Björn Almqvist & Emil Hagelin .

Writers United: The story about WUFC- A Swedish graffiti

crew.. Ed: Dokument Förlag. 2005.

“I believe taht calling graffiti artist ?vandals? Hinders the general public's ability tu look at, respond to,
and make unbiased aesthetic evaluations about individual pieces”

“Graffiti has had an enourmous impact on mainstream graphics and design, and spawned the street art
movement now flourishing worldwide”

“Legalizing graffiti would probably be a mistake. The art thives on the stealth and speed necessitated
by the threat of arrest. To those who insist on zero tolerance, I recommend tolerance instead. There are
a lott worse things than spray paint and markers”

Martha Cooper

Rahn, Janice. Painting without permission: Hip-hop Graffiti Subculture. Ed:

Bergin & Garvey. London, 2002.

EDUCATION:
Educación fuera de los mecanismos disciplinarios
“Young adolescent “writers” gathered with the pros to share sketchbooks and to ask for tips. From an
educational point of view, it was interesting to observe the enthusiasm and motivation to learn from
each other. There was a supportive feeling of community among new and veteran writers. (…) n I saw
how passionate and self-directed graffiti writers were about learning, without the external reward
system of grades. (...)The graffiti writers, on the other hand, were driven by a “do it yourself” ethic
based on real-world practice. (…) I came to admire for their tireless motivation and articulate critique
of educational structures (…) Graffiti culture provides a structure for selfdirected learning through
visual perception, experience, and critical reflection (…) high motivation generated by peer
mentorship. ”

“Instead of reducing hip-hop graffiti to a “method,” I ask my students to consider why graffiti writers
were so passionate to perform outside of school while feeling frustrated in school. I continue to look for
possibilities inherent in bridging the gap between what youth do outside and inside of schools without
colonizing youth cultures by schooling ” (p. 184)

“SEAZ was critical of educators who appropriated graffiti as a motivational activity without
attempting to understand the complex layers behind the simple act of painting on walls. He
angrily showed me clippings from the local newspaper of teacher-directed mural paintings depicting
sterile, acceptable images that claimed to be “graffiti-based.” There is a danger in normalizing and
literally applying hip-hop graffiti—or other expressions of resistance within youth cultures—into
classroom methods. Practice can be informed by theorizing curriculum from a broader understanding
of how ideas, practices, ways of producing knowledge and personal conduct are shaped by one’s
participation within the graffiti community ”

Internet:
“The graffiti community is a huge network that has become even more global and extensive through
the World Wide Web. The Web broadens the community and allows the sharing of knowledge beyond
regional enclaves. It will be interesting to observe whether computer networking will dissolve
differences and move the community toward a more universal global culture. I observed isolated
youths in small towns across the United States and Canada participating in the communal pleasure of
imitating their mentors from the Internet, while trying to develop a specific style. For the first time,
youth can exchange stories, images, and music without the mediation of publishers and the recording
industry. However, social participation in cyberspace may take away from the material exchanges of
tools, language, skills, fashions, and political attitudes that spawned the regional identities and
innovations of specific groups and individuals who learned hip-hop on the streets ” (p. 141)

Comunidad
“This subculture has now become even more of a global community via the Internet and home-
published magazines ”

Book
“Painting without Permission distinguishes graffiti by its resistance to the norm of social consciousness
and social order ”

CAP 1. Defines and summarizes the Structure of Traditional Hip-hop Graffiti Culture
“ terminology within the mutable language of hip-hop that describes influences, tools, practice,
aesthetics, skills, and respect ”

TAG: “. As tags competed for space, they also competed for skills and style. The tag is considered the
crudest and most prevalent form of graffiti. Most writers begin as taggers and graduate to larger pieces
as they grow bolder and acquire technical skills. (...) where someone would hit a blank wall and others
would follow, respect going to those who covered the most ground. Taggers who go on to develop
elaborate painting styles identity themselves as writers. (…) Taggers who never produce large pieces
are called Scribblers and Toys and have little status. In the mid-1980s, graffiti writers set standards and
mutually acknowledged a level of skills that had to be reached to merit the title of writer rather than the
inferior toy (Farrell, 1997). A toy is a person who attempts graf without skills or the commitment to
learn from other writers. A toy has not paid his dues and is not respected. A toy’s work is wack: lacking
in skill and obviously inferior. ”(p.5)

“The tag is a writer’s name that is drawn like a calligraphic symbol, usually with a marker or spray
paint. If he/she writes with a marker on a street sign, it is a tag; if the name is painted large with style
and multicolors, it is called a “piece (…) Eventually each tagger developed his or her own individual
formal style to express identity and status among peers ” (p. 4)

Tag and performance, lo relacional

“To the inexperienced viewer, the tag may not mean anything, but to someone in the community it is a
personal symbol signifying the interiority, skills, and risk that the writer embodies. Peers can recreate
and share the significance of a moment, while an outsider would only see the end product. ” (p. 168)

“Spectatorship was an interactive performance: the tension and euphoria the writer felt while painting
was communicated to peers who had similar experiences. There was a connection made between art
and action rather than art for art’s sake, where illegality played an integral part. It becomes part of the
viewer’s consciousness because, as GENE said, “they (writers) know what that means . . . to produce
on the spot under pressure.” The physical act of writing hip-hop graffiti is framed by the shared
understanding of what it means, which creates a social solidarity and a sense of belonging” (p. 168)

“The motivation behind hip-hop graffiti is not something that can be clearly defined and catalogued. Its
meaning is dependent on the construction and relationship of individual identities within the group and
on the interactive experience with the temporal environment. ” (p. 181)

tag an formal design

“the abstract character of distorted alphabetic writing and images in graffiti is more seriously
considered than the interpretation of their literal meaning. For example, SWEP’s decisions in designing
her tag were purely formal. “I found the Ss really great for the start of the name. And, then, I don’t
know, seriously, I don’t really remember how I turned to be SWEP. I can tell you there’s no real
meaning for it. It was more like the letters together. And at first I was searching for a good tag—that
would look good.”” (p. 179)

“<<“bringing a dead space to life” >>” GENE p. 168

THROW-UP: “A throw-up is a spray-painted work of graffiti, using lettering only, in one or two colors
(see Figure 1.7). The term literally comes from the ability to “throw them up” on a wall quickly. A
typical throw-up uses big lettering styles and is simple and quick. If two colors are painted, the
background is usually white or silver. The throw-up letters tend to be two or three feet high. Throw-ups
emerged as a quick way to cover large areas (a rival’s mural, for example) and trains. Many writers
consider throw-ups as being too close to tagging and tend to look down upon them. ” (p. 14)

LARGE PIECE: “A large piece is the standard of hip-hop graffiti, ranging at least six feet long and four
feet high. Large pieces take hours to days, throw-ups take minutes, and tags take seconds. Murals, large
pieces, and piecing, all describe large multicolored complex letter combinations that sometimes include
cartoon images or portraits. Some are large enough to be started with ladders, working from the top
down. To complete large pieces, writers either set up scaffolding as if they are painting a legitimate
mural (TIMER) or they paint it in stages as mentioned previously ” (p. 14)

WILDSTYLE: “Wildstyle constitutes extremely complex configurations of lettering resembling Celtic

interlace. It is complicated to the point of being indecipherable to the untrained eye. Wildstyle graf
resembles interlocking, 3-D mazes with arrows to suggest movement, and cartoon drips (see Figure
1.8). Wildstyle is usually only attempted by an accomplished, confident writer because the skill
involved is entirely freehand and very intricate.” (p. 14)

RESPECT: “Most writers talk about skills and techniques as a fundamental basis of hip-hop graffiti. A
writer who attempts a large piece without the necessary skills will be criticized for polluting the
environment and giving hip-hop a bad reputation. The large piece is the measurement for earning
respect for writers. Respect is a word that often comes up. ” (p. 14)
“A writer can lose respect and be “dissed” for a variety of infractions: selling work or avoiding illegal
painting in favor of legal walls, continually crossing out other writers’ work with no cause, overtly
seeking media attention, and informing on fellow writers to the police. Another way to lose favor
includes biting. A writer who copies another’s style is “biting” that style.” (p. 20)

Autor (1111) afirma “------” (p.5).

“------” (Autor, 1111, p.5)

WRITERS: “One becomes a writer when he or she has developed an individual style within the
tradition of hip-hop. The writer has developed painting skills to a level where the community accepts
his or her presence and work. ”

CAP2. Interviews
How idiosyncratic was their motivation to paint in public without permission?

CAP 3.
“I examine the social activities of the graffiti community as a microcosm of how people are motivated
to learn through participation and communication within any learning community. Tradition ”

CAP 4.
Questions: “: (1) Why are graffiti writers so driven to “perform” in public space? (2) How does their
interaction in public space generate critical discourse and political awareness? And (3) what arguments
are there around the issues of ownership and of representation in public space? ”

Themes: “Key themes are used to map out these issues: autonomy versus the need to belong;
controversy; resistance and “keeping it real,” and courting the mainstream yet “keeping it real.”
Community, controversy, and resistance are themes that recur through all the chapters.”

“What discourses are created through their public act? What effect does this interaction with media
have on graffiti writers? How does this influence activist strategies and a desire for social change
among graffiti writers? Does this fit within the notion of democracy that is supposed to involve a
debate? Are our systems—educational institutions, museums, galleries, and youth centers—
functioning in a way that allows youth a say and a way to practice within a system?” (p. 165)

“For the graffiti writer, the atmosphere of impermanence and chaos in vacant spaces suggested
possibilities in the freedom to make it one’s own.” (p. 166)

ILLEGAL:
“The community’s ethics concerning graffiti’s illegal status ensures that it cannot be entirely co-opted.
As it becomes popularized, writers seem to push their art back to the margins of a clearly
distinguishable underground culture. Members are dedicated to their own code of ethics and continue to
learn outside the authorization of an institution” (p.162 )

White walls:
“President Carter, described as polishing “graffiti-scarred” images, appealed to a majority aesthetic that
associated white walls with middle-class values of job security and respect for authority. The
participants, however, did not share this ideal. ACE talked about how “sad” his school looked with this
big, empty concrete wall. He and his friends felt inspired to paint a mural to make the school a more
humane environment. Their aesthetic choice was not respected and the wall was immediately painted
over.” (p. 172)
“Walls for most people are symbolic boundaries for property and its values. Graffiti can signify decay
and a lack of control over crime against property.” (p. 170)

“The simplistic belief that crime could be sanitized with a whitewash, (...) denies the complex
socioeconomical relationships between individuals and groups. (…) Mass media that glosses over the
complexities of power structures often oversimplifies graffiti and resistance against authority and
individual lives. “The problem is how to get closer to the popular masses so as to understand their
forms of resistance, where they are to be found among them and how they find expression, and then
work on that” (Freire, 1993, p. 28). ” (p. 172)

Euphoria:
“The more the authorities put up fences, brought in police dogs and graffiti squads, the more the graffiti
writers resisted and enjoyed showing how they could outsmart the system. Old school writers took
great pleasure in the transgression and danger in subverting the authority of dominant culture. But does
the judicial system encourage that which it sets out to combat? Foucault (1977) called it a closed
circuit, an “ensemble” (police, the prison, and the delinquent), which supports itself ” (p. 173)
“The paradox and irony within the power and authority of law is that, without it, there would be no
taboo or norm to transgress. The “high” or “euphoria” that many writers spoke of came from a sense of
empowerment at transgressing laws and institutions of power. ” (p. 174)

Politically participation: Discourses

“The graffiti writers became politically engaged through their activities in public space. Their
awareness of power structures developed, as they became involved, individually and collectively, in
activities that were reported in alternative media. (…) The writers engaged in dialectic centered on
problems posed by arguments over the use of public space. In their struggle to name and defend their
experience, writers engaged in dialogue and self-directed research ” (p. 173)

“One argument put forward in defense of graffiti was that advertising is compliant with dominant
power structures: those who have the money to buy it control public space. In a democracy, how can
society condemn those who have no monetary means to claim their own space and to work toward
changing and interacting with their environment? This argument about the play of power in public
space and one’s resistance to it could open up discussions about how youth are represented in public
space and what spaces are made available for youth to interact and to take charge of their lives.” (p.
174)

“SEAZ continually changed arguments in order to take an adversarial stance. He wrote in his black
book, “It’s time we take back what is ours to belong with, in the city. Public property belonging to
the city’s public meaning a part of it belongs to me . . . after all this isn’t communist Russia or China
nor is this Berlin” (p. 174)

“The graffiti writers embraced the dialectical approach in attempting to resolve the paradoxes and
contradictions inherent in graffiti as art or vandalism. Their interactions within the graffiti community,
and with the media and people like myself, who questioned their activities, caused them to become
more political, reflective, and aware of various perspectives. Freire said, “This practice helps develop a
sense of criticism, so that people will react to newspapers or news broadcast not as passive objects of
‘communique´s’ directed at them, but rather as consciousness seeking to be free” (1973, p. 104).” (p.
192)
Tagging as pollitic posture
“SINGE talked about the “rush” out of tagging places like McDonald’s and the university along with
petty thieving from supermalls, claiming she felt helpless against their invasion into her environment
and values. I found it interesting that SINGE would equate tagging with petty thieving.” (p. 174)

“Most of the participants began tagging in their adolescence for the sheer pleasure of making their
mark, but as they became acculturated into the community, they learned to self-reflect and to articulate
critical concerns. “ (p. 181)

No conclusion
“. The trial was centered on the debate over “art versus vandalism.” In the end, no conclusion was
reached and the charges were settled out of court. The trial involved many complicated questions
concerning issues of crown property ownership and freedom of expression. ” (p. 176)

Legal Vs Illegal. Graffiti Vs Art

“FAB FIVE FREDDY agreed with FUTURA that graffiti on canvas was not the same thing as writing
in the subway: ‘When you show in a gallery, you are not a graffiti artist. I’ve been aware of this from
the beginning in 1979, with Lee; we knew immediately, this is not really graffiti, this is just a painting
that I’m making’. Writing was illegal, painting on canvas was not. At work in a studio to make art for a
gallery show, FREDDY said, ‘I’m not breaking any laws when I’m doing that’. Writing was ephemeral,
subject to buffing off trains by the MTA, painting on canvas was permanent. A painting demanded a
different set of criteria for judging its quality, FREDDY acknowledged: When it becomes an object, it
has to be looked at as an object’. Writing was judged for its style by other writers, its visual impact
assessed rapidly while in transit. It asserted the artist’s identity: tags were proxies for the artist
circulating city-wide. Paintings had to reward viewing over time, and they were self-contained and not
dependent upon a moving site for their meaning.”

“He sometimes played with the possibility of being an artist but his presupposition that an “artist” made
pretty pictures to sell to rich people conflicted with his working-class background and political views.
Once graffiti was called art, he felt the need to put it back underground. Most old school writers thrived
on the heroic image of being a marginalized individual taking action against a dominant System. As
they gained skills they usually took pride in callling themselves “artists” as well as vandals. (…) . He
drew a line between the art world as an elite system and graffiti as a subversive act that should not be
co-opted. ” (p. 176)

“Writers collaborated at graffiti conventions to educate the public that graffiti was art, while they
resisted it becoming legal and therefore co-opted. The illegality of graffiti kept it alive as a “real”
subversive act of resistance. However, writers did not want to suffer fines or jail sentences if caught
under the weight of authority so, when caught, SEAZ and FLOW began their campaign to legitimize
graffiti, knowing it could never be accepted as an illegal art form.” (p. 177)

“Graffiti writers continually have to reconcile different interpretations of their illegal act and to engage
in discussions within their community and with the media.” (p. 183)

lifestyle
“As graffiti culture becomes increasingly packaged as a lifestyle, it becomes sanitized of any political
awareness and sold as a consumer good. Youth buy into representations of hip-hop because it suggests
danger and transgression, without learning the codes and beliefs driving the community.” (p.177)
“Now anyone can walk into Cellblock to buy different spray caps, magazines, videos, and hip-hop
clothes. Cellblock is selling a lifestyle to young people and in the process losing hip-hop graffiti’s
marginal status.” (p. 178)

Commercial and marginal

“TIMER’s goal was to work for a big mural company like “Murad.” He was engaged to be married and
was becoming more concerned about economic stability, although it was still important for him to be
accepted by the graffiti community. It was typical for older writers to straddle both the commercial
and illegal worlds of hip-hop. Recognition by mainstream society allowed them to make a living
at what they loved to do on their own terms, with their friends. Experienced writers like TIMER
thrived on the contradiction of applying the same intensity and desire to commercial projects as in
practicing the political beliefs and values of the original hip-hop community. ” (p. 178)

public space
“The collective and individual nature of hip-hop graffiti suggests that public and private do not have to
be polarities. The participants were highly selfmotivated to practice in private before entering their
work into the public space shared by peers. The participants enjoyed becoming part of the ambient
space within their neighborhoods and delighted in provoking a response from their peers and the
involuntary viewer. This dialogue caused the participants to become politicized about the sharing of
public space” (p. 181)

CAP 5.
“ peer influence and the construction of identity in the ways adolescents learn both outside and inside
school. The main purpose of this chapter is to translate theory into practice.”

Ferrell, Jeff. Crimes of style: Urban graffiti and the politics of criminality. Ed: Northeastern
University Press. Boston. 1996.

Tags
“The public visibility of tags as physical residues derives from the subcultural significance of tags as
stylized markers, as components of writers' social interactions and identities. (…) To a great extent, a
writer's tag locates him within the network of graffiti writers. “ (p. 58)

Creation of tags
“Writers develop their tags in many cases as stylized references to their personal history and
extra~subcultural identity.” (p. 59) [tags creados por inspiracion musical, shakespeare etc]

a)Personal history. [rasta 68, año de nacimiento]

b) Referencias musicales, literarias, personajes, revistas
c) out of shared stylistic traditions and aesthetic orientations. [numeros]
d)Writers' tags also develop out of conventions of visual style. “Writers' tags also develop out of
conventions of visual style.” (p. 60)
e) Writers also consider the visual possibilities of the letters themselves in creating or evaluating tags.
[Fie transformed the "I" in a human figure ]

Practicas
a) Writers also change and multiply their tags as a way of playing with their subcultural and public
identity
b) Writers also develop multiple tags, though, for a less playful reason: to burrow further into the
graffiti underground when under pressure from the authorities [crean otro tag después de ser
encarcelados]

“While a writer's primary tag establishes his identity in the subculture, the variety of tags which he and
other writers utilize establishes-and at times confuses-the social boundaries of the subculture. For those
outside the subculture, the multiplicity of tags can lead to a confusion of changing personnel with
changing identities, an illusion of many writers where there are few.” (p. 62)

“Some writers' tags, while written in a distinctive personal style, can nevertheless be read by the
general public; others are so stylized that they arc recognized only by members of the subculture.
Tagging alone or with others, taggers Doing Graffiti 71 thus participate in social, subcultural activity,
both in what they write and how they write it.” (p. 70)

“The simplistic explanations of public officials discussed in the next chapter-that this is a dog-like
marking of territory-miss the elegance and complexity of this sort of tagging. Certainly
gangaffiliated taggers may tag gang names or images as a means of symbolically establishing or
violating territory. And, for non-gang taggers, tagging can be a part of establishing one's identity and
reputation within the graffiti subculture, although it is certainly no substitute for executing well-
designed murals. What is absent, though, from these accounts of tagging's supposedly calculable
results-tagging marks territory, tagging establishes status-is a sense of tagging itself: that is, of the
incalculably rich experience of "going out tagging," especially with other writers. ” (p. 71)

Conocimiento tecnico y tagging

“Tagging well also requires technical knowledge; a tagger must learn that there is more to the moment
of tagging than aiming and spraying. (…) The quality of the surface also affects the quality of the tag,
and especially with markers. As best possible in the dark, taggcrs look for a clean, flat, non-porous
canvas ” (p. 73)

Efecto iman

“The many tags which result from this subcultural activity often draw the response of other taggers,
and thus spark another round of collective action. An initial night of tagging may over weeks or months
evolve into a sort of conversation among taggers, as other writers respond in paint or marker to earlier
tags as they find them. In most cases, later writers will simply tag near the initial tags. Less often, they
will leave a short message, or even cross out earlier tags, and tag the pejorative "toy" over or ncar them.
Tags which are written too big are also criticized by writers as evidence of an overinflated ego, and
may draw written commentary ” (p. 73)

No es solo territorio o competencia. También son convicciones compartidas. Etica y estetica del
tagging

“this activity cannot be reduced to simple notions of territoriality or competition. In fact, from the
taggers' viewpoint, tagging near earlier tags makes sense for quite different reasons. The existence of
previous tags tells the tagger that placing a tag here will get it seen, since, first, other writers obviously
come this way, and, second, the property owner hasn't bothered to remove the earlier tags. To put it
another way: why should I tag a clean wall, when that clean wall indicates to me either that other
writers aren't around these parts, or that the property owner immediately paints over any tags left
there?” (p. 73)

“They agree that, all else being equal, they would rather not tag a clean spot, out of respect for
"somebody's wall" or "somebody's garage." In addition, they agree that they won't tag granite
walls, sculptures, or similar surfaces, out of respect for their aesthetic qualities, and out of the practical
sense that such surfaces will be quickly cleaned by the authorities. ~ Rasta 68 recalls, "I painted
[tagged] the statue on Colfax and Broadway .... I caught more shit for that. My graffiti artist friends ...
gave me one response: it was uncool and tacky" (in Ferrell, 1990a: 1 0}.16 Such shared convictions,
of course, serve further to concentrate tagging and tags in previously tagged areas. These shared
convictions as to clean walls and sculptures also begin to get at the writers' broader ethics and
aesthetics of tagging, and graffiti writing in general. ” (p. 74)

Taggig como primera etapa

“Tagging-and especially heavy, relatively indiscriminate tagging-often accompanies the early stages of
a writer's career in the subculture. Such tagging can be used by less skilled or experienced writers to
attain a measure of status and visibility, and thereby gain en tty into the "scene." (…) In this sense also
they have moved beyond tagging, and come to define themselves and graffiti writing generally by the
aesthetics of piecing ” (p. 76)

Piece. Formal decisiones en grupo

“All the while, the writers keep up a discussion as to the practical and aesthetic progress of the piece.
They argue over the accuracy with which the images are being translated from the piecebook to the
wall, and ask for help with perspective and scale ("Spot my dimensions for me"). They discuss the
appropriateness of blending and juxtaposing particular colors, and of adding star-bursts, thick borders,
birds, and other stylized conventions. ” (p. 78)

El stencil como algo negativo

“These stencil techniques push at piecing's aesthetic boundaries. In a subculture where writers value
free-hand virtuosity in piecing, some see stencil work as inappropriate ” (p. 79)

Process
“In the process of piecing, writers thus produce pieces that deviate from piecebook designs; that take
on unexpected colors, dimensions, and meanings; and that may never quite reach completion. Such
spontaneous adaptations-and the writers' ready acceptance of them-reveal an essential dynamic: the
process of piecing is both a means to an end and an end in itsel£ ” (p. 81)

Piecing. Como performace y experiencia

“piecing produces not only graffiti as spray painted art, but graffiti as performance art-performance art
unique in the artists' hope that no one save themselves witnesses it.22 When they talk about piecing,
Denver writers emphasize this experiential dimension, noting time and again the intense excitemenr of
piecing as an end in itself. Like tagging, piecing produces moments of illicit pleasure that transcend any
rational calculation of its results.” (p. 82)

Trhow ups
“The subcultural status of throw-ups likewise falls between that of tags and pieces. The status and
visibility which writers gain from throw-ups-especially throw-ups which are particularly stylish or
precise-certainly surpass that which tagging confers, but don't compare to the prestige which follows
from well-executed pieces. ” (p. 84)

Tapar al otro

“A writer on occasion decides to "go over" another writer's piecethat is, to paint his piece so that it
partly or completely covers the existing piece.”
Cap 4

Thompson, Margo. 2012

Post-Graffiti opened on 1 December 1983, at the Sidney Janis Gallery on 57th Street, New York City’s
blue-chip gallery row. Just as Janis had broken Pop Art in midtown in the 1960s, he now elevated
graffiti art out of the subway to the white cube of the gallery. The show featured eighteen artists,
former writers like CRASH, DAZE, TOXIC, NOC 167, LEE, and LADY PINK, and their associates
from the East Village club scene, Haring, Scharf, and Basquiat. (…) Janis’s introductory statement in
the Post-Graffiti catalogue explained the artwork in the language of art history and criticism for the
benefit of those who might never have ventured into the subway or who might have agreed with The
New York Times that graffiti was a blight on the city. He said that the title of the show meant that the
artists might still work in the subways, but had extended and deepened their aesthetic ambitions. That
they chose to work illegally and in the studio was testament to the urgency of their drive to create, and
legitimised them as artists. Janis made the connection with Pop explicit: graffiti similarly reflected
upon American culture and society. It offered something more, besides: the artists’ ‘experiences of the
street’, a euphemism for the ghetto and an allusion to their status as racial and social exotics to Janis’s
white, middle- and upper-class clientele. In conclusion, Janis pronounced:
Today [the post-graffitists’] painting, no longer transitory or ephemeral, joins the tradition of
contemporary art and is recognized as an existing valid movement. (p. 185)