CalliGRAFFitti

CalliGRAFFitti takes East Asian caliigraphy and twists it with urban American graffiti art to form a whole new type of art. It's a unique clash between being Asian and American, the old and the new, in a sort of a cultural hybrid art form.

In history, traditional Chinese and Japanese calligraphy was reserved only for the educated and is highly respected as an art form. Graffiti originated in Italy as inscriptions and drawings on walls, and writing on sidewalks and walls is still common in Rome today. The Romans consider graffiti to be an art form, but many westerners consider it as vandalism.

CalliGRAFFiti was an exhibition at ProArts gallery Oakland's Jack London Square. It is a collaboration between Minette Lee Mangahas and nine graffiti writers (Apex, Coby Kennedy, Zen One, Toons One, Amend, Desi W.O.M.E, Denz One, and Lucha) from different cities all over America. On Asian elements, like the parasols, they used an urban element, which was spray paint, and painted on calligraphy and graffiti words. The taggers had to learn calligraphy and the calligraphers had to learn how to tag, despite cultural barriers, so it was both an art form and a learning experience for the people involved. The cinder blocks were the opposite; on an urban element, they painted Asian symbols and words. There was also a basketball game, video, and of course other art in this exhibit.

Minette Mangahas was a student of calligraphy for eight years, and she spent the first four years practicing the character for "one". After graduating from one, she proceeded to the CalliGRAFFitti project. She assigned each of her artists a calligraphy character, like "eternity", "earth", or "healing", and together, they perfected writing the characters and created their own interpretations of them.