I wasnt sure about opening this thread, bc maybe you dont give a fuck about it, but lets see.. This is the idea: As there are a lot of members from here which are not from the US, i think it would be good to explain how did graffiti developed in their countries, and show some of their style, just for entertaining and to learn something about graffiti apart from the classic stories found in style wars and classic books. Oh, and excuse my english if it's not too good Ok, ill start with my country, and to be precise, with my city: Madrid (Spain, Europe, just in case ) Here, Graffiti started surprisingly in a way totally separated of the US. It all started in the mid-late 80s, when a guy called Muelle (spring) started to write his sign all over the city. His purpose was to make the name famous so he could earn some money to keep playing with his rock band. Here's the guy: [Broken External Image]:http://s3.subirimagenes.com:81/otros/4497040005histspainmuelle.jpg He became quite famous in the city, cause a lot of rumors started to be told: some people said that the name was a sign used by drug dealers, some others that it was publicity from a big company... everyone was talking about it, and some people started to do the same, one they figured out what the fuck was that. At that time, most writers were punks, and the different crews were known cause each one used his own way to paint: for example, the CJCS always tagged the upper part of the subway signs, or the YO crew always used blue paintings. They all were called "flecheros" (the translation is something like "arrowers") because they all used to draw arrows in their tags. During the 90s, this style started to vanish, because the old school retired, and the new writers followed the american styles which had came with the hip hop music and culture. The pioneer, muelle, died quite young (he was 29 i think) and became a legend in the city. There are still some tags in here which remain protected by the new writers, such as this one in the center of the city: [Broken External Image]:http://s3.subirimagenes.com:81/fondosycapturas/4497122800pxfirmamuellemont.jpg And well, about how the situation is right now, the city is full covered with tags, throws and pieces, theres literally almost no space to tag (writers usually joke about that when a new building, bridge or whatever is being made, its always painted long before its finished). In the last years the major, called Gallardon, had declared a war to graffiti, raising the fines from the former 70 euros to 6.000 (about $8000) and cleaning the public places almost weekly. The writers answered back fastly with walls like this one: (yep, thats the moment of its destruction ) and well, thats how the things are here , i hope it wasnt too boring
honestly even in the u.s. "hip hop" graffiti started in like the 1970s I think but before that there were train monikers on freight trains.
Italys history here: During late 80's the two developing cities were Milan and Rome, we had a couple crews and twenty-thirty writers, but one stood above everyone else, Dumbo. The guy was up night and day, you literally could not see an alley without a throwie or a couple tags, at a certain point someone tought the there were different people writing Dumbo but he still was alone, and he was a revolutionary in the game, everybody wanted to be like him so a lot of people started writing also: Spider, Edro, Belze, CKC crew, WCA, UAO, BORTZ, 13 are the biggest names in the north. In middle 90's a lot of other major cities started to write, Turin, Bologna, Florence, Naples, and a shitload of others. To this day Milan and Rome are still the best cities to bomb but overall we have writers everywhere.