Several weeks ago, I went to a place called Writerz Blok, a non-profit organization dedicated to giving artists an opportunity to show off their talents and express themselves through graffiti art. While I was there admiring the graffiti, I noticed that some of the artworks had been vandalized.

  (This is one of the vandalized pieces)

This really made me upset, but it lead me to question, is graffiti really vandalism or is it art? How can you tell the difference? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, graffiti is a “form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group […] widely considered a form of antisocial behavior performed in order to gain attention or simply for thrills. But it also can be understood as an expressive art form” (Britannica, 1).  Sometimes graffiti is art, sometimes it is vandalism; it is important to look at both sides of this controversy because graffiti is a part of our culture that is not going away.

            Graffiti is a very controversial topic for many reasons. Some of the reasons are that people use graffiti for the wrong purpose. It also has to do a lot with perspective, the way people look at graffiti or the ideas people may have about graffiti that might lead them to prejudge. The fact that many graffiti artists use graffiti for the wrong purpose has a really big impact on the way people see graffiti and therefore it creates a controversy. People abusing graffiti are a big part of the controversy. Some people want to use graffiti as art others want to use it as vandalism but some times people don’t know there are two types of graffiti writers. Sometimes all people see is vandalism on the streets and that’s going to make them think that all graffiti is vandalism, when there are many graffiti artists who really want to be recognized as artists.
            The fact that people using graffiti for the wrong purpose plays a big part in the controversy of whether graffiti is art or vandalism. Even though there are many graffiti writers that want to do legal graffiti and want to get know for their art, there are also many graffiti writers that just want vandalized the streets, famous and hope they can get
away with it. When you have a talent you get to decide whether you want to make good use of it or not, if you do, if you have the talent to do graffiti and you want to use is as a way to be artistic there are many ways you can get that done. On the other hand is you have the talent to do graffiti art and you do not want to use it for a good purpose, if you want to use it to vandalize there are many ways you can gat that done also, you just have to hope you get lucky and don’t get caught.
            Perspective and pre judging are also very important parts of this controversy. The impression people get when they see graffiti is most often a bad impression. Most people when they see graffiti they automatically think it is a crime. But other people see graffiti and really see art. It all depends on the knowledge you have on the subject, and how familiar you feel with it. For example, a few days ago I was in the car with my parents, we where on the freeway on the way to church and we saw that one of those green sign on the freeway that tell you what exit is coming up had had graffiti on it. My parents automatically started saying how bad it was and how graffiti is getting out of hand and I on the other hand thought it was pretty cleaver; it was a really nice piece of graffiti. I knew it was not right that they had done that but still my knowledge and my experiences with graffiti made me look at it as a nice piece of work.
            The controversy of whether graffiti is right or not, or if it is vandalism or art will be around for quite a while. My purpose is not to make you believe either one of the two, I just want to expand you knowledge and help you open your mind so that next time you see graffiti you know if what you see is vandalism or if it is art. Graffiti whether it is 
another form of art or vandalism we should take a look at both sides of the controversy because graffiti is part of our culture and is not going away for a while.




 

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