Montana Spray Paint (thing)

Montana spray paint has nothing to do with the U.S. state of Montana. It has nothing to do with grizzlies, gun-stroking paranoids, or wild expanses of rural landscape both beautiful and sublime as far as the eye can drink.

Montana spray paint is about concrete and brick reclaimed from urban montony by vibrant dream-image. It's about wild style, tagging, stenciled murals of poignant socio-political critique. Montana spray paint is about graffiti.

The cans vary in size from 100ml to 750ml. Labeling is diverse due to evolving product lines (Black, Alien, Hardcore, Gold, etc.) and other factors, but all Montana cans are distinguished by their replaceable plastic nozzle system, which allows writers to easily switch spray widths on the same can.

Part of the labeling diversity is attributed to the fact that there are two contending houses of Montana, referred to by artists as "Spanish Montana" and "German Montana." The origin myth of these two companies is a tale full of betrayal, power-lust, and corporate greed, like most stories of global expansion.

Spanish Montana

Spanish Montana came first. The paint was conceived and developed by graffiti writers, and as such is viewed by the more hardcore writers as the "true" Montana.

There's some truth to this.

Back in 1993 two Barcelona writers known as Moockie and Kapi approached Jordi Rubio, the commercial manager of an aerosol canning factory, with the idea of crafting a line of spray paint specifically designed for graffiti writers.

Why do graffiti writers need their own spray paint? What's wrong with good old Krylon or Rust-Oleum?

Commercial paint lacks the color range desired by artists. With more colors available, painting can be more detailed, subtle, and vibrant. Commercial paints also lack spray control. The stuff just shoots out. Writers desired a way to adjust spray width, narrowing the release for detailed work or widening it to fill large spaces (especially useful for muralists or large wild style letters). Additionally, they wanted to forumlate the paint to be resistant to dripping. Commercial paints tend to run all over the place, and while bleeding is an integral element of the graffiti style, artists wanted more control over how their work bled, especially since many writers drop their images illegally and thus with great haste. They don't have time to control crappy paint from running like water.

While Jordi Rubio was convinced of the viability of the graffiti market (i.e. there was money to be made), the owner of the canning factory wasn't. So Jordi went off on his own with Moocki and Kapi and founded Spanish Montana.

The line debuted in 1994 at an event organized by Moockie and Kapi called "Aerosol Art." News of the paint's cheap price and high quality quickly spread through the underground and soon Spanish Montana was shipping all over the continent.

This, of course, attracted moneyed interests.

German Montana

By 1997 Spanish Montana's reputation as the primo spray paint in the graffiti world was firmly established. Moockie, Kapi and Jordi's company was pushing 50 employees and the trio were wary of overexpansion. All the paint was still homemade at their Barcelona facility and they feared what branching out would do to product integrity. They did not want Montana to become McMontana.

So they began licensing foreign distributors to help meet demand.

One of these was the fledgling German company L&G, founded in 1996 as a "garage salesroom" by Ruediger Latz and Tim Lati. In 1997 Latz and Lati convinced Spainsh Montana to give them exclusive distribution rights for Montana paint in Germany.

Then a number of shady deals took place (cue the betrayal, power-lust, and corporate greed) -

To date there has been no resolution to the brand conflict. It seems both Montanas will continue to exist, though German Montana's distribution and manufacturing power makes it much easier to acquire in most non-European markets, such as the United States.

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