When he was 13 or 14 years old, Ortiz was befriended by artist Keith Haring and they collaborated on a number of works from 1981 to 1984. Haring felt Ortiz' "tag" style stood out from that of other New York graffiti writers. It seemed to resemble Asian calligraphy done. Haring and Ortiz began combining their styles to create an overall surface of intermingling lines. Haring said, "All the work [Angel and I did] was about surface and usually covers or transforms the object it is applied to." They covered Day-Glo painted plaster sculptures, real objects, or room-sized installations with a kind of graffiti writing that was a mixture of contemporary and ancient symbols.

The Italian word graffito means "scratch" in English. Graffiti (the plural form) means drawings or images scratched into the surfaces of walls. Illicit graffiti dates back to ancient Egypt. Beginning in the 1970s with the wide availability of aerosol spray paint, graffiti began to appear everywhere in major cities, particularly in the poor neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the Bronx in New York. Based on underground comics and personalized bubble writing, some graffiti in the 1970s and '80s evolved from elaborate signatures and abstract letter forms to political and allegorical themes.

Most taggers were not professional artists or art students, but streetwise urban teenagers. They paint on subway cars, buildings, walls, billboards, and signs of all types. Viewed by many as destructive vandals, graffiti painters were recognized by some as valid public artists.

Several exhibitions held in the New York area in the early 1980s move graffiti from the street to the gallery. Graffiti-style works, many by the same young people who had painted in the streets and subways, began to be purchased by art collectors. This offered some graffiti painters opportunities for exhibitions and sales.

The popularization of graffiti as an art style raises questions about aesthetics and sociological issues. Is graffiti vandalism or urban folk art? Were young people from the ghettos being exploited by the novelty-crazed art market? What is the difference between street graffiti and graffiti-style art?

Vocabulary Terms

folk art--Art made by people who are untrained as artists that often takes the form of traditional decoration and functional forms that reflect a particular culture.

aesthetics--The philosophical study that explores questions about "what is art?" or "what is beauty?"

[ Return to the TOP of the page ]