Feature Article
Graffiti:
Art or Vandalism?
Written and Photographed by
David Schroeder
Focus On...
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Modesto, CA
Graffiti Art on the side of Vallarta Tire Service, 401 14th St. Modesto
A beautiful sentiment in Lisbon
Rio. According to my limited and unofficial rating system, Rio has the ugliest and most unappealing graffiti in the world.
Havana, Cuba. Most graffiti in Havana is on temporary structures, like this construction
barricade.
Cinque Terre, Italy. In the tunnels along the Via Dell’Amore (Lovers Walk) graffiti is allowed in specified areas.
Rio. According to my limited and unofficial rating system, Rio has the ugliest and most unappealing graffiti in the world.
Modesto. Apart from an occasional outbreak of tagging, most of Modesto’s “Urban Art” bears little resemblance to its’ artistic namesake
A beautiful piece in Madrid
A famous graffiti artist, whose name escapes me at the moment, once said that whether graffiti was art or vandalism depends on whether or not you get caught. It was a clever answer, but he, clearly, was no longer running from the police. His only worry seemed to be which commission to accept. Which, to the point of this article, says that the real answer is that graffiti can be both a work of art or an act of vandalism, depending on who’s doing the talking.
I remember an ongoing discussion on the subject, between Cindy Hawker and myself. Cindy was then the Director of the Stanislaus County Arts Commission. It was at a time in Modesto’s history when the city was being defaced by a rash of “tagging.” The police and property owners were out for blood—catch and punish (incarcerate) the vandals. Cindy, however, saw the tagging as a frustrated artistic urge that needed to be recognized, supported and directed. Instead of punishing the offenders, Cindy suggested that they be given art supplies to advance their artistic yearnings in more acceptable directions. She also went so far as saying that in some instances, the graffiti actually enhanced the look of the building or wall on which it was painted. In spite of my being an artist, I found myself leaning in the opposite direction from Cindy, and often sounded like a conservative member of “the establishment” (a horrible label for an artist in the 1970s)
Our arguments continued for several months until I had the chance to play my trump card—a “one case proves everything” argument. In my work as a clinical psychologist, specializing in art therapy, I was assigned a teen offender who had been arrested for graffiti vandalism. For some reason this first time offender, who had obvious artistic talents, had been placed on probation instead of being incarcerated, and it was hoped that with support he could be steered in a socially positive direction. Cindy must have had some influence in the matter because this boy not only was given art supplies but a man in his neighborhood had offered the side of an old building on which this boy would be allowed to display his creations.
In the few sessions we had together, the young man and I discussed his life, his art and his plans for the side of the old building. I was surprised, at first, by how little interest and emotion the boy displayed when we talked about his planned project. He almost seemed indifferent. He had a design in mind, which he shared with me via his notebook, but when I asked how his actual progress was going he became vague and changed the subject. After a few sessions, the boy did not come back. I learned later that he had again been arrested for tagging and was now in Juvenile Hall. At that point, I was sure that he had made his point and that he was more in touch with his true motives.
Cindy and I never finished our argument. She moved out of the area before I had the chance to gloat. Actually, I wouldn’t have gloated, (well, maybe a little) but would have said that, at least in this case, the boy’s tagging had less to do with any frustrated artistic urges, than with a teenaged boy’s need to express and make a name for himself through an act of rebellion. His vandalism was intentional, not to do harm to someone or something else, but to declare who he is and to make his mark on the world. And he needed to do it himself, in his own way, and not have it handed to him by the adults in his life. He just happened to have some artistic talent, and maybe even went on to purse that path later in his life. But at the time his artistic talents seemed to be under the influence of more basic emotions.
Cindy left town. Modesto developed a variety of programs to keep graffiti somewhat in check, and I stopped thinking about whether graffiti was art or vandalism until I retired and started traveling to other countries. As a photographer, I’m always interested in images that can capture the essence of the place I’m visiting. Most of these pictures are the iconic images that can be found in any travel magazine, but at one point I also started taking picture of graffiti, wondering whether it varied from culture to culture. I’m not an anthropologist and haven’t proceeded systematically or scientifically, but I have come away with a few simple observations.
The most obvious is that the need to leave your mark on the world via some graffiti-like technique seems to be universal and to have persisted throughout time. The only places I didn’t see graffiti were areas highly dependent on the tourist trade, such as UNESCO heritage sites. The most outrageous expression of this need occurred in a non-graffiti place—Antarctica. As our ship passed by a pristine, glacier covered mountain, untouched by human presance for
hundreds or thousands of years, a fellow passenger exclaimed, “I wish I were ashore with a pair of skis to come down that mountain and leave my mark for posterity.” I almost hit him with my camera.
Surprisingly, apart from language, the types of graffiti I’ve observed weren’t that different across cultures. Graffiti looked like graffiti wherever I was. In my non-official capacity I began to categorize the various types of graffiti I observed. There seemed to be a continuum of styles, ranging from the most basic tagging to the more artistic creations that begin to blend in with what is now called urban art. In between can be seen “enhanced tagging” (my term for pretty tagging, done with colors, curves and curlicues), recognizable shapes and forms, and messages. As you progress along my scale, artistic values seem to progress as well—at least in my view. However, as I said previously, I didn’t notice any difference in types of graffiti across cultures, but there were some interesting variations on the basic themes.
For example, the ugliest graffiti I came across in my travels was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the center of town, most public buildings were covered from street level to a height that people could reach with the most basic, black and white tagging. There was no attempt at art. It seemed to be vandalism, or territory marking, at its most basic level. The practice was so widespread that the government was beginning to construct tall steel fences to protect the properties. It left me wondering if any of it would be removed before the Olympics came in 2016.
A close second for the ugliest category in my view is nature graffiti. The worst examples can be seen in Yosemite where boulders and bridge abutments have been defaced with basic “Kilroy was here” type messages. Which brings up another point. The guides on many tours in the American Southwest are always quick to point out petroglyphs and pictoglyphs etched in stone near primitive encampments. And although the explanations which accompany such examples often make reference to spiritual and/or ritualistic motivations, many of them seem more like examples of graffiti of the time.
Surprisingly, Havana, Cuba was relatively graffiti free. The graffiti I did see was mostly confined to temporary structures, such as construction fences. It made me wonder as to whether it had to do with the totalitarian society under Castro, or with the fact that the buildings were already so old and rotting that graffiti would have seemed like a new paint job. Then again, maybe no one could afford the spray paint.
Another interesting example of graffiti is in the port of Skagway, Alaska. There, the stone walls of the port are covered with all types of tagging, messages and artistic renderings. It seems that in days past, before telephones and other electronic forms of communication, it was the custom to scrawl your name and the name of your ship on the wall when you made port to let others know you were in town. The practice continues to this day, and I discovered the mark of a ship I’d been on years previously painted on the wall.
“If you can’t beat them, join them,” seems to be the motto relating to graffiti in parts of Italy. In Cinque Terre, an otherwise pristine collection of five villages along the Mediterranean Coast, graffiti is allowed, and even encouraged, in prescribed places along the Via Dell’Amore (Lovers Walk) which connect Manarola and Riomaggiore.
If you’re a true fan of graffiti art, then you would feel at home in almost any large metropolitan city in the Western World. In some cities, like New York, there are even underground tours to the most revered examples of the practice, and many graffiti artists ply their trade openly—often with financial support. Looking upon these creations transports you a long way from the base, territory marking, tagging that is the most prevalent around the world. In fact, if someone were to add their tag to this art, it would be seen as an act of vandalism—and the circle would be complete.
How does Modesto fare in the world of graffiti? Like other surveys done on our hometown, we seem to be at the bottom of the scale. It’s been years since I’ve seen anything that rises above basic, ugly, tagging—territory-marking vandalism in its most primitive form. The wall art that has made an appearance in the past couple of years, although reveling in a different Graffiti, bears little resemblance to its namesake, with regard to an art form.