American graffiti as public street art emerged during the mid-1960s in Philadelphia and New York – gaining critical and public acceptance away from perceived vandalism, as an aesthetic means of reflecting particular concerns of urban life. 

By the 1980s significant publications on the subject had been produced and ongoing scholarship has resulted, not only within the United States, but globally. Eirini Alligiannis’ book, Art on the Wall, now joins that constantly growing list, and proudly so. 

Art on the Wall, a companion publication to Alligiannis’ short documentary film, Louie (KR.ONE) Gasparro 5POINTZ (2018), accommodates graffiti now physically lost and that still remaining – the former being that of 5Pointz, Queens, New York, and the latter being that of the Bushwick Collective in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. 

The goal of this Australian-based digital media artist, who has attracted much international recognition, acclamation, and respect in her filmic and still photography pursuits, “is to represent graffiti as a powerful art form and the artists behind it who want to use their voices ... Art is therapy, language and universal, which should be accessible to all ... [and that the] cultural significance of graffiti is just as relevant as the process of fine arts, being an integral part of mapping cultural identities from all walks of life.” But these artists are not behaving badly, but articulating their voice and the voices of others unseen; their work is a collective manifesto of shared hope – a light in a world previously in shadow. Photos of the built urban environment are interspersed amongst the multitude of graffiti images – the capturing of architectural forms and planes and their contrasts of mass, void, shadow, and light are important to Alligiannis as these are the canvases being transformed and ideas articulated.5 Graffiti offers a play in visual delight in an environment where joy had been long abandoned. 

Of course, built urban environments are human creations, and Alligiannis has not forgotten the physical human element in her pageantry of images, nor the association of related sound. Much of the graffiti depicted dramatically thrusts, sweeps, dives, pirouettes, tumble turns, beats, thumps, swivels, and speedily slides across walls with unbridled intensity. Ze Motion, an impassioned contemporary dancer of pulsating hip hop, breaking, popping, and freestyle amongst other techniques and styles, is brilliantly composed within the designs. Photographed at 5Pointz (2013) and Bushwick (2019), his movement and clothing do not simply mimic graffiti’s forms and angles, but accentuate its explosive vibrations. Ze Motion’s dance energy generates within the viewer – by implication – the beating musical background of his moves. Contemporary graffiti is not simply constrained to a visual message, but operates within an interconnected cultural milieu, inclusive of music and dance. This is street art as theatrical experience. 

Who we are is an evolving concept. We are all things when we dream, but through memory and storytelling, we narrate our sense of being human, and the story of 5Pointz and the Bushwick Collective is certainly a story worth the telling. In her creative photographic documenting of 5Pointz (demolished in 2014) and the Bushwick Collective, Alligiannis is stepping onto the path previously set by celebrated New York–based street life and graffiti photographer of the 1970s and 1980s, Martha Cooper. Cooper’s photographic work ensured that time and place, particular to her and those involved with the development of street art and culture, would not “go gentle into that good night”;6 akin to graffiti that has survived across the time depth of humankind. Through her images, particularly in publications, that place and time will “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”So too, will Alligiannis. 

Leonard Janiszewski Curator/Historian
Macquarie University Art Gallery Sydney