Graffiti.. Art or Vandalism?
This past weekend I was visiting the Big Apple and amongst other things this great city has to offer, I took notice to all of the Graffiti painted every where. As I was taking pictures of all of the grafiti on the side of buildings, subways, street signs I couldnt help but wonder why the city and business owners haven’t painted over any of the grafiti. I always thought of the art form as vandalism, promoting local gangs marking their territory. After talking with some local New Yorkers It opened my eyes to a whole new view of the art of Grafiti. It did orginate in the United States back in the 60s as a way for gangs to mark their territory, as young artist started catching on it eventually turned into an art of self expression. Artists started tagging their nicknames around the city, it became an underground battle between writers to become what the graffiti world calls graffiti “masters”. In the early 70s to become known as a master, it was all about quantity which eventually turned in to quality. Ultimaley writers were creating masterpieces of art all over the city. Hugo Martinez, a sociology major at City College, realized the legitimacy that these street artists could achieve. Hugo later founded the UGA, the United Graffiti Artists, which was the first effort to get graffiti into art galleries. Hugo represented some of NYC’s greatest graffiti artists; names like Phase2, Flint 707, and Snake found their way into legit art galleries all over the world. City officials are not so pleased with the art and still to this day have created laws and policies trying to rid graffiti. There will never be enough policy to completely get rid of graffiti entirely. As cities come up with newer and better ways to combat graffiti, writers are finding ways of getting around it. After talking with a few store owners in during my trip to New York, I found out that more and more store owners are actually paying graffiti writers to paint their buildings. I can say some of the pieces that I came across while I was visiting were extremly detailed and very expressive. I now recognize graffiti in an art sense rather than an act of vandalism. Although not all New Yorkers condone the graffiti, It gives the city character.