410 Forum — Opinion
Graffiti More Than Pictures
By Dan Mauro
The need to express is the drive that led many artists throughout history to create their masterpieces. Whether it was Leonardo da Vinci freeing his sculptures from marble or Andy Warhol painting the same soup can over and over, artists have a story to tell, and expression is their muse. Sometimes, that form of expression can blur the lines between art and vandalism. Graffiti is one such expression.
Coming from the Latin word graphium and the more recent Italian graffito, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, graffiti is a design that has either been sketched or spray painted onto the side of a building. Even though some crude and tasteless images result from graffiti, it needs to be seen as a form of art rather than senseless vandalism. The location of the canvas does not change the expression behind the piece.
The problem about graffiti is that most people do not see beyond the defacing of a public building or the thought that a gang has moved into town. They stare right at the offense, seeing it as nothing more. This group of people sees graffiti as a form of vandalism and not expression.
Case in point, the Greeley Police Department classifies graffiti as the warning sign that a gang is taking over the neighborhood. The gang leaves this warning to rival gangs and members of the community. This warning can create violence between the gangs and unrest in the community. Another problem created by graffiti is that it leads to a lack of funds. It costs money to remove these offenses. Painting over graffiti or simply removing the paint is money that can be better devoted to libraries, roads, and greener grass.
A simple message of a dying Earth spray-painted onto a wall will then become a warning to other gangs, and another reason why the tires of my bike are dented from the pothole on my street.
But that isn’t everything that graffiti stands for.
Like its more ancient traditional art counterpart, graffiti carries a message. Whether it is the political stylings of England’s Banksy, or a homeless person writing a message to warn other homeless people in that area, graffiti artists use public space to advertise their message, a form of free speech for those with no money. The messages can span a wide spectrum, the two most popular categories, of course, being politics and religion.
There are many different styles of graffiti. Each style shows the traditional elements of art and pushes them further. The message of the dying Earth can be painted as a modern theme, a space theme, or an old-timey theme. Generations of graffiti artists passed on the knowledge of what worked best and what hasn’t worked out so well. This knowledge of technique and execution sets graffiti apart from vandalism. There are only so many times you can knock a mailbox off of its post, evolution withstanding.
Crispin Sartwell, a philosophy professor, argues in his essay, “Graffiti is a Traditional Art”, that Art is process. The process of applying pigments to canvas becomes painting, and the process of forming clay becomes pottery. In this same sense, spray-painting on a wall would become art. Many graffiti murals, known as pieces, do not get painted without planning. It can take months of proper planning and a long period of time to execute a well-formed plan. Vandalism can occur within minutes and never exceeds a long period of time, the police force makes sure of that.
Within the context of graffiti, there is a fine line between art and vandalism. As long as the piece contains effort and a message, it should be considered as a form of art. If that piece was created within minutes to showcase somebody’s gang or their initials, it shouldn’t be labeled as art but as vandalism.
Self-expression drives the artist in every sense. Whether that expression is found on a canvas or a building, it shouldn’t matter. Vandalism or the lack of extremely green grass is a small price to pay when expressing a message. Maybe that message will help out in the long run. What matters is that through expression their message becomes known and not ignored. For your sake and my bike’s.
