The writing’s on the wall

Once described by New York mayor Ed Koch as “a plague on society”, graffiti has travelled a long way from its hedonistic beginnings in 1970s New York.

Free from the limitations and expectations of other art movements, its rules and form governed by a handful of youngsters, it has matured over the past quarter of a century into one of the most accessible and ubiquitous art forms of the post-modern era.
The early cartographers of the graffiti scene — whose diverse grouping included the already prominent artist Jean Michel Basquiat — sucked up such a wide range of influences and mediums that it became almost impossible to define; still today its success lies in its ability constantly to change and reinvent itself.
Twenty-five years ago, in an attempt to define it by its failure as a subversive movement, New York City declared war on it. With a budget of $22.4 million and a battle plan which included protecting train depots with double fences of razor wire patrolled by psychopathic hounds, this seemed a battle the city was destined to win. However, as has often proved the case with such guerrilla wars, no amount of planning or money could counter the insurgency. Soon cities throughout America were being colonised by these underground operators. And not just the streets and subways but the railroads too.
In Freight Train Graffiti, Roger Gastman, Darin Rowland and Ian Sattler examine this phenomenon, chronicling the importance of the cargo-carrying railways in America’s social and economic history and looking at how graffiti has imprinted itself on to this icon of progress and mobility. The mistake made by Koch and the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which followed him loyally into this conflict, has been repeated in almost every country in the world. Graffiti is, and always has been, about challenge, and in making it harder to practise, those in power have inadvertently marketed it to an ever-growing band of young men desperate to impose themselves on a world they regard as suffocating with conformity.
Having dedicated 10 years of my life to graffiti, it is only now, in my mid-20s, that the necessity to feed some undernourished corner of my masculinity by writing my “plague-infected” nom-de-plume on any available surface has begun to ebb. That said, thumbing through Dokument Forlag’s latest offering, Writers United, is like reading Trainspotting for the first time as a recovering addict. This beautifully laid-out book, from Sweden, takes us into the world of the WUFC graffiti crew, a small but very productive group based in Stockholm. Bjorn Almqvist and Emil Hagelin have spent the past few years following members of the crew through subways and in and out of train depots, and they give us a unique snapshot of what graffiti is about.
Banksy, aka Graffiti to anyone who frequents Hoxton, in east London, is not one of those ordinary people, however much it suits him to claim that he is. Wall and Piece is a grossly self-indulgent look at his work. What Banksy seems to miss is that the message of graffiti is conveyed through the act of doing it, and isn’t one that needs to be highlighted and explained at every turn. Indeed the overwhelming majority of the work in this book is not even graffiti in the real sense, other than in the shared clothing of illegality. Banksy’s black and white daubing is an art form in its own right, and although it falls under the umbrella of street art, it is actually a closer relative of stickering, fly posting and billboard advertising than of graffiti-writing. Unfortunately this is probably the least addressed issue arising from his work, partly because it suits Banksy to present himself as a graffiti writer to the liberal intelligentsia, whose favourite he is. 
Perhaps he should get a copy of Graffiti Brasil, Tristan Manco’s study of how street art cultures co-exist in Brazil. This fascinating sociological exposition of the graffiti scene in Sao Paulo explains how, unlike Europe and America, Brazil has yet to embrace graffiti. This has created a movement similar to that of 70s New York: graffiti has to grab whatever devices and mediums are available and is carried out in an almost military fashion. Dripping with page after page of eye-candy, Graffiti Brasil makes for an interesting, if slightly academic, read.
Edward Hammond is a graffiti writer

The Books
Freight Train Graffiti
Roger Gastman, Darin Rowland, Ian Sattler
Thames & Hudson; 354pp

Writers United
Bjorn Amqvist, Emil Hagelin
Dokument Forlag; 160pp

Wall and Piece
Banksy
Century; 208pp

Graffiti Brasil
Tristan Manco, Lost Art, Caleb Neelson
Thames & Hudson; 128pp