New Graffiti

Graffiti is one of the most popular activities of modern street youth, especially the members of juvenile street gangs. It is a special form of street art (so called wall art), which includes any sort of drawings, images or simple inscriptions, created by amateur artists on the walls or other elements of the interior or exterior of various public places. In our times, street artists use quite advanced techniques and tools far beyond usual good-old aerosols. Also, more and more of new graffiti types and styles have been emerging recently.

In today’s street gang culture, graffiti plays an important role as a universal communication tool. In particular, graffiti helps to mark the territories, which are under control of the gang, by special signs or symbols. Also, graffiti can serve as warning signs for the members of other gangs about possible threat or danger. In order to insult the rival gangs, it is common to cross or to damage graffiti signs of such rival gangs. That is how a piece of graffiti can turn into a reason of conflicts between the gangs of the same locality.

Many people consider graffiti a criminal offense since usually it is put on property without any permission. Besides, street artists are usually associated with the criminals and are taken as the people with criminal past. Also, sometimes graffiti has obvious socio-political context, can be adult-oriented or have elements of racism, satanism, etc. In any way, there is a great number of true graffiti maniacs throughout the world, who appreciate and develop this type of art regardless of various prohibitions and negative social perception.