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.