Preserved Topic: Graffiti: Vandalism or Art?

Hmm, so it's been a while. A long long while. There's a few familiar inmates around, but I'll be needing to acquaint myself with the newer loonies. Eh, so, what have I been doing for the last year that has kept me from the Asylum? No, I was not locked up for a year for vandalism, so yes, this has nothing to do with the thread subject yet, and all of this might belong in "Other Silliness," though as far as I have recalled most discussion on the integrity of artistic endeavors has gone on in this section. Anyway, I've been up to the usual, what any high school senior guy who is uncomfortable with the artist title he has been given due to incessant drawing and painting on the lunatic fringe. No, I'm not crazy. Other people say I am. I'm not. Drawing, painting, design jobs of various natures, bands and music, college applications, girls, 8 ball, and sunrise at Denny's, new website, THREESTARCHINA. Now that we are caught up...

This is something of a question of perception and intent, as most things based of opinion are, and of artistic integrity. Is graffiti vandalism or art? Certainly a great deal of graffiti is done by taggers with only the intent to put their name in a particular location. However, there are those writers who do tag for the sake of art, and in being proud and feeling accomplished they may tag their handle. These accomplished writers may have that right to be proud, because they may have accomplished something or created something beautiful. For those pubescent taggers who write only to mess up bathroom walls or bus stops, let us leave them out of this. It can be said that such tagging is certainly not art.

Though it may only be in pictures, many of us will see some great looking graffiti art. It is vandalism in the sense that it in some way defaces property, but often I have seen such art only improve an otherwise drab area. I am in no way suggesting that graffiti be legalized, this would indeed remove the fun, accomlishment, and character of these works. This does not suggest that conscripted work in the style of graffiti is of less or greater merit - such artists are obviously talented enough if they are being hired to install such work. But the question of whether graffiti is art or not remains...


[dis]contempt+[.org]

First off: pardon my pedantic use of "graffiti" as a plural.

I'm going to say this: first, is the original surface beautiful? Is it part of a beautiful architecture, or a beautiful overall area? If so, do the graffiti damage the beauty? In that case, the graffiti are vandalism.

If the original surface cannot lay claim to beauty, then do the graffiti make it beautiful? Or are they, in themselves, beautiful? If so, then they are art.

(If you do not believe that "art" means "beauty," then substitute the adjective of your choice for "beautiful" above.)

Art or not, contemporary graffiti is vandalism.
There is no dichotomy.
Kind of like those poeple that say you can only have love or money. Why not both?
In the case of graffiti, it will always be vandalism, and perhaps art.

I'd say it's Art and Vandlizum, it's also dangerous to participate in isn't it? Some gangs mark their territory in this manner, when they engage in something called tagging.



- Face the Present
- AIM: MASKKKK

Graffit' its self is only dangerous if you inhame the fumes

and hey for some of us thats a good thing

Not so much art, but I'm sure some people will appreciate this link: www.banksy.co.uk. Very perceptive grafitti, I'd say it's art, or some of it at least. What though of grafitti that makes a comment, that's just words, humour, politics? Is that art? I think that's a far more contentious issue.

I think it really depends on the motives. If the point is to make art then i believe that graffiti is art. If the point of the graffitt is to ,as Maskkkk pointed out, mark territory for gangs, or even to communicate a message of some sort then it is vandalism. Those are just my opinions though.

I don't think art and vandalism are mutually exclusive.

What I mean is, if Leonardo Da Vinci had painted the Mona Lisa on someone else's property, it would have been vandalism. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have been art.

So the real question is, is graffiti art or not? I don't see why not.

Nice topic, fallen.

It?s not like some of the others that have come by, is it?

Rap music: Art or noise? That one made the rounds here recently.

Unlike so many others--Rock music: Art or noise? Cubism: Art or just a bad sense of perspective? Impressionism: Art or painters with poor eyesight? Modern dance: Art or bad gymnastics? Beat poetry: Art or mental illness??this one can be a crime against property.

And so we have responses like warjournal?s. The answer deals only with the issue of property crime as if the question were: Burglary: Theft or Robin Hood?

And we get arguments based on aesthetics. It doesn?t matter if it?s ?beautiful?. I think Cubism is crap but I?ll acknowledge that it *is* art. And fortunes have been made on the stuff.

I got to watch this one IRL recently. A friend is art director for a literary magazine. He wanted to do a cover based on graffiti art. Found an artist with a portfolio for heaven?s sake. He lined up a place to do the shoot--a local gallery in an old industrial complex has a 25 foot concrete retaining wall right outside the door.

With permission to do a ?urban-style mural? for a magazine cover on a butt-ugly slab of concrete, that no one can see except from the door of the gallery anyway, everything was fine, until he showed up with a case of Krylon.

The deal was immediately off. No amount of cajoling, offers to incorporate their logo or anything could change their decision.

Wanna hear the payoff? The gallery right next door has a ?mural? painted on the front of the building. You can see it from the street even. But it was done with brushes and buckets. Not Krylon. Apparently brush = good, spray paint = bad.

Graffiti style art, in this case, suffered from guilt by association even after permission had initially been given. And I?m not surprised to see similar reactions here.

So my answer is: If we can separate the art and the medium from both the ?Bob Loves Carol? crap and gang scrawlings *and* from committing a crime due to the absence of the property owner?s permission, then by all means, why not?

Well Graffiti has different definitions. I would seperate mural work from tagging. Mural work is certainly art. I have seen amazing murals that only 30 other people ever saw before they were painted over, definitely art and you just have to have that krylon mist floating around you, where is the fun without it. On the other hand, those pedantic scrawls you see all over...thats tagging, its territorial marking and no more art than when a dog marks the edges of his domain.

It`s vandalous art.

But then, some of it just sucks.

Trouble is, a lot of younger budding grafitti artistes start out by tagging and mindlessly vandalising, before they actually tag on to there being something more worthwhile to do. Often it's difficult to have one without the other, I've noticed this just walking around the town where I live.