Graffiti van Begin tot Nu

Abstract

The graffiti culture that first appeared in New York City between the 70s and 80s inspired a worldwide graffiti movement. Nowadays, the streets of Lisbon are characterised by a great amount of graffiti and street art and the city has a progressive attitude towards graffiti. Combining two case studies about respectively the graffiti cultures of New York in 1970-1980 and contemporary Lisbon, this research examines which elements of the original New York based graffiti culture are still existing today. Tags, throw-ups and pieces that originated in New York are forms of graffiti still existing in contemporary Lisbon. However the streets of Lisbon carry a wider variety of illegal and legal graffiti. The terms ‘street art’ or ‘urban art’ are often used to describe the present graffiti and its variant forms. In New York graffiti was practiced predominantly by youth from the ghetto in competition over respect among peers; in contemporary Lisbon, within the legal graffiti scene in particular, these motivations made way for a focus on producing art. Eventually both graffiti cultures of New York and Lisbon were and are constantly evolving, since creativity functions as fuel for development.