Graffiti Artists Quotes

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The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
Banksy
Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It's the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist.
Mia Kirshner (I Live Here)
Even your graffiti artists spray Rumi on the walls
Khaled Hosseini (And the Mountains Echoed)
Blank walls are a shared canvas and we're all artists.
Carla H. Krueger
However, if he really wanted to bust me, all he had to do was ask to see my schoolbooks. The front and back covers are the first place graffiti artists start to draw.
Drexel Deal (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped in My Father Book 1))
Poetic Terrorism WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ... Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc. Go naked for a sign. Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty. Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement... The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails. PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now. An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE. Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you. Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.
Hakim Bey (TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone (New Autonomy))
Some say babies are born with sin, others will say "what the fuck are you talking about".. babies are born as a clear canvas.. awaiting the strokes of a masterful artist.. some abstract, some contemporary.. some graffiti
David Smith
Non illegitimi te carborundum, the graffiti in prisoner-of-war camps is said to have run. The rough translation, very important for artists, is “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” Artists who take this to heart survive and often prevail. The key here is action. Pain that is not used profitably quickly solidifies into a leaden heart, which makes any action difficult.
Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity)
Here's a mystery for you. Renegade urban graffiti artist Banksy is clearly a guffhead of massive proportions, yet he's often feted as a genius straddling the bleeding edge of now. Why? Because his work looks dazzlingly clever to idiots. And apparently that'll do.
Charlie Brooker
Virus writers are, sociologically, not much different from taggers who spray cryptic symbols on walls, or even the “unofficial” graffiti artists: they feel (or say they feel) justified in doing their work, and have a wanton disregard for the dignity and property of others. They feel not mere justification, but pride in what they do.
Peter H. Gregory (Computer Viruses For Dummies)
Few people go to art exhibitions nowadays, the art comes to them!
Chris Geiger
THE FAIR HAD A POWERFUL and lasting impact on the nation’s psyche, in ways both large and small. Walt Disney’s father, Elias, helped build the White City; Walt’s Magic Kingdom may well be a descendant. Certainly the fair made a powerful impression on the Disney family. It proved such a financial boon that when the family’s third son was born that year, Elias in gratitude wanted to name him Columbus. His wife, Flora, intervened; the baby became Roy. Walt came next, on December 5, 1901. The writer L. Frank Baum and his artist-partner William Wallace Denslow visited the fair; its grandeur informed their creation of Oz. The Japanese temple on the Wooded Island charmed Frank Lloyd Wright, and may have influenced the evolution of his “Prairie” residential designs. The fair prompted President Harrison to designate October 12 a national holiday, Columbus Day, which today serves to anchor a few thousand parades and a three-day weekend. Every carnival since 1893 has included a Midway and a Ferris Wheel, and every grocery store contains products born at the exposition. Shredded Wheat did survive. Every house has scores of incandescent bulbs powered by alternating current, both of which first proved themselves worthy of large-scale use at the fair; and nearly every town of any size has its little bit of ancient Rome, some beloved and be-columned bank, library or post office. Covered with graffiti, perhaps, or even an ill-conceived coat of paint, but underneath it all the glow of the White City persists. Even the Lincoln Memorial in Washington can trace its heritage to the fair.
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
We could have been called a lot of things: brazen vandals, scared kids, threats to social order, self-obsessed egomaniacs, marginalized youth, outsider artists, trend setters, and thrill seekers. But, to me, we were just regular kids growing up hard in America and making the city our own. Being ‘writers’ gave us something to live for and ‘going all city’ gave us something to strive for; and for some of my friends it was something to die for.
Stefano Bloch (Going All City: Struggle and Survival in LA's Graffiti Subculture)
The biggest canvas is wider than my arm span. It’s bursting with so much color it looks like a graffiti artist got too excited with a spray can. But it’s my story, told in brushstrokes and acrylic paint. There's Jamie and me as children, hiding in trees and searching for ladybugs. There's me alone, searching for stars in the dark. There's my mom, the queen of the starfish, existing in a tornado of glitter that poisons anything else it touches. There are my brothers and me, living on opposite sides of a triangle, experiencing the same things but never together. There's my dad, never knowing or doing as much as he should but trying to fix the poison all the same. There's Hiroshi, painting my hands so I can paint my voice. There's me split in half—Japanese and white—stitching myself together again because I am whole only when I’ve embraced the true beauty of my heritage. And there's Jamie and me in June, the sun on our faces and the sand at our feet, finding each other again after all those years. Our lives trail around us, sometimes broken and sometimes beautiful, but all puzzled and tangled up into the lump that is us. We fit together not because we need each other, but because we choose each other. Our friendship was always our choice. Love was a natural progression. Jamie stares at the painting for so long that I think the room actually starts to get darker. When he turns to face me, he looks relieved. Calm. Jamie turns back to the painting. We don’t need words. We just know. Our fingers find each other’s.
Akemi Dawn Bowman (Starfish)
A girl who is a writer… A girl who is a writer. She’s a woman who lives in her head because the voices of the characters who reside there are ever present demanding their voices be heard. A girl who is a writer. She’s the girl with a cup of coffee and a plate of food that has gotten cold because she couldn’t stop telling the story. A girl who is a writer. She’s the one who lives in a coffee stained flannel shirt but you won’t mind because it’s you who brings her the addiction that fuels her word count. A girl who is a writer. You’ll share her with the world and they will see parts of her naked soul, but you won’t mind because it’s who she is, not what she does. A girl who is a writer. She’s the one who dips her quill in the blood stains of her pain and splatters it on the world’s wall of graffiti filled artists. Her voice will stand out because she is a girl who is a writer. © Suzanne Steele
Suzanne Steele
The graffiti artist who painted Facebook’s office walls in 2005 got stock that turned out to be worth $200 million, while a talented engineer who joined in 2010 might have made only $2 million.
Peter Thiel (Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future)
The graffiti artist who painted Facebook’s office walls in 2005 got stock that turned out to be worth $200 million, while a talented engineer who joined in 2010 might have made only $2 million
Anonymous
Si Pong ang isa sa mga nagpaningas, ugat ng apoy kung bakit mas masidhing lumaganap ang FNB sa Cavite. Nagpatuloy ito, naganap at nakapanghikayat ng iba't-ibang indibiduwal, mga musikero, mga makata, mga pintor, mga graffiti artist, mga skater, mga film maker, mga estudyante tropahan, at maging magulang ng mga ito hanggang sa kasalukuyan. Ang FNB ay kadalasan naisasagawa sa mga covered court, nasunog na day care center, mga bangketa, mga eskinita, mga barangay, mga excess lot, o mga butas ma espasyo kung saan mas malapit ito sa komunidad. Nang sa gayon ay mas maibabahagi ang turo at prinsipyo ng nabanggit na payapang protesta. Dahil sa ganitong mga ganap at makataong gawi, unti-unting nawawala ang pagkagulat at panghuhusga sa postura ng mga punk. Nararamdaman ng mga nagboboluntaryo sa FNB ang munting butil ng pag-ibig sa kanilang mga puso sa tuwing magagawa ang pagbabahagi. Gayundin, dahan-dahang tinatalakay sa mga taong dumalo at napadaan kung ano ba talaga ang FNB.
Jenny Ortuoste (In Certain Seasons: Mothers Write in the Time of COVID)
For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel controls the population registry, leaving them at the mercy of Israeli occupation whims. Israel has controlled this registry since 1967 with absolute power over granting Palestinian passports and ID cards and impacting whether they’re allowed to enter or exit the territory.32 Because Israel no longer processes Palestinian family reunification requests, thousands of Palestinians live as noncitizens and can’t access jobs, healthcare, proper education, or the legal system. Indian officials fear a Palestinian-style insurgency against its rule in Kashmir, or at least claim that they do to justify harsh countermeasures. During the conflict between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, a mural in Srinagar with the words “We are Palestine” appeared and the local graffiti artist Mudasir Gul was forced to deface his own work before being arrested. Twenty Kashmiris were arrested for demonstrating in support of Palestine.
Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
The very subjects and activities that rappers rap about today are exactly what Hip Hop was created to avoid and even overcome. The point here is that knowledge and overstanding were also at the birth of Hip Hop right along with b-boying, MC-ing, graffiti writing and DJ-ing. However, the desperate quest to exploit Hip Hop’s artistic elements for profit (in Hip Hop’s later years) buried the principles and life skills that accompanied Hip Hop’s early artistic elements.
(Musician) KRS-One (The Gospel of Hip Hop: The First Instrument)
Longtemps, un bâtiment a symbolisé la face underground arty du Queens : le 5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center. Un immense entrepôt accueillant plus de 200 ateliers d'artiste et recouvert de graffitis, devenu la Mecque des amateurs de street art. 5 Pointz, nommé ainsi pour symboliser l'épicentre des cinq quartiers de New York, a pour voisin célèbre l'annexe du MoMA, le PS1, qui propose des expositions souvent plus audacieuses que le grand frère de Manhattan.
Anonymous
Classical graffiti Brick canvas modern fresco I am the real thing
Nanette L. Avery
He refuses to sell his paintings and writes "NOT FOR SALE" on some of them. He is furious because people are writing about his ghetto childhood and call him a "graffiti artist" and "primitive." "They don't invent a childhood for white artists," he says.
Jennifer Clement (Widow Basquiat: A Love Story)
There are bald patches, like Daddy's head, on the pebble-dash, higher up than last year. I have picked off the stones. (I was a graffiti artist. No words, no pictures. The trace of identity marked in spaces.
Suzy Davies (Johari's Window)
Back then in Flux’s time artists thrived, but Trinai is just a member of a meager, scattered handful of street artists, struggling on their own, ill-equipped and ill-prepared. She paints graffiti in a time when graffiti is already dead, and she must protect herself in any way she can.
Rachael Stephen (State of Flux)
In some places, vandals had scrawled simple tags over the more elaborate drawings, which made me sad and angry for the waste of work that the artists had put into the wall. Even though it was all graffiti, there was a difference between creating something beautiful amid the ugliness, and simple destruction for the sake of it" -Athena
Elizabeth Keenan (Rebel Girls)
The Beginning Sergeant Smelly was a normal man. He lived in a normal village, full of normal people and had a normal address. He lived at 1 Normall Street in the village of Normall Normall. The village was so normal they named it twice. His first name was eighty-three percent normal—Norman. Most people knew him as Normal Norman from Normall Normall; a rotund and jolly man who lived an exceedingly normal life. Well, normal, if appearing in court on exploding fart charges was normal. Normal, if producing fire from your butt was normal. All of his body parts were normal. Apart from one: his butt. His butt was abnormal. It used to be a normal butt, but everything changed in the blink of a fart. Sergeant Smelly's face glistened with sweat and his heartbeats quickened as the judge read out the charge. "Sergeant Smelly, you are here today because you could not control your soldiers, not to mention your bottom. You are hereby charged with the crime of producing exploding fire-farts. How do you plead?" asked Army Judge Mental. The stout sergeant considered the question and his thoughts transported him back to the day it all went smelly. One fateful morning, Sergeant Smelly lay in bed suffering from a horrible cold. Empty boxes lay scattered across the floor, and the bin overflowed with used tissues. He groaned as he pulled the last tissue from the box. A passer-by in the street below jumped as he heard the foghorn sound. He inspected the contents of the tissue (Sergeant Smelly, not the passer-by) and wished he had not. It was time for action. The suffering soldier dragged himself out of bed and got dressed. He wore a waterproof jacket on top of his uniform, as his army blazer was not snot-proof. Not that any of his other clothes were snot-proof. He trudged downstairs and made himself a hot lemon with honey, then switched on his laptop. After an extensive internet search, he found the best remedy to fix the cold was to feed it, so he plodded into town and searched for a place to eat. The first eatery he found had a ridiculous name, but the café was almost full. He watched the customers from the window as they tucked into their food. The plain wooden tables and basic white tablecloths oozed simplicity, but the gorgeous grub eclipsed the plain interior. Silence filled the air as customers tucked into delectable dishes and drifted off to food heaven.  But an odorous pong emanated from the café, and it was not the food. Sergeant Smelly did not smell the malodorous stench due to his blocked nose and cold. The cold was so bad it came alive. Colin the Cold smelled the awful pong and begged his owner to reconsider. He tried in vain to turn his attention to the sandwich shop, but Sergeant Smelly did not hear him. Colin the Cold saw disaster around the corner. Major Disaster walked around the corner and greeted him in a bright and cheery fashion. "Morning, Smelly," said Major Disaster in a bright and cheery fashion. Colin the Cold was correct and sensed nothing good would come of Sergeant Smelly eating at Café McPoo. It had Disaster Area written all over it, but the police apprehended the graffiti artist, and he was hard at work wiping the words ‘Disaster Area’ from the front of the café. Colin the Cold frowned and prepared himself for the worst. And so it began.
James Sharkey (Sergeant Smelly & Captain Chunder Save The Day)
Haring became familiar enough with the Soul Artists community that he was able to correct misconceptions when he began giving interviews to some downtown writers: “The stereotyped idea of a graffiti writer is a Black or Puerto Rican kid from the ghetto. It’s not really
Brad Gooch (Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring)