Graffiti More Than Just Artform
Ask anybody their opinion on graffiti, and you’ll get views of love and hatred : some people find it a nuisance, others a nuanced artform. On the “good press” side, gifted creatives such as Banksy have made graffiti an artform that is pleasing on the eye, applying stencils to produce technically tricky artworks with political points attached. This type of graffiti was likely to get popular with the masses and the artworld : visually pleasing and intellectually satisfying. This kind of graffiti is now even acquired as prints on canvas, and placed in suburban households and office reception areas.
However, what of the familiar kind – the gangbanger, the tagger, the street urchin – this is just seen as antisocial, an offence committed by the untalented. However this is to misinterpret graffiti as purely art. To many people, it’s not only an artform, but a way to put your stamp on a neighbourhood, or even a rejection of society altogether : anti-establishment, anti-social, even anti-art.
Graffiti has forever been a clandestine activity, even though the effects are very much public facing. The targeted audience is often unbeknown. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to a single person? To the public at large? Perhaps it’s simply uncalled-for and out of nothing else to do.
Whatever the causes, there seems to be some kind of enduring demand to spray graffiti. Some city councils have acknowledged that graffiti isn’t a fad, so they’ve marked off areas where graffiti is allowed – normally unoccupied areas, but from time to time busier zones like boarding around urban construction sites.
