Adbusting

is a subversive form of protest wherein advertisements are manipulated or parodied to  change their messages or undermine them. The goal is to expose the often manipulative nature of  advertising and to critique society or politics.

Billboard art

uses billboards as a medium to communicate artistic or social messages.

Black books

are used by street artists to document their work. They usually contain sketches and drawings, photos, or newspaper clippings.

Calligraffiti

combines the aesthetics of traditional calligraphy with the expressive and dynamic power of graffiti. These artistic letter designs are usually drawn using markers and pens.

Gentrification

is a socio-economic process in which a neighborhood’s appreciation goes hand in hand with rising rents and a higher cost of living. This change can lead to the displacement of the original residents, usually from lower-income or marginalized groups, and an influx of wealthier people. While gentrification often brings with it improvements to infrastructure and urban quality of life, it is criticized because it has the potential to destabilize cultural communities and intensify social inequality.

Graffiti

comes from the Italian word “graffito”, meaning an inscription on a wall. Today, it denotes the designing of signatures (tags), motifs, figures (characters), political slogans, or a group of letters (style) on exterior or freestanding walls in the public space.

Hip-hop

is a cultural movement that was developed in Black and Hispanic communities in New York City’s Bronx borough in the nineteen-seventies. It includes four central elements: rap (spoken words), DJing (music), breakdancing/breaking/b-boying/b-girling (dance) and graffiti (art).

Hyperrealism

is an art style which produces detailed and representational depictions that are almost deceptive. A hyperrealist work (painting, sculpture, photograph, film) seeks to create an illusion that goes beyond reality. Hyperrealism is seen as a form of Pop Art.

Lettering

is the creative design of characters and words in different styles like tags, throw-ups, bubble letters, block letters, wild style, and calligraffiti. Each style has its own aesthetics, ranging from simple and quickly written tags to complex and abstract wild style designs.

Martha Cooper Library (MCL)

is a library in the URBAN NATION museum. It specializes in literature about street art, graffiti, and urban art since 1960. Anyone aged eighteen or older can set up an account and use the library.

Mural

means a large composition that is usually completed on the exterior wall of a building. Murals are most often commissioned works. Their purpose is not only to vitalize and beautify a neighborhood with an attractive design but also to relay messages. Projects supported by the URBAN NATION museum and the foundation Berliner Leben are called ONE WALLS.

Paste-up

describes a technique used in street art: borrowing from poster art, found images, or posters, these designs are pasted on surfaces in the public space. They can include a variety of techniques, from free-hand painting to silkscreen to stencil.

Photorealism

in painting developed around 1970. The resulting pictures are so realistic and detailed that they are often mistaken for photographs.

Pop Art

is an art movement from the nineteen-fifties that uses subject matter from popular culture, the media, and advertising. Often colorful and flashy, these works are made with the intention of reaching a broad audience.

Pop Surrealism

is an intensification of Surrealism inasmuch as this art movement – much like Pop Art – creates a popular form of “classic” Surrealism. Surrealism uses, for example, poetry, dreams, chance, and psychoanalysis to create imaginary compositions. Pop Surrealism draws on themes and patterns from popular culture, comic books, science-fiction, and TV animation series. Kenny Scharf is considered a pioneer of this movement.

Post Graffiti

evolved from graffiti writing. It not only works with elaborate letter design but also reflects on the medium and its proponents, often featuring an element of irony.

Stencil graffiti

is a technique for which artists cut a negative form into cardboard or other media and then use the resulting stencil to transfer their design onto a surface using paint, for example from a spray can. Additional colors and details can be applied with further stencils.

Street art

is an art form that is practiced in the public space and has messages for a broad public. In a wider sense, this includes works by artists who began their practice in the street and went on to also work in the studio.

Subvertising

means reappropriating advertising material in a public context. A portmanteau of “subversion” and “advertising,” this practice uses irony and parody to question ad campaigns and expose their mechanisms in order to move public opinion toward critical observation.

Surrealism

is a diverse art movement that developed in the early twentieth century. Its proponents rely on, among other things, chance, dreams, poetry, and psychoanalysis to produce variations on the everyday or else to create imaginary worlds.

Tag

is the word used to refer to the sprayed, drawn, or stenciled name of a writer or graffiti artist.

Urban art

is a general term for interventions that take place in the public space but then may also be exhibited in galleries and museum spaces. It covers not only graffiti and street art but also installations and interventions in the street.

Wild style

refers to a form of graffiti in which the letters are interlocked, sometimes so much so that they cannot be deciphered.

Writer’s bench

in the graffiti scene meant a spot where writers got together. This was where they made plans, signed each other’s black books, and settled conflicts. Their main activity, however, was “benching” – watching artworks on passing trains. The last active bench was at the 149th Street Grand Concourse subway station in the Bronx. It was in use until the late nineteen-eighties.

Writing

is a form of graffiti in which artists work with lettering, primarily tags. The art form first emerged in Philadelphia in the late nineteen-sixties and developed further in New York in the nineteen-seventies.