Mullaney on Graffiti

While there’s something wonderfully incongruous and almost comical about watching Moseley Councilor Martin Mullaney give a mini lecture on the origins and aesthetics of graffiti art he does, through his “war on tagging”, know a fair bit about the local scene. In this video, about the Selly Oak pocket park, he talks about The Gifted Few and The Lost Generation crews.

Martin’s line is that you can have graffiti art without the blight of tagging, which I would be skeptical about, but if you’re ignorant of and curious about Birmingham’s graffiti art scene this is as good an intro as any.

Using this info a quick bit of Googling found me Hoakser who does stuff like this:

hoakser_graffiti.jpg

and whose MySpace links to loads of other TGF / TLG folks.

For more graffiti, with no distinction made between “art” and “not art”, check out the Birmingham Graffiti and Street Art pool on Flickr

86 Comments

  1. God, that’s painful to watch: The Gormless Gimp on Graffiti. I think that without the voices of the ‘taggers’ or the ‘artists’, Mullaney’s talking like a monkey with a stick up his bum. With all the street cred of a neon yellow bum bag.

    Graffiti didn’t originate in New York; it has a far longer history. They found graffiti in Egypt and Pompei, dating back to well before America and spray-paint was founded. Mullaney, at least get your spin-chimps to research the subject a little more thoroughly.

    Street art can be brilliant, mediocre or useless; but at its best, it’s intelligent, visually strong and thoughtful. A channel for opinion. A method of statement in contrast to the norm. At worst, it’s the ill-understood placement of swasstikas and other symbols used in an inflammatory manner, or crass expressions sprayed with no more meaning than was ever understood by the mark-maker.

    Anyone can make marks, but it takes someone with an innate ability to make it into real art. The real street art rocks. Taggers with the latter angle in their work, who show that letters are more than face value, rock. If you’re going to spray, make it count and make it beyond excellent. You’re working on a canvas that has a huge ability to vex people. Make a range of people stop and pay attention for the right reasons: something new, something different but something that speaks talent with an open and inteliigent voice. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be controversial or confrontational.

    Personally, I like the idea of having a place where professional graffiti artists can mentor others. Some fantastic artists and designers have evolved from the Land of Graffiti, so it’s not something I’d want to see discouraged. I also don’t want to totally remove the notion of freedom, but there’s a line that has to be drawn between where it’s legitimate to work and where is a total no-go in terms of location. I think those who do it for the love if it and pride in their work are potentially most responsive to this. Those who just prefer to spray a rudimentary knob spraying guy goo on a street sign probably need military boot camp.

    Babbling over.

  2. Whither old style word-based graffiti?

    A shiny pound coin to the first person to spraypaint some witty joke about local politics on the outside of Mullaney’s house.

  3. Try http://www.hoakser.co.uk/ to see what he can do without have to fight your way through all the MySpace clutter. I don’t know where he’s painting now, but he used to regularly paint a row of garages on Woodbridge Road, producing enormous pieces that ran spanned over 10 or a dozen garage doors. The garages have been pulled down now so the site can be redeveloped as houses (you thought I was going to say flats, didn’t you), which is a bit of a shame. Made my walk out with the dog a bit duller, if nothing else.

  4. Nicholas McGee

    I will only say one thing.

    Graffiti is only what anybody makes of it.
    Thoughtful, interesting, hateful, racist, judgmental, heavenly, hellish, obscene, original, the list goes on.

    Graffiti is a representation and a extension of the artist’s mind and creativity. I know because i do it on paper.

  11. ViCT0r

    well i dont reall yknow much about this man, but i do much about this subject and he is a lil off base with his informantion.
    i have been a writter a.k.a a tagger for many years now my stuff has not always been on paper on canvas if u know wut i mean.
    To set right the wrong ideas this man i setting out i will explain some things the subculture consistis of 3 different things first “graffiti” which is just regular writting nothing else along with it which i admit at times if no skill comes with it can be an eye sore.
    Second there is “tagging” which this man confused or called graffitti art this is what do the most and every much enjoy. He satated that the writting on the the taggings are to destry such things,but in fact are signatures to show “props” to an art work.
    Finally there is “bombing” this has nothing to do with gangs or a number of people tagging together this is a term used for mural done by a tagger it can be political or not it just includes caractures or some kind and so on,. this came about since it usually takes up a whole wall so it look like someone bombed the wall with a paint bomb thus bombing…
    i dont know if this man has any prior art experiance other than his own opinion but true artist see that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and respect all work for what it is

  12. reece

    graffiti is an expression or part of the artists mind
    if graffiti is done right it looks amzing literally i could stare for hours but i agree sometimes the tags look like s**t especially if its done badly in our local area we have an “artist” “smoked” and hes terrible his tag is wonky and his pieces are ram bubble writing and block letters to be honest it angers me and for the past few weeks ive been dying to get yellow industrial paint and paint flowers and rainbows over his work to annoy him muahahaha he makes my village look terrible if he did it under a bridge out of sight then it might be ok but he doesnt its everywhere if he sketched and practised his letters it might help maybe look good
    what makes graffiti seem so bad is its illegal the artists go out on their own behalf to get there name recognised if there were more legal walls to practise on or more graffiti coverage it would be good
    afterall graffiti is art wether its liked or not
    i know im a graffiti artsit myself.

  14. ..*B3b..

    dayum dats tight… make me wun..lol jux kiddin’ but yea props tu who made dis

  17. daman

    id like to say the guy knew fuck all what he was talking about trying to meks sed agent n doesnt know wht peng says or anyfin but i got to admit hoakser minks news agent tkid everyone i was there that day wen they did most peices and it was a great day they are prob in top 10 in britian

  24. Natasha

    Garfetti rocks its really nice i lve seein trains go by wit all da Garfetti on the sides of da crate trains !! so ya’ll keep it goin but dus dont get cought by da POLICE !!

  25. richie

    this guy doesnt know anything about graffiti he says that tagging is what brings it down. thats not true all good writers started with tagging and got better and better with it and got on to the pieces which are the big spray paint ones.

  28. jim njoroge

    man graffiti is hot for those with eyes that see positivity.u got me graffiti haters?

  37. carolina

    HOLA ME PARESE UN GRAFFITI MUY VACANO CON MUCHA CIENCIA, MUCHO COLORIDO, MUCHO ESFUERZO
    ADMIRO A ESAS PERSONAS QUE HACEN LO QUE LES GUSTA Y LO QUE QUIEREN

    DESDE COLOMBIA

  55. hey you guys and gurls r a imsparation you guys got some real tallent and if you could look me up on myspace that would be great im 16 and i love some tipps so plzz thank you

  56. haha this guy knows everything, new york, wild style, did i mention new york?

    to be fair to him hes trying to make a point n seems like a nice guy but he hasnt got a fucking clue.

  60. rasec-em-tedk

    that shit is bad but i think my style is way better just try harder and keep on graffing…….. graffiti is a crime cmonn guys just keep up the good work peace to taggers fuck bangers teqnitions evaluating domestic kareers

  66. jordan

    these shits are sick yo! lets go party and look so smarty! lets go compare notebooks. Davinci started on note books. ooh did i mension Davinci started on note books? ya so did I. You guys are hott hope to see more art from you guys. keep it real Jordan

  67. michael

    THIS GUY IS A FUCKING IDIOT. TAGGING IS ART AND WITHOUT IT THOSE BEAUTIFUL PEICES WULD HAVE NEVER DEVELOPED. THIS GUY PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH. AND IF U THINK IT IS AN EYE SOAR THEN DONT FUCKING LOOK AT IT. I HATE A CRITIC. THIS GUY NEEDS TO GET A FUCKING HOBBY AND STOP ACTING LIKE HE KNOWS THE HISTORY OF GRAFFITI WHEN HE DOESNT KNOW SHIT!!!!!!!!!

  79. esense

    im an up and comming G-artist and shit like that just seem imporsible to me. its like the Mikel Engelo of our day. and its not a crime deffinetly.

  86. k.k.k.

    dis is a great pic! lol it looks cool ‘nd lush graffiti!lol
    amazin ‘nd nice ritin at da bottom of da pic lol…
    at least der id no colord people… no afence bt it wuld look wird wiv a mixture of differant scin colors! (lol?) …soz if it afended u lol

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