Post by Catherine on Dec 8, 2006 18:16:45 GMT -5
Thought this might be interested to read......
A Debate on Graffiti
By: Adrienne Robertson
Who gets to decide what is nice to look at and what isn’t?
In Canada, it’s the councillors in various municipalities. And in most major cities, they’ve decided that graffiti is not one of those things they’d like to look at. That makes it vandalism. But to thousands of work-by-night taggers and painters, graffiti is art.
Ironically, councillors don’t want to look at graffiti, so they force us to be bombarded by ads trying to sell us shampoo, electronics, clothes and food. City councillors in Toronto allow postering all over the city; it is impossible to walk down the street without casting your eye on an advertisement. They would much rather commercialize our already affluent society than add more culture to it. Canadian cities are so diverse and local artists should not be censored simply because their art does not appeal to the masses. Whose art does appeal to everyone?
“Art” has never been an easily defined word: even some of the world’s most famous artists all had their own definitions. Vincent Van Gogh once said that in drawing, “it is absolutely essential to be able to draw the proportions correctly and to position the objects fairly confidently before you start. If you make a mistake here, it will all come to nothing,” while Henri Matisse said, “I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation”. Does Matisse’s definition not apply to almost any art or form of painting, including graffiti?
When Picasso came on the scene, he was criticized and people hated his art. He was free to create it because he was doing it on his own property with his own resources. Had he been scrambling faces on the sides of buildings, he would have been persecuted much like today’s graffiti artists.
Graffiti is public art, but it can also infringe on the rights of property owners. While rules against altering or painting privately owned businesses are reasonable, the public sphere could have different regulations to accommodate graffiti. If there were more designated open and free spaces, taggers could take advantage of legal spaces and share their work with other members of the public. Don’t like someone’s design? Put up your own. Legal graffiti sites could serve as open forums for public art, but right now the negativity surrounding graffiti dubs it all as vandalism – and there is a difference.
Vandalism is the destruction of property. In many cases, graffiti enhances otherwise dull, drab and dirty spaces. It can’t be argued that the blank underside of a bridge is more interesting to look at than a creative, colourful and unique graffiti design – which does nothing to destruct or deface the bridge.
Recent years have seen more support from government. Style in Progress is an organization in Toronto that supports graffiti and serves as a community for artists. In 2005, the City of Toronto awarded the organization a grant to paint 10 Bell telephone boxes around the city. Forty more were added this past spring. The telephone boxes now serve as eye-catching and inspiring street art. They don’t sell us anything and are not associated with a product.
However, many graffiti artists live for the thrill of hiding out and working in the middle of the night. Part of the art is not getting caught and competing for the most visible, hard-to-access to spots and the mode of thinking is that if it’s not illegal, it’s not graffiti.
But it’s still always art.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Websites to check out if you are interested in the art side of graffiti:
www.styleinprogress.ca
www.signalproject.com
www.themuralsofwinnipeg.com
posted on Friday, October 13, 2006 9:10 PM by Youthography
A Debate on Graffiti
By: Adrienne Robertson
Who gets to decide what is nice to look at and what isn’t?
In Canada, it’s the councillors in various municipalities. And in most major cities, they’ve decided that graffiti is not one of those things they’d like to look at. That makes it vandalism. But to thousands of work-by-night taggers and painters, graffiti is art.
Ironically, councillors don’t want to look at graffiti, so they force us to be bombarded by ads trying to sell us shampoo, electronics, clothes and food. City councillors in Toronto allow postering all over the city; it is impossible to walk down the street without casting your eye on an advertisement. They would much rather commercialize our already affluent society than add more culture to it. Canadian cities are so diverse and local artists should not be censored simply because their art does not appeal to the masses. Whose art does appeal to everyone?
“Art” has never been an easily defined word: even some of the world’s most famous artists all had their own definitions. Vincent Van Gogh once said that in drawing, “it is absolutely essential to be able to draw the proportions correctly and to position the objects fairly confidently before you start. If you make a mistake here, it will all come to nothing,” while Henri Matisse said, “I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation”. Does Matisse’s definition not apply to almost any art or form of painting, including graffiti?
When Picasso came on the scene, he was criticized and people hated his art. He was free to create it because he was doing it on his own property with his own resources. Had he been scrambling faces on the sides of buildings, he would have been persecuted much like today’s graffiti artists.
Graffiti is public art, but it can also infringe on the rights of property owners. While rules against altering or painting privately owned businesses are reasonable, the public sphere could have different regulations to accommodate graffiti. If there were more designated open and free spaces, taggers could take advantage of legal spaces and share their work with other members of the public. Don’t like someone’s design? Put up your own. Legal graffiti sites could serve as open forums for public art, but right now the negativity surrounding graffiti dubs it all as vandalism – and there is a difference.
Vandalism is the destruction of property. In many cases, graffiti enhances otherwise dull, drab and dirty spaces. It can’t be argued that the blank underside of a bridge is more interesting to look at than a creative, colourful and unique graffiti design – which does nothing to destruct or deface the bridge.
Recent years have seen more support from government. Style in Progress is an organization in Toronto that supports graffiti and serves as a community for artists. In 2005, the City of Toronto awarded the organization a grant to paint 10 Bell telephone boxes around the city. Forty more were added this past spring. The telephone boxes now serve as eye-catching and inspiring street art. They don’t sell us anything and are not associated with a product.
However, many graffiti artists live for the thrill of hiding out and working in the middle of the night. Part of the art is not getting caught and competing for the most visible, hard-to-access to spots and the mode of thinking is that if it’s not illegal, it’s not graffiti.
But it’s still always art.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Websites to check out if you are interested in the art side of graffiti:
www.styleinprogress.ca
www.signalproject.com
www.themuralsofwinnipeg.com
posted on Friday, October 13, 2006 9:10 PM by Youthography