Word: exhibitions
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Some would argue that it's vandalism, pure and simple. In the most literal sense, graffiti is a set of markings that, if nothing else, informs the world of the writer's presence. As demonstrated by the Trustman Gallery's exhibit, today's urban (and suburban) graffiti is a mixture of tags (a writer's intricate and distinctive signature), throw-ups (a large design, usually of letters, done quickly to attract attention) and pieces (short for masterpieces, they resemble murals; an assorted collection of images and words). What these categories don't express is the potential difference between...
...easier to accept graffiti as art after seeing it in a gallery. The exhibit itself consists of collected photographs of Boston-area graffiti from the late '80s to the present day, along with various graffiti-covered doors and windows. A few of the pieces look as if they might be found in the Guggenheim rather than in an exhibit on street art, and such similarities with other forms of contemporary art support the argument that graffiti might indeed be a "real" art form...
...Playing in one corner of the exhibit is a video produced especially for Graffiti. Filmed and edited by Stephanie Homan, Writers is a tour of different graffiti sites in the Boston area. Wombat, an experienced Boston area graffiti writer, leads the tour. He also explains some of the history of the Boston graffiti scene...
...best and most accessible aspects of Graffiti is the web site, designed by Evelyn Kofler. Some of the photographs included in the exhibit can be found online, along with the full text of the interviews conducted with Boston area graffiti writers. The interviews are wonderful to read and very enlightening, as they go into great detail about the stylistic movements, terms, tools and behavioral codes of graffiti writers in Boston and in general...
...video and web site are integral parts of the exhibit. The difficulty of recreating a scene on the street in the gallery, or even just photographically representing one, is overcome with the help of these two innovative media. Both give the exhibit the "street cred" to ask our question: Is graffiti really...