Graffiti is Art

Susan Phillips (1996) explains in The Dictionary of Art that "because it is impossible to limit or regulate the resources that are available, graffiti as an art form and expressive medium is expandable, flexible, and difficult to control.". Regardless if the government considers this a crime or not, they have no way of regulating the consistency of it because of all that is so easily available like spray paints, paint cans, paint brushes, etc. Parents buy these items for their kids school art projects so what makes it any different for a graffiti artist to buy them? Their kids are using the art supplies in the same way as the graffiti artist but are sometimes just in different locations or on different canvases. No one ever called a kids school project a criminal offense, it is just seen as a creative aspect to unleash and express themselves. That is what graffiti is for graffiti artists. As long as they don't use their talent to their advantage and vandalize personal property, society will start acknowledging graffiti in a more positive light. 

If the artists are given opportunities to show that what they are doing is truly an art form then people will start believing them. In Minneapolis, one outside wall of a market was covered in tags and graffiti artists were asked to create a mural on top of it to promote 'beautiful art'. "What they're doing is doing their art and being passionate about it ... and beautifying this community" (Pohland, 2007) 

When we take all of the politics out of the whole controversy of graffiti, we can see that it really is an art form and one that should be celebrated and passed on through tradition and teachings. "When a cave is discovered with ancient drawings on the wall it isn't considered graffiti. It's considered artwork and a part of history. In reality, isn't that all graffiti in the 21st century is? People creating art and displaying our times history should not be considered a crime, but rejoiced." (Graves, 2007)

References

Ali, S. (2004) Graffiti- art or crime? Retrieved September 23, 2009 from http://www.shamsali.org/taj/2004/graffiti.html

Castleman, C. (1984) Getting up: subway graffiti in New York. Retrieved August 25, 2009 from http://books.google.co.nz/books 

Graves, T. (2007) Graffiti is not vandalism. Retrieved September  23, 2009 from http://media.www.deltacollegian.com/media/storage/paper320/news/2007/10/17/Voice/Graffiti.Is.Not.Vandalism-3038468.shtml

Ferrel, J. (1993) Crimes of style: urban graffiti and the politics of criminality. Retrieved August 25, 2009 from http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol3is4/style.html

Phillips, S. (1996) Graffiti definition: the dictionary of art. Retrieved August 25, 2009 from http://www.graffiti.org/faq/graf.def.html

Pogrebin, M. (2004) About criminals: a view of the offender’s world. Retrieved August 25, 2009 from http://books.google.co.nz/books 

Pohland, D. (2007) Neighborhood controversy, graffiti or art? Retrieved August 25, 2009 from http://wcco.com/topstories/graffiti.riverside.Market.2.364051.html

Prudent, J. (2009) Graffiti an expressive controversy. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.thepenn.org/2.3671/graffiti-an-expressive-controversy-1.432861

Bomb Art

Id like to start this post by saying bomb art is called bomb ART for a reason. It is not called bomb CRIME, so that in itself should explain why it should be considered an art form. But if you arent sold on that, heres some more convincing.

"Its remarkable growth also increasingly incorporates kids from outside the ethnic and economic framework of its orginators" (Ferrell 2204, p. 34)

Bomb art has evolved greatly since it was first created and is becoming more widely acknowledged and accepted throughout the world. It is used in different medias such as; films, music videos, television and fashion. Certain pieces of  work are even sold for thousands of dollars in art galleries, which is talked about in the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. The word 'pieces' derived from the word 'masterpiece'. No one would give anything such a title if it wasn't worthy of it. Bomb art can be considered similar to masterpieces from legendary artists such as Andy Warhol and Picasso. It is made up of creative artistic components to create stories through images. 

I was once driving in LA with a quite conservative family who I would assume would be one the type of people who consider graffiti a crime. This is how the story went...

We were driving along the freeway and passing through a tunnel where the walls were completely covered in bomb art. The child said to the mother, "woah cool mom! look at that", pointing to the piece. The mother then replied "wow, that is incredible", she taps her husband on the shoulder and says "look honey, I want some art work like that in our house". Chuckling to myself, I then replied to her "I didn't know you liked graffiti"! She then assured me that "this isn't graffiti, graffiti is for those gang people, this is a painting". 

This is a perfect example of why people think bomb art, and graffiti in general is a crime. It is because they don't understand it. Bomb art may look like those thousand dollar paintings that rich couples pick out to hang on the wall of their beautiful new homes, and ideally it can be, but it really is just plain old graffiti. The same type of graffiti that is being banned in most of the world. The same type of graffiti that artists are getting thrown in jail for. The same kind of graffiti that originated from ghetto areas in New York decades ago. THIS IS ART. "How is it that some people can tolerate thousands of flashy, obnoxious and jarring commercials that bombard us on a daily basis and yet are disturbed by graffiti?" (WebUrbanists, n.d.) Graffiti is not a crime. Bomb art is an addition to the beauty in the world. I think that people should be thanking graffiti artists for adding color and imagination to our lives rather then forming anti graffiti organizations who rip down their work. 

Here are some amazing bomb art murals for your viewing pleasure! 

Throw ups

When bboying (break dancing) started becoming popular, throw ups started to appear on bricks walls and subways. With the growth of the hip hop culture and inspiration from new music videos, graffiti artists started realizing that throw ups were cool and they no longer felt the need to vandalize by tagging all over the place. Former city council president Sanforf Garlik described graffiti as "one of the worst forms of pollution we have to combat" and because of this, according to Craig Castleman (1984), the government spend over $150 million try to erase graffiti and promote anti graffiti programs. 

Throw ups are the most common form of graffiti and are even given specific walls from the government to perform their work on. One of the most famous places that this takes place is in Venice beach in California. Graffiti artists are given the opportunity to display their skills and show off their creativity. I believe that throw ups are an amazing outlet for the artists and that people should recognize it as something parallel to dancing or playing instruments, where people create something beautiful to express themselves and share it to the world for other peoples enjoyment and appreciation. 

I have seen some incredible throw ups that have inspired me not only to try this art form myself, but inspired me to continue on with what I love to do and to keep pushing and working hard so my own creations can become that amazing and inspirational to other people. In this case, there is no reason why such a motivational thing, such as grafitti throw ups, should be considered a crime. Throw ups are an art form that will continue to grow and hopefully will be recognized for the extreme talent and heart put behind them!

Tagging

Tagging is the form of graffiti which is mostly discriminated against. Penn Staff Writer Jacques Prudent (2009) explains that it started in 1960’s from two people by the names of Cornbread and Cool Earl, as a way to get their name out there. People would literally write their names on any property they could, not caring if they got in trouble for it, so they would get recognized. Tagging is the side of graffiti that would be considered as vandalism because people preform it on other people’s property without their permission. As everyone knows, vandalism is, and should be, considered a crime. Richard Lachmann (1995) speaks in his article "Crimes of Style" about graffiti  vandalism and how the government has dealt with it. He says that the Mayor Koch "ordered the cars on one subway line painted white (making those cars in fact more vulnerable to graffiti) just so he could hold a press conference and announce that his administration would "keep the subways white" (Lachmann, 1995).

Tagging does not have much creativity to it as it is merely a quickly scribbled down name, not to be admired. Tagging was the first style of graffiti and it is shown through its simplistic form. It was the starting grounds for many innovative graffiti artists and was what inspired them to develop their own styles and use their abilities in a positive way, through throw ups and bomb art. People can achieve graffiti murals without first learning how to tag, so tagging is not a necessary part of becoming a graffiti artist, but it is always good to know its roots. I believe that tagging should be a crime if done without permission on other peoples properties but I do not think that it should stop graffiti artists in any way from creating incredible pieces of work through throw ups and bomb art. 

Graffiti: Crime or Art Form?

Should graffiti be considered a crime or celebrated as an art form? I think to really answer this question appropriately, we need to investigate graffiti through more specific categories. People who are not a part of the hip hop culture, or don’t even have at least an understanding for it, tend to generalize graffiti and look at it right away as gang related or violating property. But they do not understand that graffiti does not only consist of violating property and gang names being spray painted on a wall to claim ownership of an area, but it has developed so much to the point that graffiti pieces are being sold in art galleries for hundreds of dollars. "To an extent, some graffiti is used in a positive way to get a message across or to remember someone -- that I would consider an art form. I think when people just tag walls and stuff, it tends to look trashy." (Young, 2003). As Young explained, while some forms of graffiti may be looked at poorly, there are also other forms that have brought new light to culture and proved themselves to be worthy of being considered art. Graffiti can be categorized as three main sections which are tagging, throw ups, and bomb art. I find bomb art and throw ups to be incredible pieces of work which are definitely an art form in my mind, but I do agree that tagging can be considered a crime.

Graffiti Artist Image