I found an interesting followup to my earlier post on Marc Ecko at the quite wonderful Wooster Collective site. They have more shots of this anti-tagging campaign created by BBDO West.
One thing I didn’t point out on the Ecko post, partly because the interview I reference is so short that I would have pretty much run the whole thing at that point, was his explanation that writing on property without permission, i.e. most forms of tagging, was vandalism. At first, I took it as a disengenous statement but I’m realizing that he’s simply playing both sides of the street. A statement like that backs off outsider critics while offering a wink and a nudge to his insider target audience.
You could never appreciate Obey, but Wooster is wonderful?! Right.
Graffiti isnt hip hop, btw. It pre-date it by at least 10 years if not back to earliest civilizations.
You’re just being silly. Get a grip.
On second thought, you’re absolutely right.
I like Wooster Collective, not as a representative of hip hop art, but as an excellent source for international street art that includes but is not limited to Shephard Fairey and his Obey campaign.
I never liked the Obey campaign and I find it interesting that some folks include it in hip hop art but that’s fine. It just never worked for me personally but I can’t deny its success.
Graffiti did predate hip hop but since this is a hip hop site, you can assume that any generic use of the term graffiti probably relates to hip hop. I assume you also realize that the styles of graffiti that are now considered part of hip hop first emerged separately in New York and not all of the graffiti artists from that time considered themselves a part of hip hop.