This article possibly contains original research .(February 2010) |
Gifted art (or free art) is any form or piece of art that is given freely, whether to a city, a group of people, a community or an individual. It refers to any art that is distributed at no direct cost. It is a form of conceptual art. It comes from a belief that art should be available for all people to enjoy, whether rich or poor, university graduate or junior high dropout. Since Gifted Art is an expressive form of art - an idea, it encompasses virtually all forms of art: movies, literature, music recordings, sculpture, [1] painting, [2] graffiti, [3] digital art, street performances, performance art, sticker art, comics, coffeehouse poetry and Internet-distributed art etc.
Gifted Art has a long history in the arts. Many artists have been known to give art freely to each other, in an effort to pass along ideas, etc. Picasso and many of his contemporaries were fond of this. Duchamp was one of the first modern day artists to Gift to the public with his piece, Fountain , for an art show in 1917. He gave the piece under the name of "R. Mutt," presumably to hide his identity as the artist. He actually had to pay $7 to have the piece exhibited in the show, and never intended on making any money from it. He gave it freely for all to see and to push forward the Dada movement. In the 1950s, Ray Johnson started doing Mail art. He spread the idea to many other artists [4] and it still occurs today. In 2002, a 6 ft X 53 ft mural by Roy Lichtenstein was installed in the Times Square Subway Station in New York City. It was given as a gift by the artist to all New Yorkers. [5] In recent years, Gifted Art has primarily been embraced by graffiti and urban artists. Many graffiti artists consider the work they do to be art for the public. Banksy writes in his books that he believes art is more important and more enjoyable when it is out on the street where people can view it in their everyday lives than when it hangs in a museum.
Graffiti is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. His work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the musical group Massive Attack.
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Caledonia Curry, whose work appears under the name Swoon, is an American contemporary artist who works with printmaking, sculpture, and stop-motion animation to create immersive installations, community-based projects and public artworks. She is best known as one of the first women street artists to gain international recognition. Her work centers the transformative capacity of art as a catalyst for healing within communities experiencing crisis.
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and the second largest city in Australia, has gained international acclaim for its diverse range of street art and associated subcultures. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, much of the city's disaffected youth were influenced by the graffiti of New York City, which subsequently became popular in Melbourne's inner suburbs, and along suburban railway and tram lines.
Benjamin Flynn, known professionally as Eine, is an English artist based in London.
Sal Randolph is an American artist and theorist who works with issues of gift-giving, money, alternate economies, and social architecture. She founded the non-curated sound-exchange web project Opsound, which functions through the use of music released exclusively under a copyleft license, and has been cited by Lawrence Lessig as an example of how Creative Commons works to enable artists to collaborate more freely and build on each other's work. Other large-scale, collaborative projects created and implemented by Randolph include Free Manifesta and The Free Biennial, in which several hundred artists presented their work in free and open shows in New York's and Frankfurt am Main's public spaces. Artists participating in those projects included Christophe Bruno, Aram Saroyan, Swoon (artist), and Michael Cunningham, among many others.
The Bristol underground scene is a cultural movement in Bristol beginning in the early 1980s. The scene was born out of a lack of mainstream clubs catering for the emergence of hip hop music, with street and underground parties a mainstay. Crews formed playing hip hop in disused venues with sound systems borrowed from the reggae scene: City Rockers, 2 Bad, 2 Tuff, KC Rock, UD4, FBI, Dirty Den, Juice Crew, Rene & Bacus, Soul Twins, KC Rock, Fresh 4, and the Wild Bunch were among them. These names were the precursors to the more well known names that came from this scene. It is characterized by musicians and graffiti artists. The scene was influenced by the city's multiculturalism, political activism, and the arts movements of punk, reggae, hip hop, hippies and new age.
Blek le Rat is a French graffiti artist. He was one of the first graffiti artists in Paris, and has been described as the "Father of stencil graffiti".
Vhils is the tag name of Portuguese graffiti and street artist Alexandre Manuel Dias Farto.
Graffiti in Iran consists of different styles. Some are slogans painted by governmental organizations, and some are works of art by regular citizens. During the last few years, Tehran Municipality has been drawing graffiti in order to beautify the city. Much governmental graffiti regards the Iranian Revolution, Islamic Republic of Iran policies and The Politics of Resistance. Pro-democracy activists are also continuing a political graffiti campaign in Tehran. Islamic graffiti can also be seen around the city. Graffiti has long served as a medium of expression through Iran's complicated political history.
King Robbo was an English underground graffiti artist. His feud with the artist Banksy was the subject of a Channel 4 television documentary called Graffiti Wars, first shown in August 2011.
Inkie is a London-based painter and street artist, originally from Clifton, Bristol. He is cited as being part of Bristol's graffiti heritage, along with Banksy, 3D and Nick Walker.
Pavel 183, was a Russian street artist, known by some as the "Russian Banksy".
Better Out Than In was a residency undertaken by the pseudonymous graffiti artist and political activist Banksy in New York City during October 2013. Banksy unveiled at least one work of art daily, documenting it on both a dedicated website and an Instagram account. The majority of the works were stencil graffiti and chiefly political, a distinctive characteristic of Banksy. Other pieces and multimedia exhibits toyed with dark humor and satire.
Steve Lazarides is a British-Greek Cypriot publisher, photographer, collector and curator. He has helped popularise street art and underground art.
While graffiti has historically been considered a male-dominated art form, women have contributed to graffiti since its inception, with some theorising that early cave wall art was primarily drawn by women. The earliest female contemporary graffiti artists include Eva 62 and Barbara 62, followed by Lady Pink, who began painting New York City subway trains as early as 1979. Notable examples of female graffiti artists include Claw Money, Lady Pink, Swoon, Shamsia Hassani, and Miss Van.
Kissing Coppers is a Banksy stencil that pictures two British policemen kissing. It was originally unveiled on the wall of The Prince Albert pub in Brighton in 2004. It gained significant attention due to Banksy's notoriety as a provocative street artist and activist. Kissing Coppers has frequently been regarded as one of Banksy’s most notable works, so much so that it was selected as the most iconic British piece of art at The Other Art Fair in London.
Since the 1980s, the introduction of hip hop and electro music brought street art to the UK on a large scale. This was further expanded with the introduction of custom may spray paint which allowed artists to create even more artistic and experimental graffiti. Notably, Banksy is arguably one of the most famous graffiti artists in the UK, but it was the crews such as DryBreadZ who first gained recognition. Examples of UK graffiti artists include: Banksy, Stik, Inkie and My Dog Sighs.
West Bank Wall graffiti art is street art on the walled sections of the Israeli West Bank barrier, by a wide range of international and Palestinian artists. The wall is 8 to 10 metres tall, and is easily accessible to artists as it frequently divides urban areas. The graffiti is on the Palestinian side of the wall and primarily expresses anti-wall sentiments.
There are now several art shows and organizations where art is gifted. Here are a few.