Is Graffiti art, vandalism, or BOTH? | Renegade Cut
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- Опубліковано 27 лют 2023
- Radical, revolutionary graffiti is sometimes the only way to get a message across. Support Renegade Cut on Patreon: / renegadecut
#graffiti #graffitiart
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING:
Ricardo Campos, Andrea Pavoni, Yiannis Zaimakis. “Political Graffiti in Critical Times: The Aesthetics of Street Politics” Berghahn Books.
Crimethinc Workers Collective. “Recipes for Disaster” Crimethinc Workers Collective.
John Lennon “Conflict Graffiti: From Revolution to Gentrification” University of Chicago Press.
Iain McIntyre. “How to Make Trouble and Influence People” PM Press.
Bill Posters. “The Street Art Manual” Laurence King Publishing.
Mitja Velikonja. “Post-Socialist Political Graffiti in the Balkans and Central Europe” Taylor and Francis.
As a public works employee I can’t go into much detail about Graffiti. But I can say that filling potholes becomes a high priority when people draw d!cks in them.
Disclaimer: this comment is for educational purposes only.
Thank you, Penisman!
I’m a huge fan of lifelong education. Can’t believe I’d never heard of this (or thought of it!) before. Many thanks, friend. 😏
I tried painting the one in front of my house to look like an anatomically correct vagina, using the pothole itself as the clitoris. The cops still haven't figured out what it is, and just leave it there.
This is a joke. For now.
@@literaterose6731 There was someone (or several someones) in the UK who gained some notoriety for using this tactic. They were referred to in the media as "wanksy," which is even more delightful.
@@a.p.2356 that is amazing! I love it
I'd like to add: Graffiti of any kind, but especially political graffiti, is prosecuted INSANELY in suppressive regimes and dictatorships, and that is precisely the reason why it can always be found there, in one form or another. Throughout the Arab Spring, protesters and "malcontents" who dared not to protest openly, supported and encouraged each other with slogans on walls. Some artists are truly risking their lives out there. (Pavel-183 literally died under mysterious circumstances.) Also, more and more girls and other genders find their way into this male dominated field, they bring a whole new perspective, like Afghan graffiti artist Shamissa Hassani - her work is now more important than ever.
Precisely!
There's the Berlin wall too
Ooh big words
@@RJ-tr8vt the Berlin wall was mostly graffitied from the Western side though.
@@D.S.handle There were some graffiti from the East side, though. Even if not all on the wall itself. But, there were.
Recently, here in Mexico, the "leftist" president Lopez Obrador began to wall off the city center during the feminist protests of the 8th of March, explicitly to "prevent vandalism to national symbols"
Just came back from Mexico City and literally saw the walls being installed in preparation for the protests.
having recently gotten into somewhat of, for lack of a better phrase, a graffiti turf war with some nazis, I can confirm, graffiti is in fact good and fun.
bro is playing allies vs axis splatoon
Yes.
Sincerely, thank you for your work
@@somethingfunny208 you know it
Fucking plaster them boys .
“…those who claim the land.”
There’s the Renegade Cut energy I need 👏
We have a bridge here in my hometown of Pensacola called Graffiti Bridge. It's one of my favorite places in our eclectic city. It's a living entity at this point, and is constantly changing from day to day. It follows the same heartbeat as the current social landscape. From George Floyd, Rowe v Wade decicison, Pride, etc. It's a beautiful thing to behold.
Yeah, it’s been around since the late 19th century.
I remember in the 90’s, when kids were deliberately hitting other places, because they felt it was just a tourist spot, and most of what was there is from tourists or locals, who just went for a night.
Haven’t thought about that bridge, in a long time, but the only reason it was special, is because anywhere else that began getting graffiti, would immediately have cops paid to stake it out.
Yo, Pensacola Gang!
Pensacola native here! Graffiti Bridge is a great landmark and is a fascinating representation of the community
@@CorbCorbin Oh wow that is, a very interesting, comment you just, made.
My college had a lot of chalk art around campus and I was always so proud that any/all far right art was quickly removed or vandalized in return by the students
"When people look away and stare at the clouds, a graffiti artist will paint the sky". Wonderfully poetic.
You're either a brick in the wall or the art covering it. Be the art.
Interlocutor: You wouldn't want graffiti on your property!
Leon: Bold of you to assume I own property.
Also, it's not like people are going out and graffing up people's houses. Obviously it would be pretty annoying if someone tagged up the windows on your normal-ass 2 bedroom house, but that's just not a thing that happens in the real world. The "property" that gets tagged is stuff like apartment buildings, and fucking with people who own apartment buildings is cool and good actually.
In my neighborhood there's graffiti on road signs, light poles, trash cans, alley walls, bridges, sidewalks. I've never seen it on a private home. Probably a safety concern mostly (don't tag next to a window someone might look out of) but I can't help but think there's a reason public art goes on public property
If I owned my home I'd be spray painting my own fence. I live right on a highway exit. I'd be thrilled if someone tagged it with anticapitalist rhetoric. So many eyeballs would see it.
While stuck in traffic trying to get on I-5 near Portland, we saw "you are the traffic" on an overpass. That cut deep 😵😆
if you rent it, why not paint it yourself?
I DO own my home and I live on a corner along a bus line. I'm trying to think of what message I could put on the broad side
it would be a terrible shame if a secret criminal in the night came and spray painted your fence, they must've walked or something because nobody was spotted going to or from the location
@@nevreiha uhh..okay
At this point I just assume that anything the cops don’t like is probably good
Reminds me of the fact that the game Jet Set Radio Future had to put a disclaimer telling players not to go out and graffiti a bunch of stuff illegally when the whole game is about liberation from the system and expression via skating and grafitti
Back when I was in EMT, here in NYC, occasionally we'd have someone from law enforcement ride along with us on their day off. An FBI agent who was a certified EMT herself but needed a few hours a month on the bus for real. Another member of my volunteer EMT organization was a young rookie police officer, an Italian-American from I believe Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. And he was a nice kid. He was nice to us, because he knew us, and we liked him. One day he came to work on the bus with a scar on his arm and when asked he responded that I was from him chasing down a suspect. I asked what the suspect was doing and he said, "Writing graffiti." He chased some kid about two blocks with his partner so they could tackle him down on the hard concrete, put handcuffs on them because they caught him spraying the side of some business or some apartment building with his tag. A tag: the underclass' version of high fashion street wear or an expensive car or... A nice home, condo or business of their own. A limited way through which they can express the fact of their existence and confidence to the rest of the world. That's why it came up in conjunction with hip hop, the language of the streets. The underserved. The justifiably angry.
Parts of that could come straight from a RATM song
"Graffiti lowers property value!"
Me, hoisting up my paint bucket: Oh no. Anyways.
Right lol I need a house
To learn to read. In the place where I spent most of the years of my life, on a tiled garden wall that ran along my walk to school, there was a bit of graffiti, a motto drawn out in white streaks, reading simply: "WE ARE HERE." The A was circled, nothing else indicated who this we might be. I didn't need to know more than that. The narrow handwriting was enough to give me a feeling of security, sometimes even of strength. This A opposed fear, but above all the loneliness of a small German city in the nineties.
- Bini Adamczak
_Yesterday’s Tomorrow: On the Loneliness of Communist Specters and the Reconstruction of the Future_ [chapter 7: ‘P.S.’] (2021)
I saw "don't demo roof depot" spray painted around yesterday, which prompted me to Google it and learn about a fight that activists had been fighting that I wasn't aware of.
oh the pro antifa agenda of this channel warms my anti capitalist soul with every upload
Why isn’t anti-capitalism, called antica?
You had me worried in the first half ngl
@@CorbCorbin probably because it sounds too close to anarcho-capitalist, aka ancap
@@UA-cam.Commen-tateranarcho capitalism isnt real
I drive through an underpass on my way to and from school. For 25 years or more, the support pillars for this underpass on both side of the road have had 1 line of graffity on them (along with a really nice looking painting of a poinsettia flower): "Kapitalismus - Nein danke" (German for "Capitalism - no, thanks") in all caps. The underpass is just in that sweet spot of getting lots of traffic going by and being in a part of town that is industrial and ugly, so in 25 years or more, nobody ever bothered to remove these graffitis.
Also, the underpass is directly at a traffic light, so commuters on all 4 sides of the intersection see the graffitis while they're stuck on a red light. Genius! Kudos to whoever put them there all those years ago. Seeing them always puts me in a good mood 😊
Plus it keeps property values down to stop houses/apartments in the area from getting too expensive.
That's a pretty unhinged argument lol. Having all the windows of every house busted out would achieve the same thing; that doesn't make it ok. Graffiti on state property is one thing, but if you're talking about tagging random businesses or people's homes or whatever then that's kinda fucked.
@michaelhaydenbell the difference is breaking windows has a negative material impact. Grafiti-not so much
@@michaelhaydenbell A building needs functioning windows to be inhabitable, it does not need unmarked walls. Not saying that anyone should tag solely for the sake of property values but your counterpoint is not really comparable.
@@michaelhaydenbell Yea because we are totally planning to bust some windows- ye lord.
No. Its paint. To keep the rich from gentrifying and pushing out the people who live there.
@@evansageser6943 No, it's not perfect but it's close enough to point out the ludicrousness. Doing anything with the intent of LOWERING property values at the expense of anyone who owns property is not some kind of valiant pushback against The Man. Somebody owning a home does not make them the bourgeoise.
Centurion: “What’s this? ‘People called Romans they go the house’?”
Brian: “It says ‘Romans Go Home!’”
Centurion: “No, it doesn’t!”
HOW many Romans?
*
*
*
Now write it out a hundred times!
Hahaha, very good
Life of Brian is such a great movie.
"Plural of -anus is?"
"Ani?"
"Roman-i. Eunt, what is eunt?"
MLAs in my province wanted to charge people with vandalism for CHALK. They were quiet when someone put tar and feather on our pride walk tho.
To be concerned about kids being on my lawn, the capitalists would have to let me be rich enough to own a lawn.
God damn. Leon DOES. NOT. MISS. Terrific video, my guy
Thank you so, so much for this!!! The crackdown on streetart and graffiti has been extra-insane over here in Germany lately. A leftist political streetart collective ("Dies Irae") that vandalizes Ad posters (not even damaging the glass or anything) to convey a message, has been prosecuted to a ridiculous amount, and they're not alone. You can always tell a nerve was hit when the establishment goes bananas from outrage over painted paper. - Grab a can and hit the streets, everyone! Even if you don't have anything to say - it is just insane fun. CLAIM THE CITY!
I am currently living in Berlin and would like to learn more about the leftist movement here in Berlin. Would you be kind enough and point in that direction. When I came here first, I was a little skeptical about people painting over trains, u-bahn and s-bahn stations etc, once I started observing them more closely, trying to figure out the meaning and try to check the pattern/signature, it has been pretty interesting experience, to say the least.
haven't watched the vid yet, and this might be a dumb point, but: your intro goes so hard, i'm sure it's been a notable factor in me getting deeper into leftist thought. thanks!
It's just a track from a music archive for content creators, but I'm glad you like it.
@@renegadecut9875 hey, it works really well :) video is great too, as expected
I understand why it was removed, but I really enjoyed the intro from when he produced film reviews. The Ends by basement jaxx
Private property is costing us our well-being and happiness
A house can be property, without housing being a commodity. More limits on private land ownership, less limits on public land use. Anyone with the impetus and ability to construct a house for their own use should be able to lease federal land to do so cheaply and indefinitely, while any multi-tenant construction (including commercial, e.g., office complexes, malls...) should require an apportionment of living space and amenities usable as short-term rental space and hostel/motel style lodging. This forces down the baseline price of short-term rentals to travelers and students by mandating an excess at the expense of land investors, and allows some of that excess in turn to be rented at standard rates to the state as part of housing programs.
@@jercos If it isn't a commodity, it is not private property. More importantly, I am more concerned with the ability of people to live somewhere nice rather than their ability to own it.
Good morning comrades
Good morning.
Graffiti is a wonderful art form and culture. I highly recommend the documentaries Wild Style and Style Wars if you really want a good look at it.
This one went into my "Hope" folder. It's still very small. As ever - more than ever - thank you for your work, your compassion, your advocacy/support, and your continued will even in the face of difficulties.
I needed this video very much after my experience in 2020 with the art and how important it is
I love graffiti. One of my favorite things about going into cities is seeing the absurd places people can get to and their creativity with spray cans. Art is very powerful if it wasn't governments wouldn't spend so much to scrub walls
It's very human
Learning about art history we went over graffiti that was found in places like ancient Rome (though they were never called graffiti). It's one of the most ponient ways of showing that across time and culture humans are the same. One of my personal favorites is a carving on Hagia Sophia that was thought to be sacred for centuries. Turns out a Viking carved "Halfdan was here" into it over 1,000 years ago (technically it's mostly illegible but the name is pretty certain and it's most likely "X was here"
It's definetly very effective if you're looking to have an impact
Might get dogpiled for this but this needs to be said.
NEVER GRAFFITI A TRAIN.
graffiti on trains is terrible for rail workers it can cover up safety information that workers need to see in their day to day lives and also it WILL damage the car body and require extra time in a train depot to have the damage reversed and will also have it's service life shortened.
it's also immensely dangerous to trespass on a rail line.
NEVER GRAFFITI A TRAIN.
That's why we have old trains around here that are no longer in use and cane be sprayed without consequence.
Remember: Only break rules that oppress people. Never break rules that exist to keep people safe.
im so glad most of the people hitting railcars don't have to read this lmao
Most of the times good graffiti writers respect the serial numbers and all important information on the cars.
As a Belgian train driver, as much socialist and unionized as somebody can be, I strongly agree : graffities sometimes forces to cancel trains because even the windshield is painted over. It also push peopme back to drive their cars, because "dirty" trains looks unsafe, workers and the environnement are exposed to nasty products used to remove them and finally, as stupid as it could sound, driving a horrible looking train is a little like to be forced to work wearing filthy clothes : not conducive to a greater workers wellbeing...
Small addition : about the graffities you found nowaday on the SNCB/NMBS stock, I can say two things :
-They are sometimes very well made, and it's a pity such talent is wasted into something that is an anoyance to most and will be destroyed asap
-They are, like, NEVER political or linked or activism... I'm even happy Disney, Nintendo and others don't DMCA the railways for copyright infringement at this point...
15:37. Write that down. Write that down!
The part about the boarder wall was interesting, though it reminded me of the anecdote about Banksy in Palestine. During Banksy's 2005 trip to the West Bank, a Palestinian man told him: "We don't want this wall to be beautiful. We hate it. Go home."
Musicians also have a whole lot of kit to move around. And the hard case of a saxophone has a lot of clever little pockets.
my favorite graffito story is of an Indigenous man who altered a plaque on an obelisk that commemorates genocide in Santa Fe NM. apparently he dressed as a construction worker and chiseled his addition into the monument in a crowded tourist destination in broad daylight.
Make your mark ON society, not IN society.
"I screwed that up you catch my drift"
I say do both
Thank you!
Graffiti done "for kicks" can be a surprisingly social activity.
Graff artists will often go out on a "mish" with one or more friends and write their tags together.
Artist's will also "cap" (write over) other tags for various vindictive reasons.
Heavily tagged areas are a living artistic record of friendships and rivalries.
So what I'm hearing is SEGA should rerelease Jet Set Radio Future
The 'property value' response to graffiti has always made me laugh. Imagine being such a milquetoast, beige bastard that you care more about your neighbourhood conforming to a neat, cookie cutter vision of white suburbia than interesting and expressive art.
awesome, been waiting for this one, since seeing the graphic on twitter
Art is resistance
You always make the best videos. I've been watching your content since you made movie reviews, and as a film student at the time I loved them, now, anfter working as a videographer for events and production assistant in movies and gettin paid shit many times and finding myself in awful job condition, your videos keep making my day.
This didn't encourange me to start doing Graffiti at all 🖌️ Thanks Leon, you're a good citezen
another banger. love to see it.
Glad you liked it!
i don’t know why i wasn’t subscribed to you on my secondary account… but now I am! great video!
This was more concise and informative then what I learned about grafitti at college! Thank you. Its shocking how some want grafitti artists punished by beatings like in some more authoritarian countries, but this almost makes me want to start doing street art, too.
*Brilliant, Leon, simply brilliant! Thank you!*
I fucking LOVE Graffiti! It is soooo stylistic and just represents the streets sooo fucking well. It is art personified in the hood.
Its got actual feeling behind it and it shows, something you don't get as much with commercially acceptable art.
@James Pinkerton i looove counter culture. I'M black but i identify a lot with "Punk" subculture. I looove seeing people express themselves through art be it music of painting and Graffiti is so damn captivating to me.
Me too! I love working with spray-paints and once i’m able to i’ll get a good mask and go out and do my craft
@@ZenGaijin
Graffiti: as beautiful as a rock in a cops eye
I will never forget the anti-Trump/anti-Putin mural I saw in Paris in 2018. It was of them making out lol.
last sentence hits
Been waiting for for one
GD, the melding of the two themes is such a banger.
Very informative video that was very much not a call to action once again!
I have always liked the theme song that plays before your videos, is there an extended version?
Music in my videos comes from a paid subscription to Epidemic Sound. It's a music and sound effects archive for content creators. The full tracks are behind the paywall for subscribers.
@@renegadecut9875
Thank you for the info and great content! I always look forward to watching your videos ♥
I've never seen the point of hating graffiti but this just makes me see it as good
Another 10/10 episode, Leon! Thank you!
great job
As a security guard that regularly checked public-adjacent areas, there were a few times that I actually convinced young guerilla artists that I was not there to stop them and encouraged them to continue and finish their work. I still had to report that it had happened, but my employer usually didn't care enough to get it fixed.
The art of graffiti is shown also in Medellin Colombia it is beautiful and everywhere in Colombia our story can be shared via our street art.
It can be both beautiful and terrifying, and in both cases it says a lot.
I haven't watched this yet. But the title rocks. I have always thought that if big corporations can put their logo whatever they want, we should be allowed to as well.
This is an awesome video I never thought about graffiti like this before…haha fun fact some cities will cite you for vandalism if you are caught skateboarding in certain areas
"Skateboarding is not a crime" was more than an ad slogan.
Great stuff as always Leon!
Great video as always
Thank you.
😊
Inspirational
Still love this intro!
Awesome video and message
Thanks!
we love you, Leon.
You've seemingly become more angry and edgy... I like it
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more!
I would like to add that there are explicit Artivism movements, who may be interesting to research, if you are interested in the history of muralism and activism. 💜
"It's the content of the message." 🎨🖌️
another glorious lesson in Radicalization by Leon! would you have any interest in doing a video about leftist messaging in "fine art"? does it even really exist? how would you go about doing it?
When the "fine art" in question was not considered "fine art" yet - there ist. There was a German painter named George Grosz in the roraring twenties in Berlin (a very two-sided aera, with extreme poverty amidst extreme wealth), he constantly made highly political paintings, pointing out the disparity and what he considered moral bancruptcy of the upper classes and the coldness of the new big city lifestyle. Then, there's The DADA-movement, which I'd argue had plenty of social commentary (anarchistic even?) and started as the definite OPPOSITE of fine art, but now of course, it's all worth tons of money. And there was Klaus Staeck, who I'd argue is a very early form of a political street artist. Today, we have people like Jenny Holzer, Teresa Margolles. There sure are artists, many of them POC / minorities, who touch upon social issues and are successful with it, those were just from the top of my head. Also, Banksy is considered "fine art" at this point, I'd argue - his painitngs sell for literal millions and are collected by famous collectors, people write thesises & books on him, etc. These labels shift over time, it's really only a matter of canonizing what is deemed "high culture".
It's the low key calm clap back for me🎉😂❤
Graffiti has been embraced as art near where I live (let's just say outside the US. I'd call it a city, but by US standards it's probably a town lmao). There's streets filled with pannels for artists to create and tag, and every few months they change the canvas-like material for new works to be displayed. Some are even ordered by the city hall for festivities. There are public and private school buildings, university included, that have their outside covered in legit works of art. Some custom made, others from their own will and creativity.
Graffiti as vandalism is essentially non-existent, the closest that shows up is as protest, and the artists know the general public has their backs, so no city hall deals or favours get taken away from them for it. (Truth be told, there's a lil' conspiracy theory about some of the protest stuff, that says it was payed for, or at least encouraged, by people within city hall).
Yet another banger.
Another great video. Thank you!
I love art, wheresoever it's found.
This has been a favorite topic of mine since the early 90s when I first discovered graffiti. Had to talk my mom into not hating my hobby...
My dad weirdly was just on board lol
If Graffiti Changed anything it would be illegal.
Lol. It's not illegal? Lol lol
It is in some cases.
It is illegal
Some people are misunderstanding this. Comrades, this is a common phrase that means the reason some things are illegal is not because they are dangerous but because the state and capitalists find it threatening. It's wordplay, of sorts. This phrase has been used as graffiti.
For me it has always been a play on the "old slogan": If voting changed anything, it would be made illegal.
Both sentiments play with a concept that is addressed here regularly: No political activism agreeable to the ruling class can be expected to bring anything more then incremental change.
FIRE as always
👍🏿
Based as fuck.
Why, thank you.
Most importantly: it's fun.
🔥
Masterpiece!
Love it!!!
Nailed it once again comrade!
Is it weird that this video puts "The medium is the message" in a clearer (if also very specific) light for me?
During 4 years I worked in program of public muralism in my home town in México. During those times I experienced all the social inequalities, police abuse, marginalization and poverty first hand. In 4 years graffiti artists where the most active in the program. It gave them the space and material to work their skills. The program was done with Federal money, so I always made sure to give away all left over cans (extraofficially) to the participant artists. It always ended up as vandalism, artist quality vandalism.
Through graffiti we talked to community leaders, gangs and cartels. It was a neutral language that everyone wanted to be a part of. Best job ever.
Another banger!
Thanks!
Great video ✌️
Whoever tagged that marines recruitment board is doing good work.
Ok this is only tangentially related to the video but hey why not feed the comment monster? Anyway my senior year of high school we had a state English exam where we read a bunch of articles and made an argument and the topic was graffiti, except the quesiton was "IS graffiti illegal" not "SHOULD graffiti be illegal" and my essay ended up being "this is a dumb question. Graffiti is demonstrably illegal, whether it should be illegal is an entirely different question but it is in all the examples you gave us. This is stupid." If I'm right that was the only question I lost points on, but whatever. I'm obviously over it.
another great one. keep it up.
Glad you liked it.
I just love that John Lennon is so widespread in art, amazing in music & social art 👨🎨
your writing is fucking stellar. great video as always.
I hate graffiti on my wall that is someone's ugly tag. But I love when people make something cool. I have a building prone to getting sprayed. I use my shop windows and chalk markers to make statements for people who stop at the light in front of my building. It's my own temporary graffiti.
💛