By Beauty Damned

Essay

Graffiti Art?

All art is inherently dependent upon the context in which it is viewed. Of course, there is no single context which qualifies as the right one for art to be viewed in, as different mediums have different contextual demarcations. What makes Graffiti Art particularly unique is that it is meant to be created and viewed both in the same place, not to be created in a studio or brought to completion on a canvas or base which can be moved from one place to another and displayed anywhere. Even large modern sculpture which remains in a fixed space is generally built elsewhere and unveiled at the place of its designation in a manner which says, “This is Art.” Graffiti Art is practiced upon existing surfaces which were generally not designed or intended to be a medium for artistic outlet. In other words, it is art which is usually done on someone else's property without permission.

Graffiti Art typically exists in places which are passed over by the city inured eye. In bathrooms, subways, alleys, the backs of buildings and billboards. We look beyond graffiti to see the landscape that we think we're supposed to be seeing or enjoying: the one off in the distance, “the view.” When you cross the Manhattan Bridge on a subway train, you can look out and see the Brooklyn Bridge running parallel to you and the skyline and the river and boats, even the Statue of Liberty! But if you pull your sight in to what is immediate, that which is closer to your eyes and therefore easier to overlook as it blends into the urban landscape, is graffiti. If you stand close to the doors and look out the windows while passing through the dark tunnels, you can see the writing on the walls. It is everywhere, in fact. Graffiti is not confined to the urban landscape. It is a part of the American landscape at large, as much as it is in other countries such as Germany and England. Graffiti Art covers railroad cars and buildings across this country with relatively benign language in a manner which comes across as rebellious and criminal. In places where graffiti is pervasive, people generally stop noticing it unless it shows up on their property or something about it in particular stands out. Otherwise, we pass over it with our eyes or perhaps occasionally find ourselves drawn in to the lines without realizing what we are staring at. It exists on some other plane. Underground. Beyond normal vision. An extra facet is added to graffiti culture in a place like New York City, where there are tunnels underground, in and out of which trains and commuters travel, but which are also inherently accessible to human beings on foot who carry spray-cans and paint tips with the intent to decorate remote parts of the subterranean mass transit system.

Of course, the big question for many non-graffiti artists would immediately be: “Why?” It's not a bad question, and one that I intend to address, but I also think it would be worth asking: “Who is this art for? How is this artistic expression judged and where does it stand as a 'legitimate' art form?” Graffiti Art is distinctly postmodern, as everything else that we call visual art in this world seems to sink back into modernism at the moment that it is put on to a canvas or placed on a venerable column in a museum or gallery. The very act of putting even the most “postmodern” of art inside of a gallery or museum, or hanging it on a wall in your home, is to display and judge it in the most traditional way known to civilized people and to give it the ultimate validity.

Conversely, Graffiti Art is improvisational, occurring at a certain place and time, and cannot be taken out of its immediate context. It is something which alters existing states of being, leaves an imprint, but cannot be viewed in a “traditional” way due to its criminal connotations and innate immovability. Taken out of context, Graffiti Art becomes something else, not Graffiti Art, but only a depiction of it. A book containing photographs of Graffiti Art such as “Wall and Piece” by Banksy is a documentation of Graffiti Art as it exists in the world around us, and the work depicted is not meant to be owned by anyone, as he states so vehemently in his resistance of copyright ownership on the very first page. The very nature of Graffiti Art is to refuse entrance into a system of artistic judgment and hierarchy by an elite panel of cultural authorities. Seeking ownership and recognition over the work itself in a world which exists anywhere “above” the underground is one step towards submitting to such a system.

Graffiti Art is the only medium and mode of artistic communication and expression which still lies well outside of that purely modern activity of going to the art, walking around and viewing it, buying the art and bringing it home and putting it on your wall and standing back and saying, “That's nice art.” We buy books in bookstores, therefore they are legitimate works. We purchase music in places that specialize in music and have ways of telling us what is “good” or at least “legitimate,” as it is all produced and distributed through “legitimate” sources. Graffiti Art stands outside of all of this and is viewed completely differently. There is no “legitimate” context for it, there is no “audience,” there is not even a way to package it and sell it, as “The Gates” in Central Park were sold in the form of merchandise commemorating the “event.” Its lack of legitimacy in its profound simplicity, is the essence of the graffiti medium. Total impermanence, an attempt to detach from the work itself in case it is deleted with a fresh coat of paint. It could be seen by some as a somewhat nihilistic or even immature activity, as much as it could be seen by others as a genuine attempt to shape and mold the landscape, to be an active participant in the visual aesthetic of real life, hard objects, tangible things, to have a say.

For the average non-graffiti artist or enthusiast, viewing Graffiti Art is not a choice. It is not something that one puts on a nice dress to go and stand in front of or “tour.” It is something which one is forced to see whether choosing to or not. A person's eyes grow to look past it the way that we look past advertisements. In fact, “tags” are much like advertisements, which no doubt exist in practically every tunnel of the New York City Subway system and in every station, a kind of advertisement which is not necessarily meant for anyone other than those who put the advertisements there, as a mode of artistic communication. A “tag” typically consists of no images, but is simply a word written in a certain style signifying the identity of the artist in a way that is only recognized or acknowledged by other artists. A word – to borrow a few of Brooklyn's own examples – such as: “DART,” “LOGO,” or “PHAME,” is written and proliferated upon as many surfaces as the artist is able to achieve with the time, skills, materials and inclination he or she has. One could come to be recognized, especially if they do work that appears skillful to other artists and garners envy and respect or appears to have involved a great deal of risk.

It is clear that the appearance of tags cannot be stopped completely by those who would wish to eliminate graffiti from the landscape, though you certainly couldn't fault the City of New York for a lack of trying. One could watch graffiti removal taking place at all times of day all over the city. But the tags and pieces themselves are often created at a great risk to the artist (as far as criminal charges), which is perhaps as much a part of the allure as it is an occupational hazard. While graffiti artists are not the only artists who take such risks in creating their work, there are few others, and someone such as renowned photographer Spencer Tunick is considered a savant rather than a criminal, even though he too occasionally breaks the law. That is because photography as a medium, at least, is considered a legitimate art form. Graffiti artists are generally viewed by the conservative mainstream culture as lowlife vandals practicing an entirely illegitimate art form. But the mainstream's rejection of it is what gives it a lot of its power, makes it mysterious and exciting to those who write on walls and railroad cars, knowing that someone could be shocked or offended by it, even without the use of any traditionally “offensive” language or images at all.

However, Graffiti Art is not designed simply to shock or offend, but often comes purely from a desire to add something to the landscape as it is at this moment, to change it, to have a hand in the tangible reality which surrounds us all, to mold it and influence it. It is, in a way, an extremely basic mode of self expression and communication. Writing and painting on walls is a way of taking power and it is a way of owning the city or town or place on which one has written their name, and it is a way of building history. Graffiti artists own the city in their secretive silence. They never show their faces, only their tags and pieces. They are anonymous except occasionally to one another, a culture that practically runs parallel to the mainstream, but is not an accepted part of it, except in representations seen in popular culture. That is, mainstream culture is permeated and heavily influenced by the aesthetic of Graffiti Art, commercialized representations of an urban “look” or “feel,” while those who use it (e.g., advertisements for “Kool” cigarettes) do not give it any greater legitimacy as an art form when performed unsanctioned by commercial entities. We live in a culture where there is real Graffiti Art which can only exist in its confined context and somehow lives and breathes underground, outside of the mainstream structure of artistic criticism, and then there is faux-Graffiti Art, which is bought and sold in worldwide commerce on a regular basis.

Unquestionably, art which is seen in a museum or gallery depends upon the approval of an audience and a curator rather than disapproval. In the way that it thrives on dissonance and exists as a challenge to the very context in which “good art” is allowed to exist, Graffiti Art is, again, distinctly postmodern. It struggles with itself for relevance, yet its very nature is to be somewhat irrelevant, as it has no certain or fixed permanence and rarely brings profit to the artist. If a graffiti artist puts up a piece on a side of a building and the owner of that building paints over it, the art is gone. Therefore, graffiti artists inherently relinquish control of their creations the moment they put down the paint can and walk away from the scene of their “crime.” While some “taggers” undoubtedly spray paint on walls for the sheer joy of vandalizing public or private property, it does not appear that the value of the art is negated by any intent. Even if simply a name scrawled out in cryptic letters like “MIGZ” or “SIDER,” written for reasons that are a mystery to the maintenance men doing the job of removing them, these things stand on their own as artifacts, regardless of whether or not a curator or an audience approves of it, and regardless of whether it will still be there tomorrow.

Graffiti Art cannot exist on canvas. The moment that graffiti-style art is put onto a canvas, it ceases to be Graffiti Art and begins to be a representation of what Graffiti Art looks like as depicted through a traditional artistic medium: paint on canvas. Therefore it becomes possible to make prints of, hang on a wall, curate, seek legitimate approval of... Graffiti Art needs the context in which it exists – the underground, the hijacking of public and private property, the criminal element – as greatly as “Fine Art” needs the one in which it exists, one of relying on rules and boundaries and persistent approval. Graffiti Art and Fine Art exist on opposite ends of a social and cultural spectrum. Graffiti Art cannot be reproduced out of context in a way which maintains its integrity and original significance. It must be where it is.

Graffiti Art has always had close ties with hip hop music and culture, which is not surprising considering that hip hop has struggled for its place as well, but has truly ended up within the mainstream, while Graffiti Art has been left behind in terms of progressing towards broader acceptance. Even Duchamps' Latrine could be accepted as Fine Art when placed in the context of a gallery or museum or in any manner of “display.” Real Graffiti Art will never experience this brand of approval, barring a massive shift in the cultural mindset as far as its legitimacy as an art form is concerned. Regardless of that even, Graffiti Art could never be placed next to Duchamps' Latrine, or any other piece of “fine” or “curated” art, because that setting defies the very nature of Graffiti Art. Unless...

Because it is based in an anarchic ideal – that the landscape belongs to everyone and that hierarchies of ownership are irrelevant – Graffiti Art defies the laws which prohibit vandalism and often trespassing, it rewrites the law in big letters on the concrete side of a lumber building or in subway tunnels or on the backs of billboards or on your desk – anything, anything solid is fair game in the mind of a graffiti artist. Nothing belongs to anyone and everything can be visually altered with paint. If someone walked past Duchamps' Latrine and spray painted their name on it, would that not in itself, be an artistic expression even if someone else calls it vandalism? So, in a way, Graffiti Art is about the audience becoming participants and consequently being left with no audience. Graffiti Art declares that everything is art. Even a name, a few letters, written in a certain style, repeated for whatever purpose, constitutes an artistic expression, an artistic mission and a cry for notoriety and a place in the subconscious mindset of every person with the ability to see it. The content or “message” of the art often seems less significant than the act of creating it and the fact of it being there, everywhere.

Graffiti does not always appear to have especially unique characteristics or messages if all that is seen of it is tags and pieces that are in highly visible areas. Stepping into a neighborhood where Graffiti Art is taken seriously and more time is spent by artists on pieces, one would see murals of extreme richness and a display of more traditional artistic skill as far as color and lines and proportion are concerned, as well as a greater degree of articulation inasmuch as message and meaning are concerned. This is the kind of thing which proponents of Graffiti Art feel they can be truly proud of, perhaps trying a tiny bit to shrug off a direct relationship to “city tagging,” which very much struggles to be recognized as anything other than trash and vulgarity.

Graffiti is of course, largely about symbols, communicating in a secret language, but it is also about notoriety. To be considered an artist one need not even create a detailed piece with colors and well drawn images, but instead could do nothing other than perform a repetitive action with paint, a name, a symbol to those who understand and appreciate those expressions and to confront those who don't. The artist doesn't need to do anything more than attempt to mark a place within the landscape, to declare a presence there and to communicate something, even if what that something is is unknown to anyone including the artist, because it is only “I was here!” More elaborate pieces take this ideal to a “higher” level. It seems the real motivation behind this kind of art is in gaining power and the sense that it gives one of being real and having the ability to change reality, even temporarily. Saying, “I am here. I exist, and this is how I am going to communicate to you about love and hate and life and death. In a manner that can be neither ignored nor adored.”

This is art which is created for those who choose to view it as art. It is trash to those who choose to view it as trash. Fine Art has the privilege of being considered “Art,” even by those who would also like to call it “trash.” In other words, the system of judging and displaying art as “good” or “bad” is so heavily established, across oceans, that even those who don't like the art, are forced to accept it as Art anyway. People who do not appreciate graffiti are not required to accept it as Art or to give it any degree of respect. Graffiti Art is judged in an entirely different context by an entirely different kind of peer group than Fine Art, which, along with its own certain type of environment, seems to require a mutual sort of delusion to bring it up to the level of appreciation and standing that the “higher” culture bestows upon that which is deemed, “good” or “interesting” or “a masterpiece” worthy of mass consumption.

Graffiti Art will always stand on the fringes of that society, thriving in its own special dimension, judging itself, the last real underdog of the art world.

Posted by Maria at July 23, 2008 10:12 AM | TrackBack