Graffiti has encountered a mixed press over recent years. On the one hand, creatives like Banksy have made walls a place to put a political point across, using stencils to create challenging graphics with political points attached. This sort of graffiti was certain to become popular with both the public and the art critics : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This form of graffiti is now even bought as prints on canvas, and hung on the walls of middleclass households and office meeting rooms.

However, what of the everyday sort – the tagger, the gangbanger sort – this is just seen as antisocial, an offence committed by the talentless. But is graffiti just an artform? To many people, it’s not just an artform, but a method to put your stamp on territory, or even a two finger salute : anti-establishment, anti-social, even anti-art.

Graffiti has forever been a covert pursuit, even though the effects are very much public facing. The intended audience is often unknown. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to an individual? To the public? Maybe it’s simply gratuitous and out of nothing else to do.

Whatever the causes, there appears to be some kind of enduring demand to spray graffiti. Some city councils have admitted that graffiti isn’t a short-term craze, so they’ve marked off areas where graffiti is permitted – normally derelict areas, but now and then more civic areas like temporary boarding surrounding inner city buildings under construction.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 5th, 2009 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Beaux Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.