As an artist with a heavy influence from graffiti and urban culture in my work, living in a city that holds exceptionally heavy fines and/or jail time against vandalism and graffiti, I came to the question of how people within the artistic community and without of it react to graffiti as an art form. Which poses the question of the posters here on DD as artists:

What constitutes art or vandalism? Is there a certain point wherein a piece stops being vandalism and becomes artwork, or is it vandalism regardless of whether it's a simple tag, a massive wall piece by Keith Haring or a 30 foot tall Bansky rat in New York? If there is a difference between art graffiti and vandalism, what is it in your mind? Should graffiti be as heavily punished as it is if it really is art?

ok first off...

theres no need to argue whether graffitti is art or not. it simply is. like i said in the other art thread, everything is art. so that part is easy to answer.

I dont see graffitti as vandalism, because nothing is being broken or destroyed. so someone drew a tag on a subway car, and now it doesnt look as "clean" anymore. is that your argument? Ill seriously take that over them smashing the wndows or doors. vandalism is a crime that destroys things. writing on something is not a crime. we are supposed to live in a free country, goddamnit.

but the worst part about graffitti to me, is that its lost its renegade aspect. my father and uncles were big into the graf scene in NYC in the 80s. my uncles still do art, although they are graphic designers. my dad doesnt, he now lives outside of nyc in watertown and doesnt draw, just raises my 8 year old sister and my other newborn sister.

I asked him why didnt he try to cash in on te fame of when graffitti sold out, and he told me "because it was never about money. it was about free speech and expressing ourselves and doing it for the fun and the dare. now you have guys who are paid to tag the side of someones building, its not like when we used to go into hardware stores and try to steal spray paint without getting caught and running from the police. its not the same."

and in many ways, the same is true of all the x-games nonsense. you get a sponsor on it, and you lose the true essence of what made that thing cool and renegade in the first place.

Vandalism is more broad than drawing or painting on a wall... The term is pejorative. It's not just a cacophomisim for graffiti, it denotes wilful destruction of an object to destroy its appearance or to deny other's the use of its function.

You can justify anything as "art" if that's what you feel like doing, even smashing windows and burning down houses, but those affect a lot of other people in a bad way, so it's not a good idea. ;)

If you're not talking about actual vandalism though, just different types of relatively harmless, aesthetically interesting graffiti whose only problem is that you don't have permission to paint it there,; well that's different. Someone might describe that as vandalism but it's not unless it damages something in some way or just simply carelessly "uglifies" something . lol!

The trouble is one of permission. And that's very important actually. If you think about it in that sense you start to understand the problems:
Does the owner of this object care if you do your thing on it? (be it a city authority, an individual, or a company)
If they do, you're probably doing something wrong, no matter how great it looks, simply because they have a greater claim to it than you- It's not morally wrong, and not always legally wrong, but ethically it is; if they don't want to to do it.

And if you take the attitude that you don't know who owns the object and even if you do, you don't know if they care if you do your work or not, then you really shouldn't be asking whether it's wrong or not.

Ok, how about this. You just painted your room/flat/whatever and then I come and spray stuff on your walls without asking you... Let's say things like " sucks" or something like that. What do you do, congratulate me on "hey man, nice graffiti" or do you kick me out and tell to never return?

While visually I like graffiti, I don't like to see it in freshly renovated places or on very old buildings, especially historical buildings.

Aurora Borealis
Ok, how about this. You just painted your room/flat/whatever and then I come and spray stuff on your walls without asking you... Let's say things like " sucks" or something like that. What do you do, congratulate me on "hey man, nice graffiti" or do you kick me out and tell to never return?

While visually I like graffiti, I don't like to see it in freshly renovated places or on very old buildings, especially historical buildings.

if you did it without me noticing, or if i caught you?

if you did it without me noticing, id come back and be like "huh what? hey thats kinda cool" but if i caught you id be like "wtf are you doing?"

if that makes any sense

NickGuy
if that makes any sense

Nope :)

But if we want to apply it more widely, personally I'm more happy when places, machines, vehicles etc are set aside for people to work on.

That started out really crappy and fake. You'd tend to get a lot of crap painted on those more "official" spots, people would be too safe or they'd have to include some lame community message as a condition of using the space, but these days it's often a lot better. Often the best people are attracted to that stuff and their work is protected. When it IS tagged or painted over though, the artist makes sure their piece looks even better than the one before. Which is a nice organic process.

Elsewhere you see great pieces on someone's wall somewhere and invariably some young dick scrawls a rough tag over half of them in black paint or marker. Someone does something cool, and then others really do vandalise it... Same organic process but into something ugly and sad.

art is subjective, so in essence everything can be considered art.

As far as graffiti goes, I feel it depends on the intent. I like the idea of it being an artform that can't be denied; it will be seen by any and everybody. I think it's very easy to miss the point of graffiti if you don't understand it. I see it as being so dedicated to your art that you are willing to risk going to jail to get it out into the world, I respect that. But that's not to be confused with the assholes that just do it to be stupid.

I don't like when "toys" do shitty tags all over the place and then walk around bragging about how they "do graffiti". Young kids that think graffiti is just writing a cool sounding name in bubble letters on everything under the sun.

Also, I like that marc ecco video game ok, but I think tagging 'still free crew' is the lamest possible thing ever.

From my understanding of what you guys have said and others opinions, it seems a vast majority of people have no problem with graffiti as artworks or the base motivations behind the art form, but are more opposed to people putting aesthetically unpleasing scribbles on walls as tags or the actual ethics of using other peoples property. It seems like as long as people can see it having an artistic value they have little to no problems with it, especially if the graffiti in question has some relevance to the location it's been painted on.

With that sort of reaction, I have to wonder how people feel about the penalties imposed by most cities on graffiti. For instance, the city of Milwaukee Wisconsin mandates a $5000 fine or 90 day prison term for graffiti. Do you guys think that such penalties are overkill?

I don't see it as actual art. If it infringes on another's right to have an object they wish to be left alone. You are forcing your work on them basically. If it on personal property with consent then there is nothing wrong with it.

Public property belongs to the tax-payers and what if some tax payers do not appreciate your name being sprayed in three different colors on their bench. Why would the tagger have more rights over the other person when both(assumingly) pay their taxes. So I see it as violating as a violation of someone else rights. To me it's not heroic but selfish behavior.

As for punishment, let them be forced to clean their mess but I'm okay with the fines. 90 days in jail, that's a bit much. I would rather have them pay fines than have a tax-payer pay for his meal and bed.

I actually really like graffiti and wish more dirty concrete walls were covered with a few well thought out images. As other people have said, tags are pretty pathetic (basically some talentless idiot waving his arms around saying look at the mess I can create) and to me thats as bad as someone kicking in a bus shelter. I also wouldn't like the idea of something offensive or threatening being directed in the image to the people who use the building.

Yesterday I was walking down some grotty side street, thinking how depressing the place looked, when I saw this multicoloured butterfly stensilled on the wall. It actually made the whole area look nicer.

Well, it depends on the graffiti. If it's just scribbles or a name, that's more of a tag than art. It depends on the complexity of the design.

But I think the canvas is really what defines the piece as art.
Old, decrepit house = art
New, in-use house = vandalism

But if we're talking legally, then I think that getting permission is a good idea.
I'm not saying that you're always going to get it, but if you want to do something BIG and not be rushed to get it done before sunrise, you can always go to the trouble of talking to the mayor of your town or whatever about painting a mural on an old flaking bridge.

Graffiti is art if the person who made it meant for it to be artistic.

If they just made it to be an asshole, it's vandalism.

at least, that's the way I see it~