Comments on: Graffiti in Birmingham

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:02:28 +0000

I wish they would stop tagging Chilterns trains at Moor St. It’s not a traveling art gallery because we have to spend extra time and effort cleaning the graffiti off before the train goes anywhere. It is vandalism, and artist or not, OBEY THE LAW like the rest of us.

By: Shorkie

Shorkie — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:08:12 +0000

Pete, have you watched 80s Channel 4 documentary ‘Bombing’? If not I strongly recommend you get hold of a copy as part of it is filmed in the West Midlands.

Birmingham council in the mid 80s set up an ambitious graffiti art battle in the old Bull Ring with artists from all over the world. It was legal and by all accounts, a feather in the city’s cap for modern culture. Martin Jones also brought the youth of the West Midlands together in various pioneering events from breaking to graffiti (see zulu dawn).

I think that, by the very nature of hip hop culture, it has been commercialised so much that graffiti art is maybe the one area that remains underground… secretive and untrusting. I think Selly Oak area used to have some amazing art but as time has gone by, it is often now just a complete jumble and mainly messy tags.

To my mind, Digbeth could be a very good ‘graffiti zone’ to coincide with the regeneration of the area, make shift events could take place. I hope that one day the whole of the area around Digbeth could be designated as a Bohemian quarter which would cater for all this kind of stuff. Just my musings.

By: nick berte

nick berte — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:33:04 +0000

tight art

By: Pete Ashton

Pete Ashton — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:32:57 +0000

Chris,

If you’re in Birmingham get in touch with the In A City Arts people on York Road in Kings Heath. That seems to be a good place to start.

http://www.myspace.com/inacityarts

By: Chris Drayton

Chris Drayton — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:12:03 +0000

Hello,

I am a keen graffiti artist and would love the chance to spray my work on a public wall so everyone can see any ideas of how this can be done legally so that i can share my passion of art with everyone else please?

Chris

By: graffiti

graffiti — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:09:41 +0000

Hmmm I donâ€™t know any writers that have got blogs.

By: Sister 45

Sister 45 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:22:56 +0000

Hmmm I don’t know any writers that have got blogs.
Sounds pretty utopian to me.

By: Pete Ashton

Pete Ashton — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:41:17 +0000

Don’t take this as blind evangelising of Utopian nonsense, but I think this is where the internet and blogging comes into its own. I don’t think one overarching website that tries to unite everyone is going to work at all. But if people start telling their own stories (as it were) on their blogs, explaining what they’re up to and documenting the history of the artform in Birmingham, and if these start overlapping and forming informal communities naturally and organically, and if they do so in public, then you can start to get some real communication, understanding and sharing of ideas and strategies going on.

By: Sister 45

Sister 45 — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:27:24 +0000

Hi Pete,

this is articulauted well. I was there, at the meeting and was disapointed that Martin Mullaney did not take down any numbers at the end. There was some up standing members of the community at the meeting who could all advocate for a legal spot, in their day to day lives, meetings and on their websites, but this was not followed up.
I agree with your point re. artists communicating. But in my experience everyone has their own agenda so it is hard.

Thank you for documenting this though.

Sister 45 (funk DJ, stencilist and graffiti enthusiast)