Is Graffiti More than Just an Artform?
Ask anybody their opinion on graffiti, and you’ll get views of love and hatred : some individuals find it a nuisance, others a subtle artform. On the “good press” side, gifted artists such as Banksy have made graffiti an aesthetic pleasure, applying stencils to create difficult graphics loaded with a nuanced political point. This kind of graffiti was certain to get fashionable with the public and the art critics : attention-getting to both eye and intellect. This sort of graffiti is now even bought as canvas prints, and placed in middle class households and corporate meeting rooms.
Yet, when it comes to your down and dirty graffiti – the scally, the tagger, the gangbanger kind – this is just seen as antisocial, an offence committed by the talentless. But is graffiti just an artform? To many individuals, it’s not only art, but a way to put your stamp on a district, or even two fingers up at society : anti-establishment, anti-social, even anti-art.
Spraying has always been an underground pursuit, although the effects are very much public. The targeted audience is often unknown. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to a single person? To the public at large? Or….possibly it’s simply uncalled-for and out of boredom.
Whatever the reasons, there appears to be some kind of permanent need to spray graffiti. Some cities have conceded that graffiti isn’t a short-term craze, so they’ve marked off areas where graffiti is permitted – usually uninhabited areas, but from time to time more civic zones like temporary boarding that surrounds urban construction sites.
