Fivedays Old Graffiti
In the wash up today I’d just like to add a few further thoughts to the previous writings by adding that in the context of the previous writings and thoughts, graffiti in the form of spray can art is art.
It has form, colour, and other base properties as well as an arrangement of these elements into structures that qualify it aesthetically as being art. Just doing something with spray paint might make it graffiti, but it does not necessarily qualify it as art or graffiti art.
In addition, when the spray can art is analysed according to the artist’s intention and value to audience, there is even more evidence to suggest that it is genuine art. The only obstacle that has hindered the general acceptance of graffiti art is its location and presentation.
However, the instances of acceptance of graffiti art by the art world shows that conventional methods of presentation are not all that matters in determining if something is art. Graffiti art is not to be disqualified as art simply because it might appear unsolicited. In short, graffiti in the form of spray can art is art like any other work that might be found in a gallery or a museum.”
On home turf, N.Z’s graffiti roots were described by Peter McLennan in his article ‘Bombing Shelter – Graffiti Art in Aotearoa’ (Pavement Magazine) as hitting New Zealand after a documentary called Style Wars (the landmark 1983 documentary chronicling the throes of New York’s subway graffiti era) was screened here in 1983 or early ’84.
Artist DLT (Darryl Thompson) goes on to point out that it evoked in him, feelings about society and the system i.e. the result of being an outcast, a cultural outcast which is a political outcast. It’s a way of attacking the system that has denied you.
That’s what I used it for; that’s how it affected me. It had little to do with self-promotion because, at that age, when I was 17, I didn’t think that I was going to be capable of anything significant in society. I wasn’t a cricket player; I wasn’t a First XV rugby player; I didn’t play the guitar. There weren’t many options. It’s part of what has made us politically aware. We’ve used the medium.”
A good description he’d heard of it is the Puerto Rican and Latino children of New York City painting the grey concrete structures of that city into something that more resembles their own culture, which is very colourful, vibrant, bright, like a tropical forest. I liked that description ’cause that’s kinda what it is. Basically, you want to put a big-ass colourful design on a horrible grey wall.
He says, in New Zealand, there’s two types of taggers. There’s a writer tagger and there’s a tagger. Tagging is gang-related, as in they just want to hook up their gangs and be known. They want to take over turf, so by way of taking over that turf they leave their tags; like, ‘We’ve been here’.
But the writers are about keeping them up, so they won’t die. Everyone’s got to keep knowing them and respecting them, you know, ’cause they’re there. Once their tag has gone and they’ve stopped writing, then they just die and nobody wants to know that dude. So what keeps a writer up and good inside himself, is someone coming up to him and saying his name and giving him respect. That’s a writer.
The taggers that are gang-related just want fame. They’re not after respect or anything. But a writer will just want respect from another writer. That’s what a writer’s meant to do. Ours is art; theirs is the gang. They want to die; we want to live. We’ll keep on living because we’ll do our art, until we’re old and can’t do it no more. But gangs want to do their tags and they can die the next day, just because of their tag.
“With graffing, everyone’s doing it,” continues Truce. “That’s why young kids get into it. The reason why we do it is ’cause it’s another way of expressing what we feel. It’s something we enjoy doing, besides working. It’s like another way of beating the system, doing something we love which the system don’t.”
McLennan went on to say that, “a few other guys I spoke to on the Tag-Free Zone course mentioned the trouble tagging causes. It’s like trouble between everybody, admits one. Tagging makes fights, cops, go to prison. If you get caught tagging by a cop, soon as you get back to the cells, they just give you the hell bash. You think they’d go after proper criminals.
We’re not criminals. We’re just trying to express our art, express what we believe in. We express our art. That’s our own way of getting fame. Other guys, they do stupid stuff like cause fights all the time.”
Graffing and tagging are still widely perceived in the public eye as vandalism. Dot Barrington, the Waitakere City scheme’s coordinator, says public reaction to the boys’ work varies. “Some people want to cut their fingers off. I can sympathise with that. A little can of spray paint can do up to $10,000 damage.
Then there are others who think it’s great. What this course is about is telling these kids you can be whatever you want to be, you just have to want it. It’s not just about self-esteem, it’s about doing it for yourself.” Those thoughts in mind, I’ll be back with a couple more installments because the topic is as broad as it is deep.
RELATED
1. JR’s TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out
2. DVD: Exit through the Gift Shop
* This is 5 of a 6 part blog. The NEXT blog is entitled ‘Sixdays Old Graffiti’
