Suvan Geer and Sandra Rowe Thoughts on Graffiti as Public Art ...
Source: www.publicartreview.org
Topic: Graffiti
Sort Desciption: We began this exploration of graffiti as public art out. of curiosity and a sense of confusion. On one hand we could see the refinement and ...
Content Inside: Suvan Geer and Sandra Rowe Thoughts on Graffiti as Public Art BACKGROUND: This is a rumination. We are not authorities, we are artists. We live in and near cities dotted with graffiti, some of it quite stunning to look at for the short time it exists between abatement crews. We began this exploration of graffiti as public art out of curiosity and a sense of confusion. On one hand we could see the refinement and obvious craft of some of the works, but on the other hand were the unsophisticated, ubiquitous scrawls which smacked of threat, gangs, and a sense of violation. Finally, there was the always mystifying, nearly illegible text itself. What we discovered about graffiti was fascinating—that it is a part of a worldwide subculture of hip-hop graffiti, rap music, rave party competition, overnight bombing runs, tags, throwups, and pieces. While we learned much from speaking with the advocates and the opponents of graffiti, these comments are still admittedly ignorant of many nuances within the graffiti movement. They are also in many ways specific to hip-hop graffiti, Los Angeles, and California. Hip-Hip Graffiti should not be confused with the tags of gangs, or with other kinds of graffiti such as “latrinalia,” or bathroom graffiti. “HHG is distinct in both form and function.” 1 Suvan Geer: If we are going to talk about graffiti, we have to begin in a very obvious place: the public space. That’s the realm graffiti operates in and it is the context that makes it a political and confrontational gesture. I think that to get to what graffiti means, both to the producers and the people who see it, we have to remind ourselves that public space is a community’s social space. As cultural critic Amalia Mesa-Bains pointed out at the P.A.R.T.I. conference, “Social space produces social relations,” and “social production is an act of property [see review,p.48]. It is about economic value and even historical meddling.” Public space i ...
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