Hipster Graffiti? A Dickchicken is Neither a Dick nor a Chicken
I don’t write Graffiti. Mainly because I got arrested a lot before I was 21, and I didn’t want to push my luck. I figured there was no reason to poke the bear with the stick. So, I stuck to appreciating it from afar, living it out in my drawing books, and paying close attention to the craft of hand-writing. I’ve got some good friends that write graffiti, so I’ve got a bit of insight into the world, and how it operates. I’ve also watched Style Wars (every time I tell someone I’ watching Style Wars they think I’m saying “Star Wars,” anyone else have that problem?) countless times, so I’ve got a decent idea of where graffiti came from. At my blog I was posting lots of pictures of graffiti over the Summer. Living in New York, it’s hard to not pay attention to it, and with the slightest education on the art–such as mine–it’s pretty easy to develop an appreciation for it. It also doesn’t take much aesthetic bravado to notice a distinct divide in what’s out there.
Photo from BushwickBK
Now, there are many dividing points in the world of graffiti—the easiest one to catch onto is probably toy/real shit—but for this post I’m most concerned with one that musters a decent amount of social and cultural divisiveness. Hipster Graffiti. That dirty moniker that is meant to do one thing only: dismiss the cultural relevance of whatever noun it modifies, in this case graffiti. Graffiti, like every other part of hip hop started out as an art form marked by resourcefulness. Kids painted trains and walls because they weren’t being put up in shiny art school studios, and cultivated by an institution designed to usher them into an adulthood of suitable expression. It was, in one single motion, self-validation and a huge flying fuck you to the larger institution of local government that had removed funding and support for a whole generation of people. Imagine the time before anyone in a suit knew what graffiti was, and as a train pulls into a subway station it is emblazoned top-to-bottom end-to-end with the words “Death.” Picasso’s “Guernica” comes to mind. It was 20th Century art in the purest sense, it was exactly what Cage and Duchamp could only do in the context of galleries, museums, and concert halls. Early graffiti artists found a way to interrupt the quotidian, and inject it with something that left their audiences—and the world at a larger scale—forever changed.
Photo from Brooklyn Street Art Blog
Now, fast-forward through the eighties and nineties, when much like skateboarding graffiti grew into a grass roots culture and industry operating first at a regional, then a national, and finally a global scale. Go past the times when it was a clandestine activity marked by otherwise unassuming black books, carefully guarded tricks for boosting paint, and a flourishing of styles. Skip past all that stuff and arrive at today, when graffiti itself has become quotidian, mundane. For the most part this culture has turned in, and begun consuming itself. Graffiti is now overrun by the prerogative to gain fame in the graffiti community. This imperative, while not inherently contradictory to disrupting the quotidian is usually won at the loss of having any impact on the general public. You can win over the graffiti world without registering as anything more than colored blobs to the general public. Bummer.
So, once something as shocking as “Death” scrawled across your morning commuter vehicle has become the status-quo how do you work in any disruption? How do you achieve what art aims to achieve? Well, it’s pretty simple—you just step slightly to the left. I moved to New York in the Summer of 2006, and the first graffiti that I remember, that actually stood out was an Elbow Toe tag that I saw later that year. It was different, I had to think for a moment to figure out what was going on—it wasn’t just a cool looking name on a wall. It was in the entrance to the L train on the Southwest corner of 8th Avenue and it said, “Tonight I listened to a radio broadcast of silence—Elbow Toe.” Very simple, the kind of hand style you’d expect to see if you looked at someone’s grocery list, and very effective. It’s not like I don’t appreciate the aesthetic of more traditional graffiti, but the traditional stuff is more fetishized. I don’t appreciate it because of what it does to me, I appreciate it for what it affirms in me, and what I imagine that it affirms in others.
Photo from Brooklyn Street Art Blog
While a lot of people write off hipster graffiti, I think the hipster graffiti that works, the stuff that is good, is outpacing traditional graffiti. I saw a big Egg Yolk roller recently from Metropolitan by the BQE. It said “Egg Yolk wasn’t here.” While I dig Egg Yolk’s style, I don’t think I’ve seen any other Egg Yolk work that is quite so arresting. On the other hand for every 5 Elbow Toe tags I see, I’m usually captivated by 3 of them. I’m also a fan of PeruAna, but the undisputed lord of hipster graffiti is definitely Dickchicken. I’ve heard from friends that there isn’t anyone higher on the Vandal Squad’s list. When they’re catching writers they’re asking who Dickchicken is. Now, as you may want to efface Dickchicken’s work you can’t deny that if the Vandal Squad is after him he’s also doing something right by traditional graffiti standards. I mean, even if you can’t read English, the image of a chicken with a dick coming out of the top of it is probably going to illicit a “Hmmmm…” at the least, whereas that perfectly filled Darks tag might go over your head, or the patina of BNE stickers might just melt into the patina of Smart Crew stickers which melt into the patina of whatever other stickers are out there attempting to blanket the city. As much as dudes like Nekst, and Adek, and girls like Abra and 17 get up, they don’t enter into pop culture’s radar the way Dickchicken does. And that’s a big part of the reason why Playboy did a dossier on Dickchicken, and not Sure or Faust or Gun or whoever else you’d care to mention. Dickchicken has seduced the public, and people want to know more, whereas the aforementioned have little impact outside of graffiti.
Photo from Brooklyn Street Art Blog
Ultimately, the artists win in the end. All of them, because they’re going out into the world and doing what makes them feel good about life. But, when you start to look at things from the perspective of art and culture, when you try to find stuff that resonates with both Marshall McLuhan and Afrika Bambaataa, it’s been shaped like poultry and cocks lately.
- Zachg
January 13th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Really well written piece and I agree with a lot of it.
I hardly hit walls any more. I’m not into wildstyle.
I may go back to slogans…
*n
January 13th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
GARBAGE.
January 13th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I would like to see what someone like COPE 2 would have to say about these new breed of hipster graff writers. Would he respect them? Or would he want to beat and rob them?
BTW I think this was a great post, but I have just say, if I still wrote graff, that shit would get crossed out every time I saw it, blood wars, CAP-One styles. This shit is too urban outfitters sensibility meets Jackass.
January 13th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
P.S. If I knew who Dickchicken was, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to snitch.
Start Snitchin’
January 13th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
So lets forget this is graf for a second and treat it as “Art” god forbid. All of it, not just the hipster graf. You’re telling me that this fails because it’s too easy and urban outfitterfied? That may be the case, and i’m sure true school graf heads would probably, cross out, beat and rob any of these dudes. But you know what? These primitive scribblings still catch your eye and get stuck in your head regardless of if you like them (Zachg) or hate them (Mike Jones).
I’d say a good deal of residents of Greenpoint/Williamsburg & Bushwick were you to say “Dickchicken” would know exactly what you’re talking about. The byproduct and most peoples thoughts on it is irrelevant when the artist has managed to get this sort of recognition.
People forget being a good artist isn’t simply talent. It’s also getting people to pay attention to it, or lack there of.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Isn’t anyone open to being beaten and robbed though? That’s the nature of graff, you catch beef. Name a well-respected writer, and chance are there is someone who wants to beat and rob them.
@Glam Nation that’s the wonderful thing about graff though, anyone can cross anyone out. I wish I could smear shit on stuff (literally) when I go into galleries, but I’d probably get arrested. With graff you’re always open to the ultimate criticism: someone goes over you. So it just comes down to who goes harder. Even if you wanted to cross out Dickchicken I think you’d have a really hard time since he’s up everywhere. You might as well be going over Katsu.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Dickchicken sux and is dum.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Well there you have it, the ultimate hipster condemning hipster graf. Then again TC thinks Souljah Boys body of work is more compelling than Nas’
January 13th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
“# Toilet Cobra Says:
January 13th, 2010 at 2:45 pm edit
Dickchicken sux and is dum.”
January 13th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Souljah Boy makes more sense to White People.
I don’t get why people are hating. What is even hipsterish about dickchicken?
January 13th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
@Glam Nation, I think the sensibility of the subject matter speaks more to the existence of a receptive audience than the intentions of the artist. What is do different about the stuff that you do? It’s all humorous illustrations right? With a subversive bent, no?
January 13th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
I do terrible art and it are sux and it are dumb as well, but my work is done by roaming apparitions who are stuck in limbo. So you see, I don’t physically do any of my work. It’s all seance mode. Maybe that’s what makes it different?
January 13th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Hipsters always hate other hipsters. Its the way of the hipster.
January 13th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
hahahah. Yeah, but you know Spirit Art and Talisman manipulation are the 132nd and 144th elements of hip hop (respectively), right?
January 13th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Great post, and I think Crook’s argument really sums it up. It might not be the most artistically profound work ever, but it’s making an impact and that makes a big difference. Not to say there isn’t plenty of garbage out there, but purists are stuck in the past.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
i see you h8r
January 14th, 2010 at 9:44 am
“Graffiti, like every other part of hip hop started out as an art form marked by resourcefulness. Kids painted trains and walls because they weren’t being put up in shiny art school studios, and cultivated by an institution designed to usher them into an adulthood of suitable expression.”
Sorry, but no. What you have described there is the origin of the modern, hip hop style of graffiti. The tradition of unauthorized street art goes back at least as far as ancient Greece and Rome, and has continued to this day. I do not mean to denigrate hip hop graffiti in any way, but just recognize that it’s just a particular style of an older form of cultural expression, but has become dominant in the last 30-40 years. While I enjoyed your article, I felt that your interest in hip hop graffiti has rather narrowed your perspective.
The real point that I’d like to make is that I think that this “hipster” graffiti is not so much a development of the evolutionary line of what you call “traditional” graffiti, but rather a whole new form of something much, much older.
I also have to say that I find the reaction of the “traditional” graffiti crowd really depressing; that they would “beat u and rob” or “snitch on” these artists because they don’t like their work. It rather echoes the reaction of those that found “death” sprayed on their subway cars.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:45 am
You’re proclamations on my thoughts are under-informed. Good effort though.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
smart people sucks!!!
January 14th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Proclamations? Yeah… Re-reading my comment, I realise that I might’ve put over a bit stronger than I’d intended. Sorry about that.
All I was really getting at was that there exists the possibility that some of this stuff may be coming from people working outside of the recently (in historical terms) established gaffiti tradition, as there are certainly guerrilla artists operating outside that tradition, at least working in media other than spray paint.
I’ll admit that Dickchicken’s chicken-with-a-dick-for-a-head shows clear influences from trad-graffiti, but I’m not so sure about Elbow Toe. I’ve seen similar thought-provoking phrases written among the dick-drawings and lewd solicitations on public bathroom stalls, like a form of guerrilla poetry. Bathroom stall graffiti has been around for far longer than the graffiti that you are now calling “traditional.” The the only connection with modern graffiti culture that is visible to me, is that he or she is writing it in large letters, in much more public places, with a spray can.
Sorry again if you consider me under-informed, but if I have made any glaring factual errors, or if there is something important that I have misssed, please expand a little, as I am genuinely interested to know.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I just realized Dickchicken is wearing a Yeasayer tee in the video. Total hipster.
January 16th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Kilroy, do you live in New York? I have a feeling that you don’t, and I think that might be why you and I have different take on the context for all of this stuff. That’s not meant to take away from your opinion at all, rather to point out something that might no be as obvious.
You can’t go out and write on walls in NY without being included in the culture of Graffiti. It’s impossible to circumnavigate it, and it’s impossible to ignore it because it’s ubiquitous. Thus, it’s impossible to participate in the act of writing on public property without being influenced by this cultural institution, and simultaneously read in graffiti’s terms. When you go out and write you know you’re being judged by graff writers, and you know you have to get up harder than them in order to rise above their textual din. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to care, and it doesn’t mean you have to actively participate in the established traditions that make up the culture, but you know that you’re sharing the same field, and you’ll ultimately be judged by their rules–but not necessarily forever, as Dickchicken just rose straight up over it all.
I’m all for the examination of syncretic roots in the dialects of artists, and dissecting the comingled pasts of artistic practice. But, I think in the case of New York, the present necessarily trumps the past because it carries much more relevance. I’d consider myself a highly educated person, especially when it comes to aesthetics, but I don’t really think past Graffiti too often when I see “graffiti.” I appreciate your input, thanks.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
just to clarify, the point is that street bombing kids like ja, vfr, adek, 17, etc… do not do it to get noticed by people outside of the culture. they will deny interviews from outsiders while herbs like this dickchicken character will get all geeked that someone wants to interview him… he thinks he’s such an outlaw… meanwhile, vandal squad is also asking about 13 year old kids in every neighborhood in nyc. this guy is nowhere on their radar on the top 40 list.
try actually PLAYING the sport for 20+ years, doing the time, fighting the fights, and traveling on your OWN (not being flown out to do some corny gallery show) before trying to analyze this. you said it yourself, you got arrested before 21 and you gave up.. as sad as it sounds, there are guys addicted and in their 40′s still doing highways to this day but they are the REAL, living history. lives dedicated to the sport.
go uptown, in the BX, south Queens and ask anyone in the streets about who heard of dick chicken and you might hear some crickets. the thing is that online “e-fame” these days is all about politics and getting flickr, blog coverage, and it’s instant fame add water. don’t even get me started about “flickr graffiti photographers” who have this sense of eliteness about who gets photos of graffiti first.. straight up GAY. please keep my graffiti off the internet, thanks.
what do you know about traveling the world and getting transit systems. all the international train writers don’t even share their photos w/ anyone… they dedicate their life to this shit doing homework on trains, layups and schedules… but they are comfortable w/ themselves so they don’t need to be noticed by people outside the culture. don’t even feel the need to write in the streets. call it sick in the head… or just pure love for the culture… people aren’t educated about this side of the game because they don’t need to be.. the corny flickr graff photographers aren’t lurking around in layups and yards every morning looking for freshly painted steel, so they can run home to upload the photos.
sorry for ranting… but i hope all these dick chicken neck face, elbow toe type graffiti writers keep getting the hype until it becomes so yesterday to do graffiti at all (that’s the hipster mentality right?) so we can filter out these culture vultures and back to business…
June 2nd, 2010 at 6:34 am
Right on clarification. If the issue here is if Dickchicken’s a hipster? He is. If it’s if he sucks? He does that too. Sucks as much as BNE.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
you hit the nail on the head bro…
graffiti is getting piegonholed…