London Graffiti Artists in The Independent on Sunday

There's a pretty cool list and write up of some of London's most notable street artists ... just in time for Urban Art Sale at Bonham's.

Move over, Banksy: Meet the next generation of artists coming up from the street
Thanks to Banksy, there's money - lots of it - in illegal wall painting. But can artists who made their names on the streets keep their credibility when the galleries flash their cash?
Introduction by Charles Darwent
The Independent on Sunday (The New Review)
Sunday, 3 February 2008

All of which is to say that graffiti art is a genre with strict rules. To write well is not enough. Respect is earned through a combination of skill and notoriety, the last – pace Ozone – based on a daredevil disregard for personal safety. Aroe once pulled the emergency cord on a packed Madrid metro and sprayed the train while it stood in the tunnel: "That," he says, flatly, "got me my name." This willingness to risk death is part of graffiti's aesthetic, visible to other writers and "the roughnecks in the street" – you and me – who see the end product. We're not talking conventional art appreciation here. "The point," Aroe says, "is to annoy the greatest number of people you can."

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