Just to Get a Rep

A good documentary that probably suffers from the shadow of Style Wars. Had I not seen Style Wars, I think that Just to Get a Rep would be the best documentary on graffiti going around.

Some interviews with graff legends like Stay High 179, Blade, Comet, Zephyr and Futura 2000; as well as a visit to London, France and Milan to find out when and how graff spread their way, make JTGAR worth seeing. But if you haven't seen SW, I'd wait until after JTGAR.

This doco definitely deserves a wider release than it has received in Oz (with just two screenings during the Perth Revelation Film Festival), but it doesn't contain anything that really blows you away. I got the most enjoyment from seeing the pieces from the Subway Art book that I had poured over as a 15yr old writer in 1987.

I'm still basking in nostalgia after tonight's viewing. It brought to mind memories of Tuxtan cans,black books, Public Enemy, Eric B. and Rakim, Big Daddy Kane and BDP - the reason why I don't go for the movies assertion that Hip Hop and Graff don't mix.

Is it art? Is it crime? Maybe it's both at the same time? Graffiti is a shared cultural experience. Everyone has seen it, many have hated it, and some have been forced to give grudging admiration its more artistic forms. It has existed almost since invention of spray paint, but in the early 1970s something changed in the world of graffiti.

Two 'aerosol artists' in NYC, who went by the handles Comet and Blade, moved from simply writing their names in spray painted lines to creating ever larger, more elaborate and more artistic versions of their chosen 'tags,' until their work soon covered entire sides of subway cars. While not the first to utilize spray paint as art, their boldness and fame (or perhaps infamy) sparked an explosion of graffiti art across the city, the country, and eventually into Europe.

In Just to Get a Rep Peter Gerard traces the history of aerosol art from a small, insular group of early pioneers to the young people making waves in graffiti today, across the country and across the pond. His interviews with now middle-aged taggers are amusing and help explode many of the myths that have built up around the origins of graffiti art; particularly the association between hip-hop culture and graffiti, which is largely a media invention.

In fact, a real strength of this documentary is the way in which it examines the dissemination of a supposedly underground cultural phenomenon via media like film (in this case, movies like Wild Style and Beat Street), so that what kids in Europe were receiving initially was a very Hollywood-ized version of the culture.

Gerard definitely manages to capture the spirit, frenetic energy, and sense of community in the graffiti world. The narrative alone is intriguing, but coupled with the rich visuals in Just to Get a Rep is well worth seeking out.