Liam O'Neil
Street Art's Role in the Arab Spring
Since the beginning of the rebellion against Hosni Mubarak in
2011, street art has started to gain recognition for being an integral part of
getting society’s opinions and passions seen. Just like many other creative
outlets, public art has always been a part of history within the urban culture.
Street artists are able to take their artwork off of paper, and onto walls for
more than just visual pleasure. Although frowned upon by most citizens across
the world, street art can be used as a political and revolutionary stimulant
for the overall population. Graffiti can really be found in almost every
country in the world; big cities, small country towns and anywhere in between.
However in the Middle East there are major street art movements happening along
side the political movements in Iran, Egypt and Syria.
Before diving into these three areas of the Middle East we
must first understand that there are two major forms of graffiti: legal
graffiti and illegal graffiti. Both of these catagories can range from posters,
to murals, stencils and even plain writing. It is important to analyze and
compare the qualities between these two forms of street art because there are
major differences that are below the surface that we see. One of the most
important differences to recognize is the time that these artists are given to
complete their “piece”. When attempting to do illegal graffiti, you have a very
strict time limit and you are forced to get it done as fast as you can before
some form of authority comes to stop you. Now as one can imagine, no one can
produce their best work while under these risky time restrictions. In the
Middle East just like here in the United States, there are harsh graffiti laws
that could easily ruin one’s life by getting caught.
On the other side of the spectrum, when working on a legal
piece of graffiti, you can more or less spend as much time as you want to make
sure it is a masterpiece. Legal graffiti conventions often occur even in the
Middle East where a group of “writers” will gather and display live artwork for
the masses. One similarity between illegal work and legal work is that they
both essentially can be used for the same cause. On a more human level, both
illegal pieces and legal pieces can evoke the same emotion. Sometimes you really
can’t tell the difference between illegal and legal street art because they are
really both trying to accomplish the same thing. Graffiti doesn’t always have
to carry a message, it can be used simply for visual satisfaction which is why
some people consider it art. Whether graffiti should be considered an art or
not is another story, however for this purpose we will call it art.
Perhaps the most important area in the Middle East currently,
Egypt is undergoing an extensive graffiti revolution. Some are going so far as
to say that graffiti is the new form of hieroglyphics in Egypt. Ancient
Egyptians would use their form of writing on walls to visually show concepts,
events and more so to record history. Coming back to modern day, this is
essentially what these Egyptian artists are doing today. Whether it’s simple
writing on the wall, or gigantic beautiful murals that can do nothing but affect
you on an emotional level when you look at it. Graffiti has particularly played
an important role of pushing the revolution that they have endured in the past
couple years. Artists were able to
capture the mood of the country through simple or complex wall art. They would show the flaws and problems with the government through their work. The
politically stimulating graffiti displayed in Tahrir Square really gave people
a sense of pride and entitlement at the end of the day. (Albawaba.com)
(Today.Duke.com)
From a graphic designers perspective,
it is extremely interesting for me to see these works of art that many people
disregard. Some of these street artists have talents that some well-recognized
artists will never achieve. Breaking graffiti down into shape and form is one
route street artists take. Another is the realist route where artists try to depict
the subject matter the way it truthfully is, basically making it look as real
as possible. One route that is particularly interesting to us designers is the
typographical route. Typographical graffiti is putting out messages on the
simplest level of displaying the beauty of letter form, and making these simple
letters into something much more complex and could even evoke some feeling out
of you. Probably the more stereotypical form of typography in graffiti is
“tagging” where the artist uses their unique form of stylized writing to
display whatever it is they choose.
A more complex form of typographical street art is connecting
it with the art of calligraphy. Artists based out of Iran are particularly
dexterous in this fashion. Iranian street calligraphist A1one is
able to display the visual beauty of the Arabic language and produce a message
at the same time. Being able to take words or phrases and make them visually
stimulating enough to call it art is extremely difficult and many people don’t
believe it is possible to do so simply because they don’t think words can be
art. Everyday citizens walking by this type of street art often heavily under
look the beauty of these art forms. (MidEastCollective)
In past days in Iran, stencil graffiti
had been used many times as a means to pushing the revolution. An Iranian
stencil “III” recalls that stencils and murals were heavily used in the removal
of the last Shah in 1979.
“THE authorities here
don’t know what graffiti is,” says “Ill”, one of Iran’s tiny cadre of street
artists. “But they do know from the revolution what stencils on the wall can
mean,” (Economist.com)
The current situation in Iran makes it
hard for any street artist. Ill and his partners are forced at times to send
their stencils to friends in the U.S. or Europe to have them paint them on the
walls for them. Some feel it is too dangerous to be doing this sort of thing in
public and decide to take the alternate route.
However
while some decide to sit on the sidelines in fear of danger or jail, others put
their lives on the line to get across their message. During these unstable
times in Syria, there is a graffiti revolution occurring alongside with it.
Street artists in this particular situation have to take the illegal route
because there are not legal places for them to do so. Even if there were legal
places to paint, chances are they would want to paint in illegal places to get
their messages to be seen by more people. Syrian activist Amer Mattar says,
“This [graffiti] is an opportunity to gain
back the public space that was stolen from us by the militias, formerly
occupied by the regime with the pictures of Bashar and Hafez al-Assad, and now
taken by Quranic verses [of ISIS]” (Al-Monitor)
These
activists are a part of a group called Shera, which is Arabic for ‘the street’.
They are a perfect example of a group of revolutionaries using the simplest
method of graffiti by painting phrases from the Quran on the wall that
contradict religious extremist groups and the governments practices. Something
so simple like that can really affect the everyday citizen walking by to get up
and help make a difference.
All these examples of different
graffiti from different areas of the world can remind us humans living here
safely in America that there are other forms to getting your voices heard.
Those artists are doing what they can with the tools, talents and passions they
have. Most graffiti artists in America do what they do for personal
satisfaction, to get their name seen or just for the beauty of the art. None of
these reasons appear immoral to me. However looking at the social issues that
the artists in the Middle East are bringing to light, it is hard to give some
artists in this country credit because there are others in areas of overall
turmoil who are pushing for a cause and more so better the lives of their
people.
Works Cited
Bajec, Alessandra. "Can Graffiti Remake Egypt?" The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
"Don't Wall Us in." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 09 Nov. 2013. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
"Duke Today." Duke Today. Duke, 13 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
Graffiti Art-Iran-04-22-2012. PressTVGlobalNews, 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
"Graffiti Boom in Cairo Reflects the Mood on the Egyptian Street." Euronews. N.p., 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Hartrick, Adrian. "Syria's Graffitti Revolution." Al-Monitor. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
"Vandalism Back in Vogue: Graffiti Grips the Middle East." Albawaba. N.p., 4 Aug. 2013. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
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