PUBLIC ART – ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES JULIA BELAMARICH

I. INTRODUCTION: If the purpose of art is to express thoughts, convey feelings, and

communicate ideas in a visual way, then it is logical that many artists choose to
install their art on bustling streets, towering walls, and open fields. Until the 1970s,
though, most art was confined by the walls of museums, or in the homes of upper-
class citizens, hidden from the eyes of the everyday public. This artificial,
commercial quality of art underwent a revolution during the 1970s, and three artistic
movements emerged: street art, graffiti, and earthworks. These movements brought
art back to the public, where the artist’s message could be viewed by a broad
audience, and sometimes even transformed by the public. These three movements
forced the audience to ask, “why is this here and what does it mean?” This question
can be answered through examining trends in location, materials, and intended
purpose.
• WORKING THESIS: (almost there…)
II. SHORT HISTORY OF PUBLIC ART:
A. (Basically a summary of each artistic movement, write this once I am done
researching and thesis-ing)
III. GRAFFITI:
A. Graffiti originated in 1970s and 1980s in New York City
1. Creative response to bad urban conditions
2. "Put a new face on the concept of public ownership"
a. Many law enforcers/property owners were upset by graffiti, but couldn't
catch the perpetrators
b. Started with painting on MTA trains
c. Eventually ended with MTA’s campaign of prevention and renewal,
refused to run painted trains
3. "They created a multicultural, multi-racial community that reflected the diverse
population of New York" –Henry Chalfant (Lewisohn 8)
4. Street art was created by the dislocated and alienated urban communities of
America
a. People in cities feel need to own the walls around them
b. It is "'in-your-face', anti-authoritarian, irreverent, irrepressible, wise, ironic,
a voice for the powerless and the have-nots" –Chalfant (Lewisohn 8)
B. Definition of Graffiti = "any form of unofficial, unsanctioned application of a
medium onto a surface" (Lewisohn 15)
1. Originates from plural form of ‘graffito’, meaning an image or text scratched
into a wall
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 2. ‘Graffiti writing’ is the movement in which writers ‘tag’ or sign walls
a. Writers focus on stylizing their personal letters and 'tag', make it hard for
outsiders to understand it
• Like an internal language between graffiti writers
• "It’s about making an ugly place uglier" (Lewisohn 19)
• Revolves around typography and letter formation, generally done with
spray paint
• Writers are communicating with themselves and their closed
community, don't care what outsiders think of it, if it is understood or
not
3. Graffiti has a bad public reputation, but graffiti writers generally don’t care
C. History of graffiti
1. Some of earliest graffiti originates from Egypt, but examples are rare
2. Over 11,000 examples of unsanctioned graffiti have been documented in
Pompeii
a. Mainly words and poetry, with little imagery
b. Some words merging with pictures
c. Both scratched and painted
d. Not restricted to one area or particular class, often poetic or obscene,
sometimes considered form of decoration
e. Official, sanctioned murals also found
f. All was destroyed in AD 79
3. Graffiti in Roman world often political, popular way of speaking back to
authority
a. City walls often covered with graffiti criticizing authority
4. Believed that graffiti hit its high point in first century, most prevalent from
Julian period to the reign of Nero (AD 14 -69)
a. Rose again in middle ages, mostly on outsides of churches
b. Evidence graffiti was prevalent in Shakespeare's time
c. Probably graffiti throughout modern history, the more graffiti, the easier for
historians to find
d. Public opinion turned against graffiti in the late nineteenth century
• Due to bad relationship between working class (graffiti writers) and
elite
e. Romantic interest in graffiti as 'pure creative act'
f. Victorians returned to 'real art', ignoring what was being produced on the
streets
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D. Evolution of Graffii (and examples)
1. Early graffiti on New York Trains
a. Taki 183 was one of the first taggers, wrote in black magic marker on the
Broadway IRT line
• Late 1969, he was writing in the stations and on the inside of trains
• New York Times article on him (July 21, 1971)
- “Taki is a Manhattan teenager who writes his name and his street
number everywhere he goes. He says it is something he just has
to do.”
- “To remove such words…it cost 80,000 manhours, or about
$300,000, in the last year.”
- “I took the form from JULIO 204, but he was doing it for a couple of
years and then he was busted and he stopped.” –Taki
- “Graffiti have had a long history in the city’s subways. Kelroy, who
was everywhere in World War II, left his mark along with the
mustaches drawn on advertising posters and various obscenities.”
- Magic Marker and other felt-tip markers hard to remove on concrete
and other rough surfaces
b. New York, 1972. Photo by F. Roy Kemp. (Born in the Streets, 34)

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c. New York, 1973. Photo by Jon Naar. (Born 20)

d. New York, 1973. Photo by Jon Naar. (Born 25)

e. New York, 1973. Photo by Jon Naar. (Born 21)

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f. Evolution of graffiti writing into a fully formed movement happened over
five years
• “The phenomenon of dispossessed young people in New York City in
the 1970s and early 1980s channeling their frustration and boredom
into making visual art – not music, not sport, but art – is
unprecedented” (Lewisohn 31)
• graffiti was a major factor in the iconography of hip hop
• (more here)
g. (Section on Futura 2000)

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h. (Section on Fab 5 Freddy)

• he drew from pop art, painted an entire train with campbells soup cans

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IV. STREET ART:
A. Street art is a sub-genre of graffiti
1. Much cross-over, but they are distinct and separate
a. Derives from graffiti writing
b. Many street artists originate in graffiti, and sometimes do graffiti on the
side
c. Generally a big differentiation in style, but both use devices of scale and
repetition
2. Street artists tend to use stenciling and pasting, as well as paint and spray
paint
B. Street art has grown to include sculpture, installation
1. Focus on art and images rather than text (graffiti)
2. (add more on the evolution of street art)
C. Keith Haring one of the first graffiti artists to use images and pictures (ei. street
artist)
1. Haring originally tried to draw on the subway with a white Pentel marker like
a graffiti writer would, but the ink sunk into the surface, so he went and got
chalk, and drew his first chalk figure
a. He drew in almost every train station in the city

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 (http://www.haringkids.com/art/subway/subway_swf.html)
2. Also painted several sculptures, one of the most famous is “Crack is Wack

a. Mural pained in 1986 on handball court at 128th street and 2nd avenue
b. Inspired by crack epidemic and its effect on NYC
c. Initially painted independently, without city permission, but immediately put
under the protection and jurisdiction of the City Department of Parks and
still exists
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D. Banksy one of the most influential street artists
1. Works in many mediums – stencil, installations, paint, graffiti
2. Experiments with idea of inside/outside museums
3. Many pieces are political (Soho 2005)

4. Did a series of paintings on Palestinian Segregation Wall

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 5. "Palestine has been occupied by the Israeli army since 1967. In 2002 the
Israeli government began building a wall separating the occupied territories
from Israel, much of it illegal under international law. It is controlled by a
series of checkpoints and observation towers, stands three times the height of
the Berlin wall and will eventually run over 700km - the distance from London
to Zurich. Palestine is now the owrld's largest open-air prison and he ultimate
activity holiday destination for graffiti artists" (Banksy 136).
E. Shepard Fairey
1. Most famous for OBEY campaign

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 2. Lots of art is political, uses lots of giant stickers, stencils

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F. Talk more about other important street artists, location, meaning and material
use in each example
V. EARTHWORKS
A. Earthworks artists enter the landscape itself and "use its materials and work with
its salient features" (Beardsley 7).
1. Art is in landscape
2. art is directly connected to its site, scultures form relationship with their
setting, unclear boundary between art and setting
a. "These are not discrete objects, intended for isolated appraisal, but fully
engaged elements of their retrospective environments, intended to provide
an inimitable experience of a certain place for both the artist and the
viewer" (Beardsley 7).
b. other art in the landscape, directly related to their setting = poetry gardens,
artist-designed parks, architectural structures, and sculptures in concrete
and steel
c. landscape art used to improve public spaces

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 3. Americans are torn between need to exploit the environment with man-made
tools and unnatural sctructures, and the need to save the little bits of nature
that are left, for its beauty and spiritual aspects
4. when earthworks began in late 1960s, it was extreme in rejecting civilization
(Thorough-like) but some of this art has developed to address urban
problems (ex. urban parks)
B. History of Earthworks
1. Inspired by Native American land art and 18th and 19th century landscape
architecture
2. Ancient sculptures like Stonehenge could be considered early eathworks
3. (more on origins of Earthworks, inspiration…)
C. Earthworks art:
1. Robert Smithson
a. Known as leader of earthworks movement
b. First inspired to create earthworks in 1967 after exploring industrial areas
around New Jersey
• He was fascinated by the dump trucks excavating earth and rock, and
began creating ‘non-sites’ in which earth and rocks collected from a
specific area are installed in a gallery as sculptures
• He began promoting this land art in an essay titled “A Sedimentation of
the Mind: Earth Projects,” which was published in Artforum in
September 1968
c. “Partially Buried Woodshed”

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 • Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. January, 1970
• Created this piece while staying at Kent State University for a week as
a visiting artist
• Dirt was dumped on an empty shed by a backhoe until the center
beam of the wood and stucco shed cracked
• Intended to illustrate entropy
• Today a few pieces of the foundation remain, hidden in the trees
d. “Spiral Jetty”

• Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah.

April 1970
• jetty is a 1500’ feet long, 5’ wide coil jutting from the shore
• 6,550 tons of rock and dirt were moved into the lake using two dump
trucks, a large tractor, and a front end loader
• When it was built, the water level in the lake was unusually low due to
a drought
- A few years later, the water level returned to normal and
submerged the jetty
- In 2004, a drought exposed the jetty again for about a year
- the lake level rose again in spring of 2005 and the Jetty is now
partially submerged
• made from mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water
2. Andy Goldsworthy
a. Tons of photos, information here http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/
b. “Cracked Rock Spiral”

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c. “Icicle Star” (joined with saliva)

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D. (Need more on earthworks artists and movement, go more in depth on

significance of environment and location)
VI. COMPARISONS
A. (In this section I will talk about how the movements relate and how art draws
inspiration from its environment. I will compare features of public art such as
message, materials, inspiration… Basically prove thesis in this paragraph) (also
any interviews and field work stuff)
VII. CONCLUSION
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 • (Conclusion should reflect on public art as a whole, and maybe talk about my
own field work and project)
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