Graffiti Art

Ever seen graffiti on a wall or billboard, and thought 'there's more to that than vandalism?' I'd never consider graffiti as art in the past, but that began shifting with my first trip to San Francisco in 1997-98, my senior year in college, seeing the ocean and the graffiti art portraits lining the beach. I took photos of the colorful images- I still have the one of the Bob Marley tribute mural I snapped while leaving the city in my friend Laurie's pickup (we were in S.F. for a mutual friend's wedding and did a quick road trip from Lawrence, KS). Last summer, while in Amsterdam with a group of other UW students doing research, I was again fascinated by the idea of graffiti as art when one of the students researched Dutch hip-hop and graffiti artists (particularly Laser 3.14 in Amsterdam), interviewing them about their work and photographing graffiti among the canals and abandoned apartment buildings and sidestreets of central Amsterdam. After moving to Oz, I found that Melbourne has an active graffiti art community. I watched a documentary about it the other day, a discovery at the library that intrigued me. It makes a distinction between mere 'tagging' (signing one's identifying signature on public spaces just to cause damage) and graffiti as art. In this film, graffiti is also called 'street art', 'pictures on a wall', 'public art', and 'reclaiming space'. It was described as "livening up the place", "visually stimulating" and "creating a dialogue". Many of the artists use it to express their opinions about local politics or social issues, and graffiti on a large billboard or other advertising space is seen as an expression against redevelopment, and our advertisement-saturated, commercially influenced society. A wide array of public art is on display around Melbourne and graffiti is both alive and well--like it or not. There is even an outdoor gallery here in Hosier Lane, called CityLights, and an indoor, independent gallery in the same area called 'Until Never' featuring unrespresented, street, political, experimental and conceptual artwork. The Melbourne City Council has debated what to do, as $200,000/year is spent cleaning graffiti; the conversation continues as different approaches are attempted in various communities around Victoria. The MCC distinguishes between types of graffiti- tagging, stencilling, protest slogans, and graffiti art (which this article defines as "complex illustrations in graffiti style painted on large surfaces"). Perhaps the best thing, in my opinion, is that it sparks the conversation among community members, families, policymakers, and artists--conversations about "what is art?" and "how do we decide which art gets public space and attention in our community?" It is a complex, worthwhile question. The first six photographs (from bottom) were taken in the Richmond neighborhood, and the others are from Hosier Lane in downtown Melbourne.