The Writing on the Wall is Stupid
Like a well-woven tapestry or epic oil painting, it has the power to inspire and amaze. Like a broken window, it can drag a bad neighborhood deeper into disrepair and violence. It can be found in the ruins of Pompeii and on the sides of traincars and is constantly evolving, the same piece taking thousands of shapes before being whitewashed over, creating a clean canvas where there was once a work of art or work of vandalism.
Graffiti IS a divisive subject purely because it’s a purely subjective form of public art, often displayed in places that will get the most attention, and sometimes to the dismay of onlookers or property owners. Sometimes, tagging can actually increase the value of the tagged surface (anytime Banksy goes to work, for example). Most of the time, graffiti actually lowers property value and adds to (or creates) a decline in property value, which is why street artists are generally on the wrong side of the law, engaging in elaborate planning rituals in order to evade the brass while still getting the word out about…whatever they want.
The word ‘graffiti’ is actually derived from the Italian word graffito, which means ‘a scribbling,’ and that’s what the vast majority of graffiti in the world is: a quick scribble by someone, wanting to leave their mark, proving they were there. This person not only existed, but they left something behind, so even when they are gone and dead the world will have been impacted by their presence.
And because of the excessive amounts of ‘street scribbling’ out there, a lot of times the truly impactful street art gets buried under a sea of quickly-scrawled names or short phrases that mean nothing to anyone but the ‘artist’ and his or her friends. It’s this kind of non-committal lettering that gives graffiti a bad name, making it the target of mayoral edicts and concerned parents everywhere. If these exhibitionistic scribblers would take some time on their work…put some real thought into it and make something work presenting to the public, something that would really impact those who view it and move them to change, act, or simply be moved, then more people’s work would be treated like Banksy’s is in his hometown of Bristol: any vandalism of his, ah, vandalism, is against the law by city mandate.