Graffiti Gangs of New York

Over the years, I've blogged about graffiti, the unofficial artwork of NYC (including the second post I ever wrote on this blog). 

In the past graffiti was viewed as a public menace, a defacement, a blight on the city. Of course, part of that hatred towards graffiti was towards the artists who created it (namely, people of color). 

Oh, how times have changed.

Today graffiti is high art. Graffiti is now being extolled and celebrated all over NYC, and some graffiti artists who, in the past, were viewed as criminals are now finding big careers in the art world.

These two articles (here and here) gives you some insight about the evolution of graffiti art and artists in NYC. It use to be a gang activity. Graffiti gangs roamed the city, making their mark, blatantly annoucing their existance to people who didn't want to know about it. Now these same people do. The evolution of graffiti from the streets to the galleries is an example of how creativity -- and the future -- is formed literally from the ground up, the grassrootes (or, in this case, the concrete roots), and how the future is all around us all the time.