Alright let me place my argument infront of you, and hopefully you will take the time to read and consider it.
I live in the suburbs of Montreal, Canada. Montreal is known for its graffiti in Canada, no other city in the country has more of it. I got into graffiti a few months ago when I saw some books and got more interested as I started noticing it more (there is a lot more graffiti if you try to notice it). I started sketching on paper during class hours and people started noticing. I had a graffiti writer come up to me in class and told me I should start painting straight away, because if I had started I would get fairly well known in a matter of a year or two.
I didn't think I was that good, but aparently I was. I had and still have no intentions of any sort of vandalistic, destructive graffiti otherwise known as throws or tagging or any sort. Here are some examples of
bad graffiti.
I was only into it for the physical beauty of a well-organized piece (piece being a large, full-colour painting). There is absolutely no restrictions preventing the artist. There is no canvas limitaitons, there are no lighting constraints or any of that. Painting a normal canvas with a brush, you can paint a nice scenery bit and have it all right, but make a mistake and everything loses its value and appeal. If you put in a martian peeking out from behind a tree, it's done. Nobody will want to see it and nobody will buy it and nobody will care for you. In graffiti, this sort of odd-ball business is encouraged. Nothing has to make sense, nothing has to be real, it is complete artistic freedom.
Of course, the irony being that there is no freedom. The police do not like when you paint up a building or wall or underpass. Here's where my argument comes into play. Graffiti will
never be legal everywhere, but it can be pushed towards that direction if the public begins to see the point and purpose of graffiti.
Here are some examples well-painted pieces of
good graffiti, illegal or not:
You have to admit, those are beautiful pieces of art, am I not correct? Let's start here. I'll have to ask you for a favor. For the next couple sentences, you have to be selfish and ignore the law (I know it's super hard for some of you, but bear with me).
Alright, how does graffiti differ from a huge billboard? Well, graff is actually personal work, it takes time, it takes a large risk and it takes a creative mind and eye. Billboards take metal, money and nothing more to completely rob you of your privacy and offend your eyes, no matter where you look. Some estimate 95% of urban public space has been sold to advertising. That's a lot of public space that you cannot look at unless you want to be sold something. I hate advertising on buildings and on large billboards. They are ugly and they are intruding on public space. I did not wish to see the horizon with a billboard on it. I do not care who owns the property, it's my horizon that I can no longer see.
This is offensive, and ugly. Advertising in public space is intruding on your life, telling you to do something, and it is all legal. That is another discussion. But now, here I am, someone has offended me. I cannot answer. I cannot say anything back. If I do, I get arrested.
In this sense, you can agree that the right kind of graffiti is definitely more pleasing that an ugly billboard.
Still here? Good.
Let's say that you don't care for anyone else's property, like the selfish person you are. If it's bombed, that's their problem, if someone paints on it, that's their problem. Now if someone comes along and paints somewhere on their ugly, gray, normal building or fence, it
can be okay, because it is more visually pleasing than nothing at all. If you had to be locked in a room for the rest of your life, but you had a choice between two different rooms. Room A is white. Room B, is absolutely covered in graffiti, beautiful, amazing almost illusionistic graffiti. What would you chose? I can't explain it differently than that. Graffiti can be nicer than a gray wall. Take a look up the page at how much nicer it can be that a normal wall.
To make it worse, that person can take their colour-blind eye down to the renovation store and chose a horribly-matching swatch of paint and paint over it. Now the building is uglier than it started and far uglier than with the graffiti on it.
We still have a problem. You're not that selfish person described above. Even if you try, you still relate to it, because you do not want to go down to the shop and get a can of gray paint and paint over a work of art, or call up the insurance ocmpany to have it sorted out. There's still that bit of guilt behind admitting to like how graffiti looks, especially on someone's property.
What if that property wasn't anybody's property? What if a gray underpass could be turned into a floursihing canvas full with a million colours and powerful ideas? See my point? If you would like to see a rotting gray underpass or the rusted side of a railway car or a crumbling abandonned building the way they stand, then I guess you can drive your gray cars to your colourless, dull little houses and enjoy your life that way, if it's possible.
Now you can ask, what if the walls of a city weren't gray? What if a boxcar wasn't rusted and rotting? What if everything was craaazy bright and changing colours? I'd actually be okay with that...
What if what is ugly can be made not ugly? Why would you deny this to be seen? Why would you not want to have something look nice?
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This is how I see the world. This is how I see the railway cars. This is how I see the ugly, vagrant walls around town. I will paint graffiti, I will chose the right locations, I will risk my freedom. If you have a problem with it, catch me. I am, to coin a phrase, "still free."
