Graffiti

Vocabulary

Graffiti comes from Italian graffito (who at the beginning indicated a stylet to be written), which has the same direction as in French. Its plural is graffiti . The use did not retain an attempt at Francization in graffite (fine 19th century), nor the singular graffito (which uses, inter alia, André Malraux): a graffiti, graffiti is said. Plural in “( graffiti ) meets but seems to be a faute.
The Italian word graffiti derives from Latin graphium (scratch) who draws his etymology from the Greek graphein (γραφειν) who indifferently means to write, draw or paint.

In French, the graffiti resulting from the New Yorkean tradition and associated with the culture Hip-hop are often called Graff S (but the Pochoir ists of the Années 1980 also spoke about graffs ), sometimes improperly spelled graphs . The authors of these graffiti are called graffeurs and graffiti-artists rather than graffiteurs . In inhabitant of Quebec, it is not rare to qualify the graffiti-artists graffiteurs or of writers , as in English. The portemanteau words calligraffiti and calligraffitist , allotted to Bando in the Book of the Graffiti (ED. Otherwise, cf bibliography) were not retained by the use. In English, one speaks about graffiti-artists , writers or aerosol artists . These graffeurs paint to them “Blaze” or that of the collective (Installation, crew, squad) to which they belong.

History

See also: Chronology of the graffiti

One generally distinguishes the graffiti from the fresco by the statute illegal or in any case clandestine, of the inscription. Thus it is a priori doubtful to qualify the cave paintings of graffiti, because we are unaware of their statute at the time.

The graffiti have a great importance in Archéologie: they form part, with the epigraphic texts , of written not arts persons, popular testimonys, often very “alive” and ready to reveal us new aspects of the companies which have them produits.
Les ancient graffiti could be as well electoral advertisements, messages of supporters with certain athletes (sporting or gladiators), messages with contents political, religious, erotic or pornographic, personal, etc Some examples:

“Cornelia Helena is the mistress of Rufus”, “I kissed here 19 and the 13 of the calends of September”, “Pyrrhus greet his Chius fellow-member. I have sorrow to have learned that you had died. Then good-bye”, “If you included/understood what can the love, if you are aware of human being, take pity of me, allow me to come, Fleur of Venus,…”, “You are carrion, you are one nothing the whole”, “Wall, I am surprised that you would not have crumbled under the weight of the silly things of all those which wrote on you”.

These graffiti are generally written in Vulgar Latin and bring many information to the linguists as the level of elimination of illiteracy of the populations (because these texts comprise spelling errors or of grammar). Fact even of the presence of these faults, these texts provide also indices on the way in which Latin was pronounced by his speakers.

One can still read some two millenia old graffiti to Pompeï because it is one of the rare sites which is sufficiently well preserved. Indeed, the graffiti are essentially transitory and disappear, either because their support disappeared, or because they were manually unobtrusive or that they were victims of the natural erosion of their support.
Antiquity and the Middle Ages left many examples of graffiti: the Agora of Athens, the Valley of the kings in Egypt, the large caravanserais of the Arab world, etc These inscriptions have sometimes a historical importance which is far from being anecdotic, by proving for example that Greek mercenaries served in Egypt with the VII {{E}} century before the Christian era.
In the city of Éphèse, one found graffiti advertizing for the prostitutes, indicating in a graphic way with how much step and for how much money one could find the professional ones of the love.

Many other old examples are known: graffiti Maya with Tikal (Guatemala), graffiti Viking S in Ireland or with Rome, Rune S Varègue S in Turkey, etc

One often finds graffiti, sometimes very old, in sheltered of the light, moisture and little decorated places, such as the cells of prisons, the cells monacales, the barracks, the holds of the boats, the cellars, the catacombs (the graffiti of the first Christians, in the Roman catacombs, are an important source of documentation on their subject), etc the Tour of the Lantern to La Rochelle, in France, is rich of graffiti of prisoners, workmen and sailors, who are for number of them boats: frigates, men-of-war, etc Certains pieces of furniture out of wooden are often engraved inscriptions: tables and benches of schools, doors of public toilets.

Many Romance churches were engraved graffiti covered immediately by a coating. The church of Moings in is an example.

Towards the age of around fifty, Restif of Breton the, writer Libertine of the 18th century, brought back the events of its life in the form of graffiti which it made on the parapets of the bridges of the Île Saint-Louis at the time of his daily walks. It gave up this activity maniac (which lasted of 1780 with 1787) by noting too fast disappearance of its words and after being themselves returned account which a malevolent hand erased them. It then takes the reading of its own words which it finally transcribes in a collection published posthumously and entitled My inscriptions .

The urban graffiti often develops in a context of political tensions: during the Revolution S, under the Occupation, (Reichstag in covered Berlin of graffiti by the Russian troops), during the War of Algeria, in May 1968, on the Berlin Wall or in the areas where difficulties of autonomy arise (Brittany of the Années 1970, Northern Ireland, etc). Towards the end of the Years 1960 and in several countries on the two sides of the Atlantic, of the fact in particular of the availability of Aerosol S of “enamelled” paintings (originally intended for the painting of cars), part of the graffiti gained a vocation Esthétique.

New York

The movement was very spectacular in the Métro of New York whose oars were suddenly covered with names: Taki 183, Tracy 168, Stay High 149, etc In a few years, these “tags” (signatures) became more sophisticated and became true typographies; their authors having declined the writing of their message (more often their names) in order to increase the visibility of it or to develop the style of it to mark or affirm themselves by their personality and; to belong to the collective memory would be this only in their medium, sometimes at least like simple precursor of a style. The goal of the Graffiti being at the beginning to obtain " the Fame" , i.e. the celebrity, recognition of the others taggers or graffers meaning to them by there that they exist. All the means will be good for that. The simple assertion of an identity ( I call myself Taki, I live the 183^e street”, my name traverses the city the every day, I exist ) doubled plastic ambitions, which proved to be another means of pointing out itself: it is not only any more the most active graffor or that who takes the most risks which obtains a form of recognition, but also that which produces the most beautiful works. Very quickly, of the standardized styles (lettering “bubbles”, lettering “wild style”) and of the practices (“signal-to-bottom whole because”, “Whole Because Windows Down”, “throw-up”, etc) crystallize. Groups (called “installations”, “crews”, “squads” or “gangs”), as the town of New York in always knew, are formed and allow the graffeurs to link itself to carry out spectacular actions (to paint several oars of a train for example), to add a collective name to their individual name but also to clash between groups, in a peaceful way or not.
These groups are often consisted ethnic origins and have as names of the acronyms into two or three words: Drunk Artists (SA), The Crazy Artists (TCA), etc In 1973, the New York Magazine lance the contest of the most beautiful graffiti of the subway. In the middle of the Years 1970, the culture of the graffiti is more or less fixed in its operation and its productions. The culture Hip-hop emerges from the graffiti but also from other forms of expression born at the same time: a new rather lifting dance (Station-wagon dance), a musical genre containing spoken texts (Rap), of mixing of discs (Dee jay ing), (Scratch) and of festivals in the open air (Sound system S). The two most famous pioneers of a conjunction between station-wagon dance, rap, dee-jaying and graffiti are Phase 2 and Fab Five Freddy.

At the end of the Years 1970, the graffiti was severely repressed in the subway of New York and started to be diffused on the walls of the underprivileged Borough S of the city before essaimer in other American big cities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington) and in various European big cities: Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam and Barcelona especially.

It is at that time also that the medium of art starts to lean seriously on the subject. “Legendary” graffiteurs such as Lee Quinones, Seen, Futura 2000 or Fab Five Freddy paint on fabrics and expose their work in galleries such as the Tony Shafrazi Gallery or the Fun Gallery of Patti Astor, the gallery Fashion Moda or the Gallery Sydney Janis. Painters who do not come especially from the disadvantaged districts of New York and which generally followed a traditional course in Arts or visual communication, interested by the idea of an urban art or a clandestine art, join to the graffiteurs (like Jenny Holzer, which will make write its “truisms” with the bomb by Lady Pink) or adapt their practice (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Rammellzee).

Paris

In 1960, Brassaï publishes the book Graffiti , fruit thirty year old of research, regularly republished, which proposes the graffiti like a form of rough Art, primitive, transitory. Picasso takes part in it. It is undoubtedly the first time that one evokes the graffiti like Article.

In the tread of May 1968, the political messages of the Parisian street gain in poetry and graphic quality. They are in particular the fact of students in philosophy, literature, political sciences or art and often show of absurd humor or a direction of the formula rather studied: “Hides, object! ”, “a revolution which requires that one sacrifice oneself for it is a revolution with the dad. ”, “happiness is a new idea. ”, “poetry is in the street”, “the life is elsewhere”, “To disobey initially: then write on the walls (Law of May 10th, 1968.) ”, “I do not like to write on the walls. ”, etc. These slogans are indifferently written with the brush, the roller, the bomb of painting (rarer) or on screen printed posters. It is of this wild posting and militant that is born a Parisian tradition from the graffiti with esthetic vocation. At the end of the Years 1970, the artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest will produce screen printed posters, without slogans, which it will expose in several big cities: “expelled”, stuck on the walls of houses in demolition and representative with real size of the people holding of the bags or a mattress, “Rimbaud”, representing the poet, young person, always with real size. Urban serigraphies of Ernest Pignon-Ernest challenge the passer by and ask him which is the place of the man or poetry in the city moderne.
A few years later, first “Stencil key set ists” as Blek the rat will continue on the same principle, however their works are not any more of the stuck posters but of the paintings carried out according to the technique of the stencil key set. Since 1982, to announce their “first supermarket of art”, Roma Napoli and JJ Dow Jones of the Dix10 Group placard in the Beaubourg district of large posters to the characters of Comic' S; twenty years later, always credits, one finds them in the movement One night . In addition to the pochoirists, many artists are interested in urban and clandestine art, like Gerald Zlotykamien, which paints silhouettes evoking the macabre shades remained on the walls of Hiroshima; Jerome Mesnager, author of men painted in white who run on the quays of the Seine, etc It is also the time of the Free Figuration, one time of merry and humorous creativity, born from the Pop-Art, of Bazooka, the Vidéo clip, of the graffiti, often present in the street, with Robert Combas, the Frères Ripoulin (which painted on posters posed clandestinely), Claude Costa (which is made lock up the night in the subway to be able to divert the posters of them), Herve Di Rosa, Speedy Graffito, Paëlla Chimicos, VLP (Painting Lives), etc.
In addition to the street, the Catacombes of Paris will be also at the time an important place of the graffiti.

The “New Yorkean” graffiti appears in France as of 1982 - 1983, with artists like Bando, Blitz, Lokiss, Scipion, Skki or Saho. The first press articles devoted to this phenomenon however go back only to 1986. Towards 1986 - 87, the “New Yorkean” graffiti and its culture hip-hop definitively takes the step in Paris on the forms closer to the world of the Contemporary art, which turns over, except exception, with its Galerie s.
À Paris, the New Yorkean graffiti is places privileged like the quays of the Seine, the palisades of the Louvre or the Center Georges-Pompidou, the waste ground of Stalingrad/the Vault, then extends gradually to the cities from the Banlieue S where the culture hip-hop finds its second breath while becoming more popular and less middle-class woman. Paris attracts many European graffiteurs (Shoe, Mode 2) but such American (Jonone, Futura 2000, T-Kid, A-One).

Berlin

In 1961, the Berlin Wall is built. It separates symbolically and physically socialist Europe known as “from the East” of Atlantic Europe known as “of the West”. While the Easts Germany do not have the right to approach the wall, those of the West come on their side to write slogans, profiting from a total benevolence of the authorities of the FR of Germany which makes of Berlin at the time the German capital of freedom, art and the counter-culture: there is the right there to consume Hashish, many squat S thrive there and it is one of the high places of the Punk, with London and New York.

Many artists come then from the whole world to paint on the wall which is about completely mackled at the time of its destruction, in 1989.

Barcelona

In Spain, the culture hip-hop bored more tardily than in the rest of Europe. The town of Barcelona however accommodates an extraordinary quantity of atypical and creative graffiti which mix social and political claims, graphics underground and, to a certain extent, culture hip-hop.

Techniques

There exist many techniques of graffiti or assimilable art of street, such as: the Painting Aerosol (with or without Stencil key set), painting with the Aerographer, the Engraving (on panes, walls, metal plates, the bark of the trees, etc), the marker and the pen, the chalk, roller painting or with the brush, the acid (for pane or metal) to which one can associate, in a widened definition of the graffiti, the Affiche, the Autocollant S, the Moulage S (out of resin or plaster stuck on the walls) and the mosaic (see: Space Invader).

The “New Yorkean” graffiti is characterized by relatively definite forms where the individual creativity is expressed within a coded framework and implying adhesion with a whole culture (vocabulary, places, concerns, tastes musical, etc). One generally distinguishes three levels there from production:

the “Tag” (mark, signature) is the simple drawing of the name of the artist. The gesture generally is very worked, with the manner of the Calligraphie S Chinese and Japanese, it is a logo more than one writing, and often, only accustomed manage to decipher the name which is written. The techniques used are generally the aerosol, the marker and the sticker (“sticker”).
the “Graff'”, or “Fresco”, or “burning” (and in French “burn”), or “Part” even “Masterpiece” (chief of work) is the name often given to the graffiti sophisticated and carried out several colors.
the “Throw-Up”, or “Failure” is an intermediate form between Tag and the fresco: they are large drawings of letters, and not of signatures, equipped with a " volume" and of contours but which are carried out quickly and without particular care (not of effort of color e.g.). They are used to promote the name of the artist in a manner which is visible by far. Some make also the demonstration of the typographical talent of the artist.

There exists a great number of style S which can apply to the frescos and sometimes to “failures”. Let us quote for example the style bubble (“Bubble”), “Chromium” (silver plated color), the “Letter Block” (letters square and compact) and the “Wildstyle” in which the letters are illegible, abstractized, tangled up and decorative, readable only by the initiates. It is, according to much, the discipline “queen” of the New Yorkean graffiti while for others in fact the simplest letterings and purest typographically speaking deserve the most considération.
Certain graffiti-artists paint few letters and specialize in the drawing of figurative or abstracted decorations, or of characters. The New Yorkean graffiti takes as a starting point several arts known as “minor”, such as the Cartoon, the Tatouage and posts it.

Motivations of the graffiti

Many reasons explain the existence of graffitis.
Certains graffiti concern the pure Communication and are thus used to diffuse a Message, for example a message Politique, often (but not only) one clandestine political message: Nationalism S regional in Northern Ireland, Corsica Brittany or , “V” of the victory and the Freedom under the Occupation Nazi, etc

Certain graffiti contain secret or public information referring to the place which is used to them as support. It is the case for example discrete and coded graffiti left by the burglars on dwellings to indicate to their colleagues if the place is interesting, dangerous, badly kept, etc It is the case also stars of David or mentions “juden” openly painted on the shops of tradesmen Juif S by the Nazis in Germany in the Années 1930, inscriptions which were often calls with vandaliser the places, molester their tenants and Boycott er the trade. In the same register, certain graffiti are defamatory messages or anonymous denunciations emanating from various “corbels”. Certain graffiti are used to mark out a territory, as do it the criminal gangs such as the Crips and the Bloods with Los Angeles. Sometimes the graffiti can be described like reactions to other messages diffused in urban space, such as publicities diverted ( Le Pen is seen adding is or DRE ) or with accompanying notes ( “not with the malbouffe! ” , “halt with the porn! ” ) and control panels, but also of the answers to other graffiti ( “screws Sharon” - for Ariel Sharon - which is seen adding “Stone” - for Sharon Stone) or of the diversions of other graffiti ( “lives the king” , which becomes “sharp the roast” in the Années 1930 in France). The collective of the Déboulonneurs , created in 2005, for example specialized in the graffiti on advertizing posters, with an aim militant of safeguarding of the landscape.

Many graffiteurs-artists precisely affirm to create their images in reaction to advertizing saturation: to images with the venal goals, they oppose free images; to messages making the promotion of standardized products, they oppose a publicity for themselves. It is besides sometimes about Publicité to the clean direction: publicity for a diffused disc in a confidential way, for a group of Rock'n'roll, for an artist, a political party, etc

Certain graffiti are the simple expression, anonymity or not, of feelings: various heartfelt cries, joy ( “it makes beautiful and I am content” ), declaration of love ( “Mélissa I love you” ) or of hatred. One counts since the antiquity of many examples of homages to the late ones, on their burials (see for examples the tombs of certain artists or poets with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise in Paris) or in other places: the wall of the house of Serge Gainsbourg, Street of the Holy Father in Paris, was covered with graffiti-homages after the death of the singer. The homages of this type are current also in the “New Yorkean” graffiti. The terrorist attack of the September 11th 2001 generated a great quantity of graffiti mémoriels, in particular paying homage to the services (police force, firemen) of the city. It is frequent today that when a taguor dies, those which taguaient with him pay homage to him while continuing to pose its Blaze , followed mention R.I.P (Rest In Peace) or French R.E.P (Rests In Peace).

The memory is besides an important aspect of the graffiti: by engraving on a tree his loves, while drawing on his benches of school or by registering on a wall the testimony of his passage (like the pioneers of the Track of Oregon, in 1864, or like “Kilroy” in 1944), the author of graffiti transforms his support into a true side of memory: collective memory, memory of the events, individual memory… This motivation takes an exemplary turn with Restif of Breton the which held the Journal of its memories on the parapets of the bridges of Paris.

Sometimes the graffiti raises of the visual Art, the Littérature or of the Humor. It constitutes a manifestation of the human, poetic spirit then from its transitory aspect and Altruiste from its mode of diffusion.

Lastly, certain graffiti raise of simple the Vandalisme, of incivility, actions which for some sociologists are a manner of affirming its existence (“I thus break I am”). Certain young people can indeed find through the graffiti, a desire of revenge on the life and assertion of oneself, or a means of forgetting the moroseness and the sadness of their life.

The graffiti “Hip-hop”, or “tag”, which accounts for 90% of the graffiti in the United States and undoubtedly as much in the majority of the countries, is a complex case. It often gives itself esthetic ambitions but constitutes in same time a form of secret language, intended to be included/understood only by one limited population, which does not go without irritating the public which perceives although one imposes the view of images to him which are not intended to him.

It is the paradox of the tag: its authors seek best the site and pose a maximum of it but make them possible most illegible. The “tag” has indeed its own culture. Each taguor has a Pseudonyme and a Signature (blaze) which it uses to assert of ambitious works but also (more usually, because it is easier), to announce its presence in a place and to make known themselves, transforming the city into a kind of play of track and strategy giant. A taguor can have several talents: a capacity to be painted in difficult to reach places, sufficient energy and the base to write its name everywhere (the devoted vocabulary is explicit: " exploser" , " détruire" , " cartonner" …) or a true artistic talent.

The final goal of the “tag” is apparently difficult to explain: adrenalin? local celebrity? … It is the shape of graffiti which starts the most controversies, in particular because of extent of the phenomenon but also, undoubtedly, owing to the fact that it is the expression of a well defined culture.

The fight anti-graffiti

The Town of New York and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority made towards the end of the Années 1970 the decision of éradiquer the graffiti of the subway. The access to the oars became more difficult and kept well, the painted subways had not any more left and were cleaned as soon as possible. Of 1984 with 1989, thousand employees of the NewYork subway are baited to clean their 6245 coaches and 465 stations, at an annual cost of 52 million dollars. These efforts will push the graffiteurs to give up the subway to paint on walls and fabrics. Some will have, with the passage, to change name. The mandate of the mayor Rudolph Giuliani, starting from 1994, which preaches a “tolerance zero” with the delinquency, will make unauthorized urban graffiti one of its priority targets, considering that an unpunished offense, that a damaged phone box, that a tag or that a simple broken square are the beginning of the impoverishment of a whole district.

In France, it is especially the political graffiti which is pursued with severity and the graffiti with visual vocation is initially regarded as a curiosity; but as of the medium of the Years 1980, the town of Paris is equipped with machines with pressure to erase the graffiti on the walls and starts, just like the RATP, to deposit complaints. The time is also that of a wild vice of posting in advertizing matter (political, services minitels) and the machines anti-graffiti are also used to withdraw the posters. Towards 1987, the Parisian subways are even covered with tags and the population is wearied clearly, which will lead to a legal hardening (including in the places which traditionally did not pose problems like the unused warehouses). Towards 1990, the RATP had managed to marginalize the tag in the subway, if not with the éradiquer completely, returning it to the passage cleaner than it had ever been. A comparable evolution could be observed in other capitals of Europe touched by the phenomenon. Today, of many French cities of average importance invested in machines anti-graffiti, which represents a considerable cost. The shipping companies, particularly concerned, devote to it also part of their budget. The SNCF quantifies for example the cost of the cleaning of the graffiti of its trains to 5 million euros per annum.

Certain places like the accesses of the stations, along the ways, are covered with graffiti which the SNCF erases only seldom, because they do not constitute an esthetic problem (the selected place being more beautiful with the graffiti), but which pose on the other hand important problems of safety. It is not rare that the rail traffic is stopped because of the passage of prowlers near the ways.

One however observes since 2006 that on the lines of the Parisian RER managed by the SNCF, the graffiti is " vandalisés" by the SNCF: they are whitewashed of white painting with an aim of discouraging from the graffeurs operating on its ways in the heart of Paris.

The controversy

Since the beginnings of the “tag” in New York (beginning of the Years 1970), the controversy “Art or vandalism? ” divise.
One can take for example a leading article of the New York Sun which compares the graffiti with metastasis S and is caught some violently in the NewYork Times which mentions only the artistic questions, conclusive by this sentence: “Times provides the ideal speech for a generation which refuses to grow” .

If one trusts the Théorie of the broken pane developed in the United States, the graffiti is a factor of Insécurité, because it leaves with the populations the feeling which them district is forsaken by the public authorities and which incivilities are unpunished.

From other points of view, not inevitably contrary, can be advanced: with the graffiti, the young people occupy themselves in a way creative (and thus positive), adapt public space and bring even a sometimes welcome chromatic gaity to him.

The fight by average the techniques

Prevention

Anti-tags supports

Average techniques were developed to discourage the graffiteurs, like the use of varnish, plastic films and anti-tags paintings (which prevent painting from correctly drying or facilitate the operations of cleaning) or the decoration of surfaces by reasons which make the tags illegible (tested by the RATP during the years 1980, without much success). Today the panes of the subways of the majority of the Parisian lines for example are covered with plastic films changed regularly, which discourages to them gravage by the tagueurs.

Access to the material

The regulation of the sale of the products being used to make graffiti is a traditional means of fight upstream against the " tag". It is application in many cities and counties of the United States. She was proposed (but not retained) by the Mairie of Paris in 1992 and by Gerald Tremblay, mayor of Montreal, in 2006. This regulation can take several different forms: prohibition with those which sell some to expose paint sprays to the public; prohibition of sale of paint sprays to the minors; prohibition of sale of indelible markers a certain thickness.

Framing of the graffeurs

The provision of walls dedicated to the graffiti (as with Venice Pit in California, as with the Palate from Tokyo in Paris), is a practice usually implemented by municipalities or other institutions and of which the acknowledged goal is to channel in a localized way creative energy of the authors of graffiti. The latter always do not lend themselves to the play, by fear which it is not about a trick to know their identity or because they regard all Institution alisation of the graffiti as absurdity or detrimental to the gasoline subversive of the graffiti.
Les orders of decorations to graffiteurs, the organization of festivals of graffiti (Kosmopolite with Bagnolet, since 2002; Jam graffiti with Chalon-sur-Saône, etc) have the same goal.

The nograffiti.com site observes that the traditional expositions with the graffiti and other free walls of expression do not send a clear message inevitably because their perimeter is inevitably vandalisé: instead of circumscribing the graffiti at an authorized zone, these practices would thus constitute an encouragement with vandalism.

Repair

Mackled surfaces can be treated with tools such as the pressure water jet strong, the sand blast, the hydro-gumming, or of the solvents. Certain graffiti are simply covered with painting, without seeking to find the aspect of origin of the wall, on the basis of the principle that a place where the graffiti do not remain a long time discourages the graffiteurs.

Monitoring

For the subway of New York, the MTA and the town hall, under the administration of the Koch mayor, prevented the access to the subway trains by surrounding the deposits of trains of two lines of high barbed nettings and by releasing dogs in the corridor formed by these fences. Added with a policy with systematic cleaning of the trains, the method functioned.

In Los Angeles, a sophisticated technical system named “TaggerTrap” (trap with taggers) was tested. It makes it possible to locate, thanks to their very specific sound, of the paint sprays which one actuates. This system would have made it possible to locate and stop many taggers in full action (Reuters, February 13rd, 2003, 8:07)

In addition, in the american companies specialized in the collection and the cross-checking of information on the graffiti, allowing the public authorities a “traceability” of the tag in order to count all works of an author and to extend well the judgments beyond the Red-handed.

The battle of the communication

To the United States, in April 1982, a campaign anti-graffiti was launched by the town of New York, was carried by New Yorkean celebrities such as the Boxe the USSR Héctor Camacho and Alex Ramos, the actors of Fame Irene Cara and Gene Ray or the champion of baseball Dave Winfield. These personalities were joined together under the slogan: “Make your mark in society, not one society” ( leave your print in the company, not on the company ) In France, the RATP launched a posting campaign at the beginning of the Années 1990 presenting the tag Megaton and informing that the graffiti will be from now on immediately unobtrusive: “Although our galleries are attended, certain modes of expression will have there no more their place” . Eight years earlier, the control of Parisian transport had carried out with Futura 2000 a publicity campaign for its services.

In 2003, always in France, the SNCF attacked the magazines Graff' it , Graff Bombz and Mix Grill , shown to encourage the graffiti on the trains while publishing some of the photographs. The claimed allowance, to 150.000 euros for each newspaper, would be enough to make disappear these newspapers. Déboutée in first authority, the SNCF appealed. The three newspapers received the support of all the press and the Ligue of the Human rights, which consider that a victory of the SNCF would constitute worrying called in question of the free right to inform.

The Court of Appeal of Paris confirmed the decision of the 1st degree (October 15th 2004) the September 27th 2006.
It was based on the fact that coaches were painted well before the creation of these magazines which concern besides only " to be witnesses of art in the street and to reproduce new creations in this domaine" (dixit Court of Appeal).
The court also recognized the artistic character of the graffiti and refuted the charge of incentive to degradation (the number of coaches painted being in reduction).

The fight by the legal means

The legal device

The United States

To the the United States, the counties and the cities bring various answers to the problem of the graffiti. Certain places as the Comté of Los Angeles for example are satisfied to regulate the product sales being able to be used for graffiter while the town of Los Angeles has it an arsenal of decrees much more severe which extends until remuneration from the Délation. The local decrees concerning the graffiti in the United States can contain the following headings:

declaration of the harmful character of the graffiti (extending sometimes to esthetic considerations),
regulation of the sale of material which can be used to make graffiti (indelible bombs, markers, etc): sale with the adults only, inaccessibility of the material, etc,
regulation, on the public highway, of the detention of material which can be used to make graffiti,
definition of sorrows incurred for the graffiti carried out without the explicit agreement of the owner of the support: fines, work for the community, etc,
responsibilisation of the parents of authors of graffiti,
calls to denounce the graffiteurs.

France

When they are not made on authorized supports, the graffiti constitute, for the French criminal law, a “destruction, a degradation or a voluntary deterioration of a good pertaining to others”, which are punished:

of an infringment of 5th class (1 500 euros or more) if it results only one light damage from it (R.635-1 Article of the Penal code).
of a fine being able to reach 30.000 euros and of a punishment being able to reach 2 years of imprisonment in the other cases (Article 322-1 of the Penal code).

Article 322-1 of the Penal code also provides that “the fact of tracing inscriptions, signs or drawings, without prior approval, on the frontages, the vehicles, the public highways or urban furniture is punished of 3 750 euros of fine and a sorrow of work of general interest when it is resulted from it only one light damage”. It is supplemented by article 322-2 which provides that the sanction is raised with 7 500 euros of fine and a sorrow of work of general interest, when, inter alia, “the good destroyed, range or deteriorated are intended for the utility or decoration public and belong to a person public or responsible for a public service mission”.

In addition, the content of inscriptions (death threats, incentive with the racial hate, slandering, etc) can constitute an offense in oneself.

The business of the SNCF

Facts

Beginning 2003, in France, a vast investigation gathering of the policemen national, the SNCF and the RATP, led to the dismantling of a network of 150 graffiteurs who would have caused several tens of million euros of damage since 1999.

Up to now, the tagueurs were continued only for degradations which one had proven in red-handed that they were the authors. The graffiteurs were often condemned only to works of general interest in particular consisting in carrying out frescos on behalf of the SNCF. However the shipping companies public and the state were found confronted with a practice of the graffiti more and more badly lived by the users as by the personnel of maintenance, increasingly expensive and increasingly aggressive.

The organization of the fight

In 1999, the SNCF obtained a mission Propreté which started by making serious contacts with the National police force and obtained its own investigating agents, provided of numerical cameras in order to photograph the maximum of graffiti in all the hexagon.

Some magistrates became aware of the extent of the phenomenon and starting from 2001 required of the police officers to go up to the authors of the reviews and Internet sites devoted to the graffiti, to index the tags in order to differentiate the bands, in order to translate them in front of Justice. From now on, Justice wished to continue a taguor taken, either only on one fact of red-handed but on the whole of the tags which show the same signature and same characteristics.

Starting from June 2001 the organization of the anti-tagueurs fight started to go up in power:

all the photographs of tags taken by the agents of the SNCF on all France and the RATP on the Paris region were centralized, indexed and analyzed by specialists, in order to allot each graffiti to the responsible band;
the police officers, little by little, reassembled the dies of the sites and the newspapers, thanks to the diaries and with seized papers, and more and more of members of bands were stopped. At the time of the searchings, the police officers brought back various pieces of evidence: reviews, address books, diaries, Internet sites, contained transport and IP addresses of the correspondents, phone numbers portable, information allowing to penetrate of night in the buildings and garages of the SNCF and the RATP, with sometimes the double of the keys;
certain graffeurs took fear; and a lawyer collective started to give in the reviews of the councils the tagueurs in the event of arrest.

Lawsuits

The first lawsuit took place in 2003 with Versailles. It was not any more question of light fines against the 150 continued people of which the famous kofy clm: the SNCF and the RATP had required important sums in damages. For the only SNCF, the amount to 1,3 million euros amounts. It proved in the light of the lawsuit that some of the tagueurs had lucrative trades in the Publicité or the Graphisme.

Economy of the graffiti

Enough early in the history “New Yorkean” graffiti, of young artists was remunerated to decorate with the nightclubs and the fronts or the iron curtains of shops. Some live truly of this activity, in particular the “legendary” artists whose other initial graffiteurs will not dare to ransack work: to have an iron curtain painted by a respected graffor is the insurance that this one will not be vandalisé any more by tagueurs.

Certain graffeurs sell their work in the form of fabrics painted, or it decline in the form of Tee-shirts and other decorations vestimentary, of services graphic (cf “Chart-Youths” of the end of the Années 1980 which was drawn by the painter Megaton), of illustrations for small pockets of discs, jewels, boards of skateboard, etc.
Graffiti are sometimes carried out, subject to remuneration, in the presence of the public during certain events such as concerts or popular matches of sports.

The graffiti generated a leading phenomenon which does not have anything negligible since the publication the book Subway Art which will be followed of a great number of other works and will become a section with whole share in the rays “Graphic arts” of the bookstores. A press also develops with newspapers such as the International Graffiti Times' (1984) with the the United States, Graff it! , Graf Bombz , Mix Grill , Graff' it or 1 Tox in France, Sicopats in Spain, Stress in the United States, To bend megazine with the Netherlands, etc the newspapers “general practitioners” devoted to the hip-hop often largely open their columns with the graffiti.

Many French magazines, World signs for example, suffered, to see disappeared, following the decision of the joint committee more not to grant more not to allot to the magazines of graffiti of number of joint committee, sesame allowing the accredited magazines of a VAT rate reduced of 2,1% and assistances with the postal routing., arguing that these magazines presented under one day favorable an activity repressed by the law. Shops devoted to the purchase of material for the graffeurs exist in several big cities of Europe or North America. One finds there in particular paintings with the rare colors and the adapted covering properties, “courses” (the diffusion stopper of the aerosol) being used to make features with the precise forms - very fine or very thick, for example -, markers very broad, masks, glasses or combinations of protection, etc

Several marks of paintings aerosol voted by plebiscite by the graffeurs benefitted from this celebrity: Krylon, Red Devil, Altona, Alac, SIM2, Dupli-color, Marabout-Buntlack. The majority tried to dissociate their brand image of the graffiti, as Krylon which launched a sensitization program named Graffiti Hurts (the graffiti hurts). Conversely, some marks such as Hotflam, Red Alert, Pro Line, Montana colors, Montana Edges and Colorone aim the customers of the graffiteurs clearly.

Places of conservation or study of graffiti

Museum of the Memory of the walls, Verneuil-in-Halatte (Oise), open in 1987 * Museum of the Graffiti old, Marsilly (Charente-Maritime)

Graffiti of fiction

Apart from the fictions devoted to the culture hip-hop, many accounts contain graffiti which have an importance on the screen.

in the Bible (Exodus), God orders from Moïse to mark the houses of Hebrew with blood of smaller live-stock, so that it exterminates the first-born Egyptians, in the houses which are not marked. It should be noted that this method does not raise that fiction and was also used several times in the history of the world, at the beginning of the Armenian genocide for example.
in Ali Baba and the forty robbers , a robber come downtown to find Ali Baba marks the house of this last of a cross, so that his/her companions return, of night, to kill the adventurer. But its maidservant notices the cross and traces some on all the houses of the city.
in M curses it , a member of the Pègre, charged to identify the assassin of the little girls, marks a “M to him” on the back, with the Craie.
in many fictions, criminals sign their misdeeds of a graffiti: the yellow Mark of Edgar P. Jacobs for example.
in the Cigars of the Pharaon , Tintin follows the mysterious initials of a secret society…
in the televised series Benny Hill show , a redundant sequence presents a wall on which graffiti are which are juxtaposed and are answered.
in V for Vendetta , by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, the graffiti is an act of resistance - it is about a direct reference to Victory sign and freedom of Victor de Laveleye.
in the Army of the twelve monkeys , James Sticks, come from the future, inquires into a group radical ecologist, the 12 monkeys, whose track is strewn with graffiti.
in the fabulous destiny of Amélie Foal , Amélie written on the walls of its district of the sentences drawn from prose from Hipolito, his/her friend the missed writer.
in the detective novel Leave quickly and return late, of Fred Vargas, a laterally reversed figure 4 and whose low branch is provided with two vertical bars at its end, is painted on many doors of apartments and sows the disorder among the population.

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