RAZUM
400 x 300 cm
Something along those stylistic lines can be found in the pieces of Razum. He started doing graffiti in 2010 in Zemun, which is well-known in Belgrade as being a part of the city that has the most prolific graffiti writers working in 3D style. He decided that his style should be as close to the original Belgrade style, and be suitable for bombing as well. There are several pieces by him that seem to move audiences and show that Belgraders respond well to his personal style and ‘sense’ of it all (his alias means Sense or Mind). Since 2015, Hope and Razum have been part of an unofficial crew that paints together and it might seem reasonable that their styles should converge. But that is not the case. They have developed their preferences separately: while Razum has had an opportunity to learn from the generation of graffiti writers to which Hope belongs, they both have learned from the old school pieces that were still visible in New Belgrade until a couple of years ago. Crews do not tend to gather members according to their stylistic suitability; all the members try to develop recognisable individual styles because copying someone else's style is an unforgivable sin among graffiti writers. Razum’s pieces seem to be filling a particular niche in the graffiti scene in Belgrade since he is putting on a pedestal a silver piece. A silver piece is a very special category, being derived from a mixture of a throw-up and a piece. A throw-up is a very simple visual, a couple of letters long, that is used to develop speed, stamina and a sense of space by using the simplest form – one colour for outline and one for the fill-in. Since silver, or chrome, is the pigment that covers the best on all surfaces, it is the most common colour for throw-ups. This formula, but in a tidier, more stylized and technically precise manner, is used for a silver piece. Here, the style is taken to its peak but it is executed in silver. Sometimes, like in Belgrade in the mid-1990s, it is used as a substitute for other types of pieces since it is the most affordable. Therefore, simple yet elegant silver pieces became almost synonymous with an early Belgrade style. Razum took it upon himself to develop it further and to explore forms that could spring from the transcendence of silver.