What do I think about graffiti? Well, for starters, I've discovered that graffiti is more complicated than I initially thought. When I think about graffiti, the first image that pops into my mind is spray-painted tags on the side of a building or train-car. I do not necessarily like this image because I associate these tags with vandalism and the destruction of property. Although these are the images that I initially associate with graffiti, I do believe that there is another side. Graffiti can be considered a form of art. I have seen some pieces of graffiti that are absolutely incredible to look at. In places such as 5 Pointz in New York City and The Wynwood Walls in Miami, there are works of graffiti that display mind-blowing artistic talent.
The question of whether or not graffiti is art or vandalism is a tricky one. How do we determine this? Does the location of the piece matter (whether it is in a public or private area, or a low-income or high-income neighborhood)? Does it matter if the piece was created by a well-known person such as Banksy, or if it was created by a less well-known or unknown person? Do we determine if something is graffiti based on the quality of the piece? How do we truly judge quality? These are all questions that I ask myself when contemplating the subject of graffiti. I do not know the answers to these questions yet, but I am hoping that our trip to Detroit and further exploration of these questions in the school of art and design will help me determine my opinion.
I am so glad that you mentioned The Wynwood Walls in Miami. I haven't had the opportunity to go there (I've never actually heard of it) and so I took some time to research it and admire pictures of all of the artwork. It is so fascinating to me that The Wynwood Walls are considered the same thing as someone tagging a train car. Graffiti can be practically everything, it seems. It spans such a wide range. This relates to your question, how do we judge quality. I suppose by writing this I am arguing that graffiti is graffiti no matter its quality, but at the same time, my instinct is to say that the Wynwood Walls are art and random tagging on train cars is graffiti. But really, I guess it's all graffiti. It was so interesting to get to see pictures of such astonishingly beautiful artwork; thank you for including that in your post! I am intrigued to see more like it in Detroit this weekend.
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