A MATTER OF TASTE

Exercise 1. Listen and label the map next to the questions 1-6

Exercise 2. A. Match the correct terms with their definitions

1. Art A. is a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, especially one
reproduction depicting only the face or head and shoulders
2. Performing B. is decorative handwriting or handwritten lettering
arts
3. Graffiti C. is a form of painting with lacquer for decoration on lacquerware
4. Art forgery D. is the creating and selling of works of art which are falsely credited to
other, usually more famous artists
5. Lacquer painting E. is a copy of a painting, drawing or of an original print. There is no creative
process involved
6. Calligraphy F. uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a
composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual
references in the world
7. Portrait G. are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics,
photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture
8. Abstract art H. refers to forms of art in which artists use their voices, bodies or
inanimate objects to convey artistic expression.
9. The visual I. writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or
arts other surface in a public place.

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B. Fill in the letters of words in types of art in the mind map below

C. Vocabulary for positive effect. Put the verbs in 1-8 into categories a-c. The first one is done for you

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Exercise 3. Listen to a lecture about the importance of art in modern life.
Questions 1-3. Choose the correct answer to the question
1. One of the aims of this lecture is to describe
A. How art supports society
B. To define contemporary art
C. To define artistic experiences
2. It is important for the students to
A. Agree with the lecturer’s ideas
B. Utilize the past experiences
C. Revisit galleries to look at contemporary arts
3. The students will ultimately have to
A. Write a critical analysis B. Write 200 words C. Write an art review
Questions 4-8: Complete the sentences using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
4. The French Revolution began in ………… and marked the beginning of what is known as the modern art
and modern ear in arts.
5. Contemporary art is best viewed as any words of art from the period beginning …………. until today.
6. One of the disadvantages up official arts is its …………. nature.
7. Art is subsidized by government wealthy individuals like ……………. or famous people.
8. ……….. art also known as amateur art is now becoming more widely acceptable.
Questions 9-11. Answer the questions using NO MORETHAN THREE WORDS for each answer
9. What do graffiti artist damage?
10. What can Contemporary Art teach us about?
11. What can Contemporary Art influence?
Exercise 4. A. State whether you agree or disagree with the following statements and explain why

B. Read the following statements and do the exercises

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Paragraph 1: Paragraph 3:
Paragraph 2: Paragraph 4:
Choose the correct answer to the following question

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PRACTICE.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
GRAFFITI

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A. The word ‘graffiti’ derives from the Greek word graphein, meaning to write. This evolved into the Latin
word graffito. Graffiti is the plural form of graffito. Simply put, graffiti is a drawing, scribbling or writing on a
flat surface. Today, we equate graffiti with the ‘New York’ or ‘Hip Hop’ style which emerged from New York
City in the 1970s. Hip Hop was originally an inner-city concept. It evolved from the rap music made in Brooklyn
and Harlem in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Donald Clarke, a music historian, has written that rap music was a
reaction to the disco music of the period. Disco was centred in the rich, elitist clubs of Manhattan and rap emerged
on street corners as an alternative. Using lyrical rhythms and ‘beat boxing’, the music was a way to express
feelings about inner-city life. Hip Hop emerged as turntables began to be used to form part of the rhythm by
‘scratching’ (the sound created by running the stylus over the grooves of an LP). As Hip Hop music emerged so
did a new outlet for artistic visibility. Keith Haring began using posters to place his uniquely drawn figures and
characters in public places. Soon he began to draw directly on subway walls and transit posters. The uniqueness
of his drawings eventually led to their being shown in galleries and published in books and his art became
‘legitimate’.
B. At about the same time as Keith Haring, a delivery messenger began writing ‘Taki 183’ whenever he
delivered documents. Soon his name was all over the city. Newspapers and magazines wrote articles about him
and Keith Haring, and soon both became celebrities. This claim to fame attracted many young people, especially
those involved with rapping, and they began to imitate ‘Taki 183’, as a means to indicate the writer’s presence,
i.e. the age-old statement of I was here. Graffiti was soon incorporated int the Hip Hop culture and became a sort
of triad with rapping and breakdancing. Breakdancing has since lost much of its initial popularity, while rapping
has emerged as a major style in American music. New York City was inundated with graffiti during the late
seventies and early eighties, but as media coverage faded so did the graffiti. Then, in the mid-eighties, a national
TV programme did a graffiti story and set off a graffiti wildfire which has since gone global.
C. In the past, graffiti artists usually worked alone, but the size and complexity of pieces, as well as safety
concerns, motivated artists to work together in crews, which are groups of graffitists that vary in membership
from 3 to 10 or more persons. A member of a crew can be ‘down with’ (affiliated with) more than one crew. To
join a crew, one must have produced stylish pieces and show potential for developing one’s own, unique style. A
crew is headed by a king or queen who is usually that person recognised as having the best artistic ability among
the members of the crew. One early crew wrote TAG as their crew name, an acronym for Tuff Artists Group. Tag
has since come to mean both graffiti writing, ‘tagging’ and graffiti, a ‘tag’. Crews often tag together, writing both
the crew tag and their own personal tags. Graffiti has its own language with terms such as piece, toy, wild-style,
and racking.
D. At first pens and markets were used, but these were limited as to what types of surfaces they worked on,
so very quickly everyone started using spray paint. Spray paint could mark all types of surfaces and be quick and
easy to use. However, the spray nozzles on the spray cans proved inadequate to create more colourful pieces.
Caps from deodorant, insecticide, and other aerosol cans were substituted to allow for a finer or thicker stream of
paint. As municipalities began passing graffiti ordinances outlawing graffiti implements, clever ways of
disguising paint implements were devised. Shoe polish, deodorant roll-ons and other seemingly innocent
containers were emptied and filled with paint. Markers, art pens and grease pens obtained from art supply stores
were also used. In fact, nearly any object which can leave a mark on most surfaces is used by taggers, though the
spray can is the medium of choice for most taggers.
E. As graffiti has grown, so too has its character. What began as an urban lower-income protest, graffiti now
spans all racial and economic groups. While many inner-city kids are still heavily involved in the graffiti culture,
taggers range from the ultra-rich to the ultra-poor. There is no general classification of graffitists. They range in
age from 12-30 years old, and there are male and female artists. One tagger recently caught in Philadelphia was
a 27-year-old stockbroker who drove to tagging sites in his BMW. Styles have dramatically evolved from the
simple cursory style, which is still the most prevalent, to intricate interlocking letter graphic designs with multiple

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colours called ‘pieces’ (from master-pieces). Gang markings of territory also fit the definition of graffiti, and they
mainly consist of tags and messages that provide ‘news’ of happenings in the neighbourhood.
F. Graffiti shops, both retail and on-line, sell a wide variety of items to taggers. Caps, markers, magazines,
T-shirts, backpacks, shorts with hidden pockets, even drawing books with templates of different railroad cars can
be purchased. Over 25,000 graffiti sites exist on the world wide web; the majority of these are pro-graffiti. Graffiti
vandalism is a problem in nearly every urban area in the world. Pro-graffiti web sites post photos of graffiti from
Europe, South America, the Philippines, Australia, South Africa, China and Japan. Billions of dollars worldwide
are spent each year in an effort to curb graffiti.
G. While most taggers are simply interested in seeing their name is as many places as possible and as visibly
as possible, some taggers are more content to find secluded warehouse walls where they can practise their pieces.
Some of these taggers are able to sell twelve-foot canvases of their work for upwards of $10 – $12,000. As
graffiti was introduced to the art world, two trends happened. One, the art world of collectors, dealers, curators,
artists and the like helped graffitists evolve in style, presumably by sharing their artistic knowledge with the
newcomers. Two, the exposure helped to expand graffiti into all parts of the world. Furthermore, more
progressive cities have recognised the talent of graffitists by providing a means for them to do legal graffiti art,
which has helped to foster the art form and lessen the amount of graffiti art that appears in the city as vandalism.
Likewise, organisations who support graffiti artists seek out places to do legal graffiti such as abandoned
buildings, businesses, or community walls in parks. What this shows is that some graffiti, particularly in the form
of a spray can art, is recognised as art by the conventional art world.
Questions 1-7. Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G. Choose the correct heading for each
paragraph from the list of headings below.
i Becoming mainstream art vi Cashing In On The Craze
ii The Culture of Graffiti vii Trends In Street Music
iii Tools of The Trade viii Gradually gaining popularity
iv Internet Art Styles ix A Solitary Existence
v Crossing Boundaries x From Ancient To Modern
1 Paragraph A 5 Paragraph E
2 Paragraph B 6 Paragraph F
3 Paragraph C 7 Paragraph G
4 Paragraph D
Questions 8-10. Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the writer’s claims
FALSE if the statement contradicts the writer’s claims
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
8 The introduction of anti-graffiti laws managed to curb its spread in some cities.
9 Along with Hip Hop music came a new way of visual expression.
10 There was hostility towards graffiti artists among the established art community.

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Questions 11-13. Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-F below.
11 Graffiti is flourishing in the 21st century as people from all backgrounds have begun to ………….
12 As graffiti has developed, it has come to ……………………….
13 Graffiti artists used many ingenious methods to ……………………..
A use it as a means of expression of rebellion against law enforcement.
B become increasingly more difficult to succeed in the art world.
C transcend race, status and gender.
D realise that inner-urban areas where poverty is the norm are decreasing.
E conceal their intentions from law enforcement officers.
F embrace it as a means of expression.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
On the face of it, as a society, we seem to be a little mixed-up when it comes to 'graffiti', as you call it if you work
in the local council's cleansing department, or 'street art' as you say if you're the man - and they do mainly seem
to be male - wielding the spray can.
But the confusion now runs deeper than those who spray and those who remove the paint. Great British institutions
have been polarised. Last week the might of English law delivered its verdict at Southwark Crown Court in
London where five members of the DPM Graffiti Crew were jailed - one, And rev. Gillman, for two years - after
admitting conspiracy to cause criminal damage, costing the taxpayer at least £1 m.
By contrast, just down the road from the Court, the riverside facade of Tate Modern had been covered in giant
murals by six urban artists with international reputations, including Blu from Bologna, Faile from New York, and
Sixeart from Barcelona, in the first display of street art at a major museum.
The courtroom and the museum were so close that supporters of the men on trial popped down to the Tate to do
a bit of retouching during one lunchtime break at the court. 'There is a huge irony in the juxtaposition of the two
events,' said one of the artists.
The man to credit for bringing street art into established gallery spaces is Banksy. A few years ago he was sneaking
his work into galleries such as the Louvre and Tate Britain. Now Tate Modern is selling his book in its gift shop.
His works sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds and he was recently featured in a retrospective exhibition
alongside Andy Warhol. He, more than anyone else, has legitimised the genre and spawned a new generation of
young imitators - much to the displeasure of those who want to clean up behind them.
Bob has been involved in graffiti since 1 982 when he was a punk. He now works, by day, for a London art gallery
and describes himself as an upstanding taxpayer. 'London is to street art, at the start of the 21 st century, what
Paris was for Impressionism at the start of the 20th,' he says with genuine immodesty. 'And yet we hate graffiti
more than anywhere else in the world. England is by far and away the most draconian for punishments for what
are only economic crimes.'
A gallery in New York in the United States launches an exhibition next week based on the work of those convicted
at South wark. 'DPM - Exhibit A', at the Anonymous Gallery Project in Soho, will display large photographs of
the convicts' work alongside copies of their charge sheets to ask whether the men are criminals or artists.
It is a question which prompts different answers in different parts of the world, says Cedar Lewinsohn, the curator
of the exhibition at Tate Modern. 'Brazil for instance is more relaxed about it,' he says. 'In parts of Australia, they
are like the UK and people really hate graffiti and tags on vans and trains, but in Melbourne drivers compete with
each other as to whose van is more decorated.'

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They have similarly schizophrenic responses in other nations too. In Toronto, police have just hired a street artist
to paint walls to help find the man who murdered the street artist's brother. Elsewhere in Canada, a court has ruled
that, after a police crackdown on graffiti artists, a 28-year-old man is only allowed to venture into town if he is
accompanied by his mother. One internet blogger wrote: 'In their twenties and still vandalising other people's
property - shouldn't they have moved on to drug dealing, or perhaps become real estate agents by that age?'

Street art, you see, is a highly polarising phenomenon. On the one hand there are those like the American artist
Elura Emerald, who is also involved in next week's New York exhibition, who insist that 'artists who paint on the
street are merely expressing themselves, not hurting anyone' and should not be punished 'but appreciated and
celebrated'. Then there are those like Judge Christopher Hardy who, in court in Southwark, described the activities
of the DPM Crew as 'a wholesale self-indulgent campaign to damage property on an industrial scale'.
How is such a dichotomy to be resolved? How, The Independent asked the street artist Bob, can artistic expression
be reconciled with the fear and loathing that graffiti inspires in many citizens who see it as a symbol of lawlessness
and the deterioration of their neighbourhood? 'Well, not by sending them to jail,' he says.
Greenwich and Tower Hamlets councils in London agree. They commissioned members of the DPM to lead
summer workshops as street art tutors for young and vulnerable people. The two councils sent references to court
vouching that the DPM men were 'positive' and 'inspirational' in working with 'young people who aren't able to
do reading or writing'. But it was not enough to save them from prison.
Questions 1-9. Complete the summary using the list of words, A-Q, below.
The debate as to whether graffiti constitutes art is 1......................the establishment in Great Britain. While one
group of 'graffiti artists' were being sent to prison, in an art gallery not far from the court the work of several
major street artists was being 2......................or the side of the gallery facing the river. The street artist Bansky is
responsible for 3......................street art, leading to his being 4......................by a new band of imitators to the
5......................of some people. London has been described as the centre of street art in the world, but ironically
at the same time the 6......................there are greater.
Whether graffiti artists are considered 7......................to be imprisoned or not depends on which country you are
in. So the question is whether street artists should be 8................... as wrongdoers or 9......................as artists.
A cleaned В uniting С criticizing D dividing E destroying F punished
G exhibited H penalties I annoyance J criminals К pleasure L promoting
M avoided N painters O rewards P copied Q appreciated
Questions 10-13. Match each country with the correct statement, A-F.
10 the USA 12 Australia
11 Brazil 13 Canada

A vehicle adornment is a form of competition

В a street artist has been employed by the police
С it causes street disturbances
D imprisonment for two years is mandatory
E people are easygoing about street art
F it is exhibiting work of the artists imprisoned in the UK

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