In his 1999 book “The Art of Getting Over,” Stephen Powers (also known as Espo) profiled and catalogued the work of several dozen fellow graffiti artists. Among them was KR, known for drippy silver tags around San Francisco and also for the unusual material he made them with. “Krink,” Powers explained, “is a homemade silver ink” that was “developed in the KR kitchen.” Back then, KR, who says he stopped writing graffiti years ago and is thus more comfortable being known as Craig Costello, never figured his “Krink” would be known beyond that circle let alone that it would become a brand name on his custom-designed ink and markers, sold in boutiques and specialty shops in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
“There was never, ever, ever the idea that I would make any money off it,” says Costello, who is 36 and lives in New York. “There wasn’t a brand, or a business plan, or a concept of anything like that.” Costello does a bit of freelance design work as well as various art projects. (The New York arts organization Eyebeam invited him last year to spruce up the facade of its Chelsea headquarters with copious amounts of Krink, as well as paint applied via fire extinguisher.) But today the Krink product line is his most steady source of income.
The evolution of KR’s ink from something a guy made to illegally tag city streets into a brand available in slick retail settings mirrors the way graffiti or the graffiti aesthetic has been absorbed into pop culture over a period of decades. Growing up in Queens in the 1980s, Costello was exposed to an earlier iteration of graffiti. This was back when a lot more people called it rank vandalism, and “street art” had yet to become a tactic used to market cars and electronics or a look mimicked by tony fashion designers. Some at the time used home-brew ink markers; Costello recalls a recipe involving mimeograph paper soaked in alcohol overnight and mixed with a bit of nail-polish remover. A felt chalkboard eraser stolen school supplies were a common base material completed a tool for making a “mop tag” (the makeshift marker being the “mop”).
The formula he developed he’s cagey about specifics resulted in a metallic look and an expressionist drip effect. He sometimes scrawled the word “Krink” on the side of soda bottles that he filled with the stuff for friends, but that was more of a joke than a branding strategy. It wasn’t until around 2000, after he returned to New York, that the owners of Alife, a street-culture store on the Lower East Side, suggested it could sell. It did: 20 bottles, then 40, then 80. Over time, Costello started working with a manufacturer to make $10 “squeeze markers” (a bit like a shoe-polish bottle) and more penlike markers with wide tips ($8) that fill with ink through a pump-action mechanism. There are now nine Krink colors. There are also Krink T-shirts and sweatshirts made in collaboration with Alife and sold in various boutiques like the trendsetting shop Colette in Paris. (Colette’s Web site was recently decorated with a photo of Costello’s dripping Krink streaks.)
Krink’s packaging has a crisp, minimalist look that doesn’t scream graffiti, precisely to leave the door open to a wider audience than taggers. “This is an artists’ tool, a tool for creativity,” Costello maintains. His own gallery shows have included Krink on wood, on latex and on at least one trash can. Still, visit Krink.com and you’ll see plenty of Krink on public walls and mailboxes. (Krink “changed the look of vandalism” in New York, an expert on such matters, known as Earsnot, told Juxtapoz magazine not long ago.) “O.K., it has a history,” Costello allows. “But our future is about broadening out the audience.”
In fact, the next Krink product is a fine-point marker. And the brand does present a different image than much of what is in online stores openly selling “graffiti supplies.” (On the Run markers, for example, feature a logo of a shadowy guy running with a spray-paint can.) Plenty of young artists have told Costello they love the Krink look but they’re not graffiti writers and don’t intend to start. So when he talks about expanding into a product line that will make sense in a Pearl Paint store, or even a Michael’s, it’s a sentiment with more pragmatic origins than avoiding demonization as a vandal supplier: the market for the street-art aesthetic and influence is far bigger than the market of actual street artists.
Years ago, if you were hardcore, you were involved in some pretty deep shit living life on the fringes of society, not giving a fuck about what was popular or the ‘in thing’. Nonconformist, hardcore lifestyles were for the true diehards who were willing to risk being ostracised by society for what they loved whether it was graffiti, punk music, tunnel infiltration, porn or any other subculture that was frowned upon by society at large. For decades, real hardcore porn was outlawed in most of the Western world porn shoots took place in total secrecy. Its stars were at risk of serious criminal charges and were under constant threat of arrest. Ron Jeremy (undoubtedly, the king of hardcore porn) was investigated by the FBI, for his involvement in the formative years of the US porn industry. But he stayed strong, kept it going filming in secret locations, dodging the police and keeping the underground porn movement alive, until it was legalised. Likewise, graffiti was a very difficult subculture to gain access to. In the 80s, fair enough, you could go down to a writer’s bench and find x amount of the top vandals in any given town. But to actually get down with these people, go to train yards and do some damage, was another story. Back then, it was almost exclusively an illegal pursuit. You’d live the hardcore lifestyle from the time you woke up until you went to bed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That was it, GRAFFITI. Steal your paint, bomb the top deck of the bus, bomb the tubes inside and out, sneak into yards, get chased by the Old Bill, get raided by BTP real hardcore living that infected a generation. Everything was done in secret. Sure, Subway Art revealed some of the methods writers use, but there was still so much that was shrouded in mystery that graffiti really was an enigmatic culture that was penetrated by very few. Nowadays, however, the term hardcore is losing its sting. The true meaning of hardcore, in my humble opinion, is being eroded. The main perpetrator behind this dilution of hardcore is the Internet, and anyone who wants to buy into a subculture that they never would have had access to if it wasn’t for the Internet. Anything you can think of from the darkest, sickest porn, to the strangest, most out-there tunnel explorers, branches of Al Qaeda, brain-washing cults, month-long raves in deepest Ukraine and everything else in between. The only limit, really, is your imagination. Ok, so you might still have to try and infiltrate some of these subcultures that are so freely available, but how many of today’s youngsters learned everything they know about the subculture they represent through the Net? Quite a few, is my guess.
How can you ever call yourself a hardcore graffiti writer, when all you did was log on to Google, type in graffiti, find an online shop, order your ‘Trackside Pack’ containing 6 silvers, 6 blacks, a mask and gloves and then used Google Earth to find directions to the best trackside plot in your area? Likewise, how can you call yourself a true exponent of the underground Cataphile movement in Paris, if all you did was log on to the Net, look up the Catacombs and get in touch with some guys who agreed to show you the secrets of Paris’ underbelly? In the 21st century a hardcore way of life can often be contrived many try to tick all the boxes, replicate what’s already gone before them and live out their so-called hardcore lifestyle, according to the rules and guidelines they read on the Net, rather than simply living and breathing it. That’s not to say that every young person out there can’t be a diehard. Far from it, but nowadays it’s very rare to find an authentic case, and even rarer to see it maintained. We live in an age where everyone has to conform even the most rebellious individuals find it difficult to fight against the unstoppable force of conformity. It’s nigh on impossible to defeat, so why not go with the flow, eh? We’ve all done it dyed our hair black and gone goth, got a tattoo, painted a train, injected heroin, joined in with ten other guys to fuck a whore on camera… Whatever it was that you did, with the intention of becoming a hardcore rebel, going against the grain of society, you went out and did it. But it’s all been done before, only more authentic, more original with no agenda, just straight up real so it was pointless, right? In 2008, I truly believe that the real hardcore fuckers are the ones holding down a 9-to-5 and still doing their own thing on the downlow. Representing their true beliefs, while fooling society at large into believing they’re just another conformist number. Infiltrating the old boy’s network, the UK’s elitist institutions, playing the game, but winning. Why? Because we haven’t lost our essence. We may be physically trapped in the rat race, but our brains run on different fuel and, when we have our own time and space, we let loose. There’s a whole generation of new hardcore rebels out there leading that double life working hard, keeping up the faηade and enjoying a large slice of hardcore. In essence, what I’m trying to say is, hardcore whatever it is you’re doing in terms of lifestyle or mentality is something that you really can’t buy into. Hardcore is an old school mentality and a way of doing things that many aspire to, but few can replicate. Those that do manage it, are either ostracised or so deep in the ‘Matrix’ that you’ll never know.
Via Bones Magazine, the latest issue featuring the above text and much more alike can be downloaded HERE as a PDF.
These writers if you can call them that are so stuck up there own arse, listen to him saying there "taking it to a higher level" they act like there's no progression to be made in bombing or painting illegally, and that the only real progression to be made from bombing is to become a legal wall writer. CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL, fuckers.
