Maybe put it on a canvas instead of someone’s property, and we can all be happy.
who paying for these canvases or the art programs so these kids can have that? Why should it matter if these run down buildings that never get fixed up anyway get graffiti’d?
Therein lies the issue. Art programs, both visual and performance based, are the first programs to be cut. Canvas ain’t cheap. Neither are the supplies. Much of the graffiti that takes place IS on buildings that are run down. The gov’t didn’t place any value on these properties and yet get pissy with dudes “vandalizing” their shit. You can’t have it both ways, ya dig.
My father was a garment contractor in LA. In the late 80s, he owned the building where he had his factory. He thought it would be a cool idea to commission local graffiti artists, usually young Black and Latino men looking to stay out of trouble, to paint murals on his buildings. After all, he runs a garment design/manufacturing company, and creative signage is great advertising.
One day, he showed up to the building and the city just painted over the murals without permission or notice.
First, the city told him he couldn’t have graffiti art on HIS building because it brought down property value. After he complained, then they said: ok you can do this, but you need a permit. After he got the permit, then the city said: ok, but you can only use these artists. Of course, these artists were all White graphic design students from USC, and of course they charged 3x more.
There is a prejudice against this type of art, and it’s racial. Banksy vandalizes folks buildings all the time, and folks treat him like the Messiah. He ain’t doing nothing new that Black and Brown folks haven’t done for decades.
This whole post…I just find it really interesting! And sad, too, but good thing to read.
The whole “put it on canvas instead of property” thing is bullshit because:
- Who the fuck said canvas is the only proper medium for art? It’s been going for millennia without it. If all you have to bring to the table is the demand for canvases, your criteria are arbitrary as fuck, and I wonder why that is. Are you about to call a fresco vandalism? No? Hmm…
- A lot of graffiti is commissioned now, an example of which being mentioned above. Again, I note that the above argument and comment didn’t even take that into account. The assumption was that the piece, or that graffiti on the whole wasn’t. You can’t really claim that graffiti isn’t an art form because it’s vandalism, because graffiti isn’t always vandalism. Period. End of. You want to criticize the practice of creating pieces without permission of the property owner? Fine. But that doesn’t make the actual artistry and skill involved any less valid, any more than “traditional” art would be invalidated by stolen supplies.
- Artistic vandalism is a thing. The act of vandalism can in and of itself be art insofar as it is a form of expression designed to evoke an emotional response. It’s also been a thing for ages. So, just, wtf.
- Art is a lot of things. A lot of things fall under art. Often, however, what gets validated and authenticated as “true art“ reflects racist, classist, sexist, and colonialist ideas about the artist as much as if not more than the piece itself. There are still people who think Basquiat wasn’t an artist, while licking Warhol’s feet. Graffiti isn’t art, but found objects are? Duchamp can literally just sign a urinal with a pseudonym, call it art, and that piece gets declared ”the most influential artwork of the 20th century,” but the above graffiti artist… isn’t one. Okay. I’m sure there’s no eurocentrism or racism at work here.
In conclusion:
The (coded) racist underpinnings of that argument are transparent as fuck, and if anyone who uses it doesn’t realize that, it’s only because they drank their own kool-aide. Which seems to be not at all uncommon when it comes to racist apologetics.
Anyway. Fuck off with that.
