IU graffiti art expert shares his passion
It might look like vandalism to you, but when Malcolm Mobutu Smith sees a wall covered in graffiti, he studies the form and composition of the work as though he's standing before an oil painting in an art gallery.
In fact, the IU associate professor of fine arts says graffiti informs his ceramic art and is the inspiration behind all of his work.
At his Mini University class, "Improv and Invention: Graffiti Art and its Makers," Smith talked about graffiti's relationship to hip hop culture, shared slides of the work of some of the of the early graffiti greats (among them are "Taki 183", who was the first widely recognized graffiti artist, "Cornbread," "Lady Pink," and his personal favorite, "Phase 2"), introduced the class to graffiti terminology and explained the meaning behind the art and how it continues to inspire creativity in manifold ways and in many mediums across the globe today.
It was his first experience teaching at Mini University, and Smith enjoyed the discourse with the engaged audience members (getting such questions as: "What's the upper age range for graffiti artists?"). "It was exciting to be able to talk to a different generation and inform them about what this stuff really is, and how different it is from gang signs on the wall," he said.
Smith first learned of graffiti when the art teacher in his ritzy, suburban Philadelphia junior high school brought in a PBS documentary -- Style Wars -- on the topic.
"It was sort of the renegade plan of my teacher to show us this program," Smith said. "I found out years later she got in a lot of hot water for showing it!"
That summer, he went from the Philly burbs where he lived with his dad to his mom's place in Flint, Mich. It was there that he decided to become a graffiti artist.
"I was immediately attracted to the formal structure and inventiveness of what I instantly knew was this spontaneous creative invention on the very basic form of our letter system," Smith said. "It seemed like a beautiful outlet for shapes and colors and being in the moment in your art."
He tried his first public piece at 14 in Flint -- in broad daylight.
"I went down to a brand-new concrete wall at the riverfront. [My first piece] had all the cues of a 'toy' or 'newbie' -- I didn't understand the method, didn't understand that most graffiti names are short because you don't have a lot of time (his was "Mr. Nibbles," with an accompanying cartoon) -- I had so much confidence and brashness to be out there in the middle of the day. Cops were walking by, people were walking by, and they all thought I was supposed to be there!"
His most recent public piece took Smith full-circle to another broad daylight graffiti experience -- he was asked to contribute a wall panel to a School of Fine Arts Gallery exhibit "Writing on the Wall: What is Democracy? What does it look like?" that was part of Bloomington's Arts Week 2008.
Next up: Teaching a new studio art class in graffiti, the first of its kind at IU, in the fall of 2009, seeking venues to show his ceramic art in Indianapolis and working with the Bloomington chapter of the Hip Hop Congress to bring one of the graffiti masters to Bloomington.
"Graffiti is really what has driven all my art work," said Smith."My professional ceramic work, the way I teach, the way I look at shapes and forms around me -- I think it colors everything that I do, really."
Graffiti Terminology
- Writer: practitioner of the art of graffiti
- Tag: The most basic form of graffiti, a writer's signature with marker or spray paint
- Throwup: Quickly created bubble letters or simple pieces using only two colors
- Hit: To tag any surface with paint or ink
- Toy: An inexperienced or incompetent writer
- Wildstyle: One of the hardest styles to master, it consists of a complicated construction of interlocking letters
