The Origins of Street Art

Artists: Multiple

Medium: Spray Paint

Location: 631 Seneca Street

This is where street art started. Buffalo’s mural movement owes a great deal to what you see here.

Graffiti is an ancient pastime. Archaeologists have found graffiti on the ruins of Pompeii. Our distant ancestors left their handprints on the walls of caves. Humans have always felt the urge to leave our mark where the future will see it.

Graffiti like this originated in the late 70s in New York City—the same era that gave birth to hip-hop. The two art forms belong to an artistic movement that has gradually taken over the world. And yet neither has been given their full due by the art world—perhaps because they were both invented by young, disenfranchised POC.

For most of the past fifty years, graffiti like this has been considered vandalism by the powers that be. But where else do you hang your art when you have no access to museums or galleries? Where do you speak your mind when you have no forum? How do you impact your environment when you have no political power? Graffiti was—and continues to be—a way to be seen and heard.

This style of graffiti is fifty years old and as popular as ever. It may be the most influential—and under-appreciated—art form of the modern era. You can find it around the globe. Here in America, people still go to jail for it.