We could say it started with guys like Taki 183. It was then -- back in the early ‘70s -- when he was ‘throwing up’ art all over The Big Apple, and being featured by The New York Times, that people started to talk about graffiti. This storytelling calligraphy soon tilted towards character design and offered some counterbalance to an advertising industry that doesn’t even leave you alone in the toilet. Most of the visuals in our public façade are there to suggest how we should think, feel and look. ‘Public art,’ on the other hand, is a gesture from one citizen to another. Like a poem, it is open for interpretation. What story is being told? Why? These questions become more pressing when you consider the risk taken to tell them.

After walls and subways, artists moved on to trains, as Canadian artist Other once pointed out: “I rarely use sketchbooks anymore. I prefer the massive North American rail system to travel my work instead of it being hidden under my bed.” Enter the Internet, fotolog, Flikr, and eventually MySpace. Images began traveling the globe quicker than ever, and so did artists. Look at the “heavy hitters” producing public art during the last few years: The London Police, Flying Fortress, Banksy, Miss Van – they’ve left their work on display worldwide, and the world began to take notice.

Recently, so-called “street art” has become fashionable, causing corporations, academics, and fine artists to drool, while simultaneously making authorities murmur Zero Tolerance. Suddenly everybody wants a piece and nothing is clear. As repetitive acts of street art -- be it writing your name or placing your icon (a la Obey Giant) everywhere -- imitate brand campaigns, and brands base campaigns on trends in urban art, there are accusations of “Graffiti Tourism,” of not just trying to communicate, but going back to the days of Taki 183, when writing your name also meant fame.

But, trying to be famous defeats the purpose today, and artists need to Rise Above this, to get over egos in order to live better and continue to experiment. This was the message a young American artist/activist set out to tell. In 2004, Above went on a road trip. He crossed the United States, and in bombs and wood, he sprayed, hung, and showered city after city with arrows that spoke about looking up and rising above.

The experience had an impact. Sleeping in his car in Cleveland, scaling beaches in San Diego, this autodidactic activist opened his eyes. He planned a trip to Europe and spent six months working in a restaurant, saving his tips, cutting wood, working with textiles, painting and imagining how he could speak to people in unfamiliar cities. Then he hit Europe. Hard. Internet contacts, strangers acting as family, random passionate people, a network of artists he’d never met offered him shelter and took him on tours of their cities. In 2005, he pasted up over 500 subtle arrows in cities all over Europe, taking an approach to graffiti that could be removed, but never buffed. Most of the work is still smiling proud from high perches.

Back in America, another six months of intense labor, day and night, at work and at home, painting and producing as if he had to, Above prepared for months, then set off on another tour just because he wanted to. This year, he’s hitting more than 25 countries. At each turn he adopts, integrates and hangs his work. He learned from last year and is no longer pasting up the arrows, but has a smooth technique to let them hang from electrical wires and spin. There are hundreds of them, but his moniker, Above, is no longer placed on the arrow. Instead, they are emblazoned with other words, written on each side: Give/Take, Rise/Fall, Sexy/Sale, J’ai/Faim, Wise/Owl, Fear/Fail … Apparently, Above has something else to say.

This isn’t Graffiti Tourism and it isn’t just an attempt to self-promote. It’s an experiment in communication produced by a passionate artist. Above doesn’t want to be sexy. He doesn’t care if you know him. But the people who do, welcome him with open arms, and he’s managed to scrape nickels and dimes to give more than 50 cities small gifts to remind us that our imaginations are the way forward. Calamity makes cousins of us all, but history is written by those who can pay for the ink. Hats off to a guy like Above who pays for ink he can’t afford and spends his energy sharing it.

The last time I saw him was in Brussels. The last time I heard from him, he was about to leave Istanbul. Is Above a new type of artistic ambassador?

~Harlan Levey

See It:

Details of Above’s 2005 tour can be found on www.woostercollective.com

For more information on Above, goabove.com