Legal Venues Celebrate Graffiti as an
Art Form
Eric Felisbret is the author of "Graffiti New York" and the co-founder of the graffiti history
website @149st.
UPDATED JULY 16, 2014, 5:50 PM
There are two types of graffiti: “bombing,” which is volume-based, with writers aiming to tag as
many places as possible, and there is “burning,” which is an artistic enterprise.
It's easy to draw the line legally for both because it all boils down to permission. If you don’t have
permission to write or paint, it is a crime. The law does not distinguish between a Rembrandt-caliber
painting and an intentional act of vandalism.
Graffiti painters in New York's Inwood
neighborhood were invited by the landlord to decorate a building in 2010. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
And yet, modern graffiti is widely acknowledged as art. It has been exhibited in museums and art
galleries across the world since its earliest stages.
From the perspective of a graffiti writer, the debate about whether graffiti is art or crime is pointless
because, ideally, it is both. In the graffiti community a writer cannot achieve status solely based on
artistic ability. The writer must also be willing to work outside the law and assume great risk. The
movement — which I have been documenting in New York for over 30 years — was founded on this
principle and it defines its essence.
For almost 20 years, from 1971 to 1989, New York City subway trains served as the ideal canvas. The
privacy of train yards and tunnels provided an environment where artists could devote the time they
required to create aesthetically pleasing work. The environment was often dark and cramped, with
risks far more serious than arrest. Electrocution and dismemberment were always possibilities —
thus assuring that only the artists most committed to their craft would thrive.
In the late 1980s, when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority managed to control graffiti on the
subway, painting murals on walls with permission became more popular.
Legal venues for the art form are great – they allow artists to perfect their works and, perhaps get
paid for them – but there are drawbacks as well. Few legal venues allow for complete creative
freedom and many purists in the graffiti community feel that paintings created with permission lack
the spirit and intensity that can only result from painting under pressure. A well-executed painting,
rendered under adverse conditions and time constraints, is far more impressive than one undertaken
without risk.
I lament the destruction of great legal venues like the 5Pointz building in Queens, and celebrate the
existence of movements like the Bushwick Collective that put up murals in Brooklyn.
Cities should work to create and preserve legal venues where aspiring artists, who want to stay safe,
can work and paint. The explosion of art adorning 5Pointz brought tourists to the area and
international acclaim.
There would be fewer examples of graffiti art in this city without the legal venues, and we should
push for more of them. Even then, I truly miss seeing real graffiti in its purest form.
Graffiti Is Young, Cool, Creative – Let
It Happen
Lady Pink is an artist and muralist.
UPDATED JULY 11, 2014, 6:15 PM
Last summer, the New York Police department barged into my house in Queens, arrested my
husband on vandalism charges and took away art supplies, photo archives and many of my prized
possessions while I watched for hours, powerless to stop them.
For a few years in the early 1980s, I made my name as a graffiti artist, painting on the New York
subways. But since then, I have been working on commission instead, making a living as an artist
and muralist through a company I started with my husband.
A mural by Lady Pink at the Bronx
Museum. Lady Pink
This was not the first time I had been raided by the police – I successfully fended off charges 10 years
ago – but I don’t know what set it off this time. It could have been publicity around a book called "We
Own the Night" that features the work of about 100 street artists in an abandoned subway station: one
page of artwork was wrongly attributed to my husband, Roger, who was arrested for graffiti when he
was young. To this day the police have not returned my archives, CDs, photos or artwork. They have
over 800 cans of my spray-paint and they took almost a hundred books from my shelves.
This is all to say: Graffiti scares this city. They say that artists like me and my husband just inspire
young people to become vandals.
If graffiti is inspiring, it's because it's fun, cool and does not take formal training. Young kids who
paint on the walls are screaming to be heard and, yes, we all started that way. My husband and I have
to clean graffiti off of my property from time to time, but I see it as the price we all pay for urban
living. A bit of rebellion is something we should champion as a society. Somebody has to question the
status quo – or we'll grow stagnant.
I, for one, would also rather see the creative outpouring of our youth on the walls instead of the
billboards and advertising inflicted upon us around every corner.
The art world has already acknowledged the value of it. Street art has become wildly marketable and
is celebrated by institutions like the Brooklyn Museumand the Museum of the City of New York, which
has a show up this summer.
By encouraging kids to create art in this medium – and not just tag their names across walls – we
could empower generations. Who knows? They might even be able to make a living doing what they
love.
Graffiti Is Always Vandalism
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing
editor of City Journal.
UPDATED DECEMBER 4, 2014, 9:16 AM
Anyone who glorifies graffiti needs to answer one question: If your home were tagged during the
night without your consent, would you welcome the new addition to your décor or would you
immediately call a painter, if not the police?
No institution that has celebrated graffiti in recent years — like the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los
Angeles or the Museum of the City of New York — would allow its own premises to be defaced for even
one minute. Graffiti is something that one celebrates, if one is juvenile enough to do so, when it
shows up on someone else’s property but never on one’s own.
New Yorkers riding the graffiti-bombed
subway in 1973. Eddie Hausner/The New York Times
The question “When does graffiti become art?” is meaningless. Graffiti is always vandalism. By
definition it is committed without permission on another person's property, in an adolescent display
of entitlement. Whether particular viewers find any given piece of graffiti artistically compelling is
irrelevant. Graffiti’s most salient characteristic is that it is a crime.
John Lindsay, the progressive New York politician who served as mayor from 1966 to 1973, declared
war on graffiti in 1972. He understood that graffiti signaled that informal social controls and law
enforcement had broken down in New York’s public spaces, making them vulnerable to even greater
levels of disorder and law-breaking. A 2008 study from the Netherlands has shown that physical
disorder and vandalism have a contagious effect, confirming the "broken windows theory."
There is nothing “progressive” about allowing public amenities to be defaced by graffiti; anyone who
can avoid a graffiti-bombed park or commercial thoroughfare will do so, since tagging shows that an
area is dominated by vandals who may be involved in other crimes as well.
New York’s conquest of subway graffiti in the late 1980s was the first sign in decades that the city
was still governable; that triumph over lawlessness paved the way for the urban renaissance that
followed.
Graffiti Is a Public Good, Even As It
Challenges the Law
Lu Olivero is the director of Aerosol Carioca and the author of the forthcoming "Cidade Grafitada: A
Journey Inside Rioʼs Graffiti Culture."
UPDATED JULY 11, 2014, 6:15 PM
Vandalism is expression and that is what makes it art. Graffiti, a vandalism sub-genre, is
differentiated by its aesthetics, or its message.
However, graffiti straddles the line between pure art and pure vandalism. Though graffiti represents
a challenge to the law — and sometimes serves as social commentary about the subjectivity of laws —
it can simultaneously serve a public good through its nuanced social commentary and its artistry.
Lu Olivero
The arbitrary nature of how graffiti is removed or preserved highlights an interesting dissonance: the
social-political oligarchy rejects the artist, and the conditions that create the art, unless the art is
somehow accepted on the establishment’s terms. Enter Banksy: a British street artist, and selfdescribed vandal, who has become a celebrated figure in the world of elite art.
Banksy’s work has unintentionally reignited the “art or vandalism” debate: though the British
government has been vigilant in removing his trademark stencil art, labeling it “vandalism,” his
original works and knockoffs haveskyrocketed in price over the last decade. His work is often highly
satirical of establishment rules and politics. Why is it that Banksy’s work is gobbled up by the same
people he is critical of — yet his contemporaries are looked at as “criminals"? Why are they judged so
differently?
Thirty years ago hip-hop music was labeled “noise,” and graffiti will follow the same trajectory.
Perceptions about street art have already drastically changed.
For example, in Brazil, during late 1990s, it was common for graffiti artists to be harassed or shot at
by the police. Today, many of the same officers support graffiti initiatives for city beautification, and
as a crime deterrent. They understand that graffiti can be a career opportunity for youth in lowincome neighborhoods. The growth of graffiti in Brazil, and its role in challenging the status quo,
demonstrates the power of art, and its ability to create dialogue.
In the city of Rio de Janeiro, many leading street artists have put graffiti to good use for social
development, founding art schools in low-income neighborhoods and partnering with the police to
paint murals in run-down areas. They host large events and festivals, which bring in tourists.
It has had such an effect that this year the mayor of Rio announced thelegalization of graffiti on city
property that is not historical.
The truth is that despite the acceptance of graffiti, it needs the law so that it can function outside of
it. This is where innovation is born, and this is what pushes the art to evolve. Had graffiti artists in
Brazil painted inside the lines of the law, many internationally acclaimed artists would never have
existed.
Some people may not like the message, or how it is manifested, but that doesn’t mean the message –
and the medium – don’t have value.
Graffiti: is it art or vandalism?
Toronto sets up official panel and the wrangling starts over what to preserve
By Larry Humber. Web only
Published online: 07 November 2012
Toronto's Graffiti Alley
Toronto is taking a hard look at street art, going so far as to create an official fivemember Graffiti Panel, made up of city staffers with backgrounds in “the arts, urban
design, architecture and other relevant disciplines”, which met for the first time on 2
November. The first session was contentious but civil, with panel members facing off
against property owners who were appealing notices of violation for “markings” on their
buildings. “Even if it’s Picasso, you’re not allowed to paint on other people’s walls,” says
Elyse Parker, a city official who is leading Toronto’s crackdown on graffiti.
At the same time, the city has begun to open its eyes to street art, realising that there is
something of merit in the best of it. Toronto’s council has already given its blessing to what is
known as Graffiti Alley, a series of colourful backstreets only a few blocks from City Hall. David
Liss, the director of Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, who also has some
background in street art, applauds the move. “Certainly the Queen West Alley has some great
work, so I’m in favour of preservation,” he says. “Maybe they could start marketing it as a tourist
attraction.”
The Graffiti Panel considered nine controversial sites at its first meeting. It was careful to avoid
the word “art”, almost as if were an obscenity. “Questioning what is art is what we wanted to get
away from,” says Parker.
However, the term would regularly creep into the discussions. At one point, the head of the
panel Glen Sharp referred to a work under scrutiny as “art”, then corrected himself, saying,
“Excuse me, I mean graffiti.” He also made reference to “the artist” more than once. A panel
member subsequently referred to “the art pieces”.
Reaching a consensus will be difficult. One building owner appeared with his lawyer to defend
his graffiti covered walls, more than happy to let them stay. The panel wasn’t so sure, first
opting to defer judgement, then reopening the matter before deferring it yet again. The owner
was asked to reappear at the next session on 30 November. “You can’t win,” he said.
The panel had only photographs of the works to look at, and judging the subject matter could be
difficult. “I’m concerned about what the character is holding in his hand,” said one member
about a lion figure waving an unidentifiable object. Additional photographs were requested for
the next session, to be provided 18 days before the panel sits again. But who is to say graffiti
artists won’t revisit the site in the intervening time?
“If anyone thinks that an official programme will reduce graffiti, they’re sadly mistaken,” says
Liss. “Many graffiti artists will intentionally not participate and continue working unsanctioned.
There is a strain of thought among certain graffiti artists and taggers to ‘destroy’ and vandalise,
while others see their markings as a way to claim space from ever-increasing corporate control.”