthy Bristol-born artist who has made a lucrative art of graffiti. The work of Banksy—who, like Robbo, doesn’t disclose his name—sells for big money and is widely merchandised. His first film, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is due out in U.K. theaters this month.

In early December, Banksy did a series of four pieces along the Regent’s Canal’s walls. Inexplicably, one of them incorporated Robbo’s piece into Banksy’s own work, painting over half the Robbo original in the process. The resulting work, in Banksy’s typical stencil technique, shows a black-and-white workman applying colorful wallpaper that is, in essence, the remnants of Robbo’s piece.

Some saw Banksy’s act as self-promotion, some as a tribute, but most interpreted it as plain disrespect for a local hero. Offers of retribution reached Robbo, who has remained friendly with many graffiti writers even as he slipped into a life of obscurity as a North London father of two children, with a third on the way.

“They was all offering to do it for me,” says Robbo in an interview. But he decided: “I’ve got to do it myself.”

So on Christmas morning—praying he wouldn’t wind up in jail even as his children were opening their presents—Robbo slipped back onto the canal and reclaimed his turf. Instead of applying wallpaper, Banksy’s workman now is seen painting two words: KING ROBBO…

[continues in the Wall Street Journal]

The infamous street artist Banksy premiered Exit Through The Gift Shop at Sundance last night, which was part of Sundance’s “Secret Spotlight” series. In short, we enjoyed it, but there’s a lot to say about it this movie, so check back later for our review. The title itself refers to Disneyland and Disney World’s engineered design of having guests exit attractions right through the gift shop, so as to better serve all of their merchandising needs.

Banksy, whose real identity is an extremely well-kept secret, may or may not have been at the screening last night (how would we even know?), but he did send a letter which Sundance Director of Programming John Cooper read aloud to the audience. Read on for the full text of the mysterious letter, keep your eyes peeled for our reviews … and for more mysterious street art to appear.

Since 2006, the elusive guerrilla artist known as Princess Hijab has been subverting Parisian billboards, to a mixed reception. Her anonymity irritates her critics, many of whom denounce her as extremist and antifeminist; when she recently conceded, in the pages of a German newspaper, that she wasn’t a Muslim, it opened the floodgates to avid speculation in the blogosphere. If her claim of being a 21-year-old Muslim girl was only partially true, some wondered what the real message was behind her self-described “artistic jihad.” …

More at Bitch

“Cops in L.A. have spent months tracking down a vandal who has caused thousands of dollars worth of damage by slapping “Who is John Scott?” stickers on buses, bus shelters and any other flat surfaces he could find.

Typically this is the domain of teenagers putting up ads for their garage bands, but this time, it was the work of a senior citizen. 73-year-old John Scott is officially the oldest person ever arrested in L.A. for street vandalism, beating the previous record holder who was 36.”

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