New York Murales – Street Art

In the ’50s and ’60s a group of anonymous artists already wrote in protest exclusively on the walls of New York; the street was the chosen place for their performances. What we now call modern street art (graffiti art, stencil art and mural art) originated in the graffiti boom in New York between the 1960s and 1970s, and had its greatest expansion with the “advent of spray in the 1980s, particularly in the Bronx.
Artists such as John Fekner and Richard Hambleton worked in the heart of the Big Apple, but it is the artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat who begin the ascent as ambassadors of a movement that has become universal; even though previously many New York boys smeared their names on train trains.
Around 2000 there was a real explosion of street art thanks mainly to the English artist Banksy.

In this quarter Murales are most of all funny, sometimes polemical, against the System. The rolling shutters of the shops are usually painted with murales which represent the goods that are sold or the services given. Some murales are just pure ART, nothing else to add.

It is a shoreshortening of Manhattan where everything talks about homosexuality. The Westside is the one next to the harbour, where you can find fish and meat markets.

Murales mark a gang from another. Murales are painted on the walls surrounding the gang's general headquarters. The murales is updated as a gang's member die; headstones are painted as to remember the lost ones. Here you can find pictures taken at the general headquarter, to some bikers and their customized Harley-Davidson as, of corse, at the gang's murales.

In this neighbourhood murales are threatening, the images most of all refer to crack addiction. The crack, being a low price drug, causes a large number of victims, mostly among teenagers. The Bronx is even a place with a large number of Churches and people trust in God. That's why we can find murales with the Jesus icon on In this section you will see even some pictures taken in the streets.

This neighbourhood has so many faces: people who live here is different from culture and religions. Here you can find some amusement corners, with loveble houses and parks but even some dangerous zone. I made some photos, not only about murales but even about the stranger things I saw here.

A very important place in Long Island for murales is called 5 Pointz; here artists can express themselves painting the the entire buildings. The pictures were taken in 5 Pointz, one legal place where artists can express themselves.

There's Harlem and Harlem, the white of the rich one and the most frenzied and lively one of the coloured people. Here there are charming markets, you can listen to jazz music in the pub and on Sundays you can enjoy people singing gospel in the Churches. Most of the murales represent famous coloured people. In this page you can even look at an old part of Harlem where, in the past, you had to walk your horses!

Rip

Murales which represent dead people are everywhere, from Eastside via Harlem to Bronx. Murales can represent ordinary killed people both rappers or famous personality, like Lady Diana or the Pope.

In Soho shopping and art are so close together. It is a very elegant quarter, rich of art galleries, and most of the shops here seem like artworks, so well designed. There is no gap between art and shopping. Murales here are used to "leave a sign" on a local or on a dressing brand.

Here you can find some images as trucks, motorbikes, advertising, posters, bill-sticking, buildings and faces.