The Battle Has Begun and Why You Should Pay Attention

 

We might be headed into some new found territory in the street art world.  You may have read in the last two months about a little tit for tat going on in London involving these two and a 25 year graf piece hidden away under London streets on a canal wall in Camden. We are used to graf artists battling over sides of town, trains, and great mural spots everywhere in the world.  Hell you can even find the battles splashed across the pages of magazines in your local shop these days.
This is different though.
On one hand you have the humble well established graf artist from way back in the day.  The other hand holds the political stencil writer cum gallery artist who, as it just so happens, has a bit more credit to his name and not just on the street.  If that isn’t enough difference for you then think of it this way.  Graf writing is one of the four elements of hip hop, and those elements have a long history of paying respect to their predecessors.  Stencil artists don’t have this rich history.  As a matter of fact they break down barriers at anyone’s cost, politician or corporation alike.  This isn’t about old school vs. new school, this is about a battle of art forms and who should be respecting whom.  Did you ever see Dali paint over a Giacometti? No, you didn’t.
This battle is gaining new found press.  It is becoming so intwined in the fabric of art history that even the Wall Street Journal has decided it to make it a small center piece.  That’s big.  We’re talking about the WSJ here, not Juxtapoz.  While you and I would rather see this in Juxtapoz it is spilling onto the pages of the largest financial paper in the world.