Q09152

CAN GRAFFITI BE CONSIDERED ART

To most, graffiti is a nuisance, worthless juvenile behaviour that is littering our cities streets with gang patches and ridicules nick names, but a lot of graffiti is thought through. Some graffiti has a message and someone has put there emotion in to just like any artist would do with there art. So if these amazing pictures were done on a piece of canvas or was hung up in an art gallery then would it be art? or if done by a legendary artist, then it would be art?. And what if we could find a way to deal with tagging in our cities and still have amazing works that we can enjoy everyday, that we would enjoy in the same way we enjoy the ‘Mona Lisa’ or ‘The Scream’. So why isn’t graffiti art?

With graffiti artists growing in numbers a topic like this is highly debatable but there are a lot of very established artists consider graffiti art. Ask yourself this if you brought Leonardo di Vinci or Michelangelo to this day and age and showed them a famous work of graffiti or they themselves did there own work of graffiti and said that it was art then wouldn’t it be, most people getting asked this will say that it is art if these people say it is so, then why dose it change when said by a normal graffiti artist? These people put the same emotion and have the same skill as Salvador Dali or Pablo Picasso or any other artist but because of the timing, unconventionality, and location of there work its frowned upon as juvenile behaviour.

Graffiti is mostly overflowing with criticism because of the locations of the work, because it’s on public places the city councils think its there job to wipe it down. Depending on the city most graffiti is wiped down within a fort night and spray paint is only sold to people who are over 18 years old, but there are plenty of other ways that cities could solve there graffiti problems for example if there is a work of graffiti the city council should let the people of the city vote to weather or not it stays up or wiped down that is taking a democratic approach to the problem, that way tag and slang graffiti can be wiped down and all the colourful and artistic graffiti can kept up and enjoyed everyday by the people of the city. In some cities that are home to many famous graffiti artists are leaving there art up to be enjoyed so they can do there art and not get in any trouble for it, anonymous graffiti artist banksys art is left up in his home town but if he dose it in other cites it gets wiped down. Even in new Zealand good graffiti is left up to be admired, Auckland city council hires a graffiti artist to do special art on walls so technically you can earn money from these works, wellington dose the same and Dunedin just doesn’t take there’s down if its entertaining a good example of this is the famous giraffes that are found all over Dunedin and can be found in some places of wellington as well. With all that in mind then why it is still not considered art.

Of course not all of the graffiti in one city can be art all of it depends on the person making the graffiti they have to be in some way artistic or be able to make art but graffiti tagings have such a negative stereotype as well that they will be done by some lower class street kid but most tags are done by upper-class teenagers but really it doesn’t matter who dose it as long as they have put some emotion and is in some way artistic it would have to look nice to the people who would see it everyday.

Graffiti is a type of painting and not just that but an artistic portreyel of emotion. Any thing else that’s fits that description is art brick wall or train carrige graffiti is art.