Buzz
Street art has transitioned from the streets to the mainstream, with artists now showcasing their work in museums and galleries instead of on walls. Their stencils and posters can fetch millions, and surveillance cameras are more likely to catch vandals defacing art than artists creating it. From bustling cities to quiet suburbs and even remote deserts, stickers, murals, and wheatpastes are everywhere. But if it all looks like graffiti to you, here are 14 essential terms to help you understand the world of street art.
1. TAG
Wall at 5 Pointz
A stylized signature or name created using tools like markers or spray paint, often done freehand. Depending on its style or intricacy, a tag might be referred to as a throw-up—meaning a highly detailed piece, not something that induces nausea. Those who create tags are often called writers or bombers.
2. CHARACTER
Sweet Toof
Whether adorable or eerie, cartoon-like or lifelike, a character acts as a signature or visual representation of an artist. Recognizing the character often means recognizing the artist. While some draw inspiration from comics or TV, many create entirely unique figures. Characters can stand alone or be part of a larger, story-driven scene.
3. WILDSTYLE
Tag on Bogart Street, Brooklyn
Intricate, interwoven letters or symbols used in tagging. Wildstyle creates a complex visual language that often only seasoned artists or insiders can decipher, making it inaccessible to outsiders.
4. PIECE
Kobra
Short for 'masterpiece,' this term refers to a detailed and time-consuming work, typically featuring three or more colors. Artists are said to 'get up' a piece or a tag. Some pieces are so striking they’re called burners, as if their brilliance is searing into the viewer’s eyes.
5. ROLLER
Skewville
Artwork created using a roller brush, often featuring bold block letters or phrases, sometimes enhanced with drop shadows or deliberate drips. The extended handle of the roller allows artists to access challenging areas, like the sides of buildings, or to execute large-scale pieces with ease.
6. CREW
Robots Will Kill
A collective of artists who frequently collaborate on projects. Their work might include cohesive pieces that narrate a story or a cluster of individual tags concentrated in one area.
7. LEGAL WALLS
Sheryo, The Yok, Flying Fortress, Never, Nychos, and Most
In recent times, property owners and neighborhoods have permitted artists to decorate their buildings legally. These legal walls have played a key role in shifting graffiti from vandalism to public art. Without the pressure of working quickly or avoiding law enforcement, artists can create larger, more intricate pieces aimed at beautifying, inspiring, or entertaining the community.
8. MURAL
How & Nosm and RRobots
A large-scale artwork, often created on a legal wall. It can be the work of a single artist, an informal group, or a crew. Murals may portray a unified scene or a collection of independent or loosely related images and characters.
9. INSTALLATION
Invader
A site-specific creation, frequently three-dimensional or sculptural. Whether temporary or permanent, installations often blend multiple techniques, such as a stenciled scene featuring a child pulling a wagon, with part of an actual wagon attached to the wall. Some installations carry political messages, like modified street signs, while others create optical illusions.
10. STICKER
Various artists
Stickers are a quick and efficient way to spread a character, tag, image, or message. They can be hand-drawn on items like postal labels or name badges, or professionally designed and printed. These versatile creations appear on street signs, poles, doors, ATMs, walls, benches, subways, and nearly any other surface imaginable. Much like artisanal coffee shops, one sticker often attracts many others to the same area.
11. WHEATPASTE
Swoon
A simple adhesive made from flour and water, also used to describe a form of street art. To create a wheatpaste, an artist applies the mixture to a surface, then attaches a pre-made poster, drawing, painting, or photo. After smoothing out any imperfections, another layer of wheatpaste is added. The finished work is often referred to as a paste-up.
12. STENCIL
Icy and Sot
A design cut from sturdy paper or cardboard and spray-painted onto a wall. Stencils can feature words, images, or a mix of both. Some are unique, while others are replicated across a region or globally. Blek le Rat, known as the father of stencil graffiti, gained fame in the 1980s by spreading images of rats across Paris.
13. YARN BOMBING
Olek
In 2005, Magda Sayeg knitted a cover for a doorknob at her Houston boutique, sparking a global movement. Since then, yarn bombers have adorned statues, buses, signs, trees, shopping carts, telephone poles, benches, and more. Often dubbed 'grandma graffiti,' yarn bombing introduces a touch of domestic craft into urban spaces, offering a feminine counterpoint to the traditionally male-dominated street art scene.
14. POST-GRAFFITI
Hellbent
Another term for street art, reflecting the blurred lines between graffiti, street art, and public art. With the rise of legal walls, street artists have gained recognition for their innovation and skill. In response, they’ve expanded beyond spray paint and stickers, embracing diverse materials and techniques, from LED throwies and light projections to skywriting and abstract collages.
All photographs courtesy of Flickr user Garrett Ziegler.
