The real lives of street art artists: testimonies and writings

  • Christian Gerini +33 6 31 51 13 97
  • Antoine Chateau Teacher Applied Arts of the National Education, Academy of Lyon
Keywords: Graffiti; testimonies; experiences; real lives; street art education; urbex.

Abstract

The experiences of the street artists and the graffiti ones– which often began with vandal graffiti and repressed by law – are an essential element of the history of graffiti and street art of the last sixty years, as of the evolution of their art and so of the street art itself.  However, to write this “real” story, one must have made an anthropological approach of the graffiti world, on the field work, by watching them act, by listening to them, by collecting their testimonies and life stories. As it is also necessary to have read their possible writings, on the web, in their fanzines, and even in articles or books that they have sometimes published themselves. Here one will find in a first part an obviously non-exhaustive inventory of this work that we have been carrying out for thirty years. And in a second part an amazing example. That of Antoine Château, a vandal graffiti artist in his teen ager years, and today an art teacher in high school and in other structures where he teaches young people both the practice of graffiti and its history: it is therefore himself, co-author of this article, who wrote the second part.

Published
2023-12-30
How to Cite
Gerini, C., & Chateau, A. (2023). The real lives of street art artists: testimonies and writings. GSA - Graffiti and Street Art, 1(1), 24 - 41. https://doi.org/10.48619/gsa.v1i1.831
Section
Articles