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Graffiti

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Valentin 1

Dennys A. Valentin
Mr. Brooks
February 12, 2016

Is Graffiti an Art or a Crime? One believes that graffiti is more of an art than a crime. When one judges art as a crime then what creativity will we have in this world? This world has run on art ever since the beginning of time starting when cave men expressed their stories in the form of figures on stone walls. Graffiti is the same thing for our modern society, people draw on walls to tell their stories and their expression on topics, so why put a law on Graffiti?
When it comes to the issue of graffiti prople tend to have questions. Is graffiti an art or a crime? Some would wonder why there are charges on your freedom of expression. America is not as free as they say, Americans have come across many roadblocks that threaten freedom of speech, religion, and the likes. We all have to pay to get what we feel inside of ourselves out.
Like coming out of the closet, it such a hard struggle because we see the price. Putting a charge on graffiti is almost the same thing as selling art and the proceeding to destroy it.. Some would say that graffiti makes the streets look rather messy, or that it is destroying the property value.
Others say there should be justice and to not put so much jail time in this form of freedom of expression. Valentin 2

It is considered to have started in New York City in the late 1960s and became a hit thanks to a young, and flourishing, generation during that time. Then later on during the early
1970s, a revolution of art started, and mostly teenagers in that era were participating, many had escaped law enforcement for creating, what americans know as, graffiti. Others got fined or sent to jail. The amount of work that these underappreciated artists had put into these beautiful works of art took talent, timing, vigilance, adaptation, and athleticism to escape. “It is only Graffiti, or vandalism, when one gets arrested, but when you get away with it, it is clearly art.”(Braver, Rita.
Graffiti: Art or Vandalism?) Lady pink, a famous graffiti artist, had once stated in an interview to see what change that graffiti has done in New York after 45 years. Now Famous graffiti artist from the early 70s turned out to have great lives and jobs. Graffiti artist Futura 2000 became a well known graphic artist for Nike and Levis. Lady Pink has been a painter had her works have been exhibited in several museums.
More and more graffiti is now being considered as an art instead of vandalism and many people have created masterful works of art, a well known example would be Banksy. Banksy was a known street artist for using stencils. This art form of his was implemented because his last crew abandoned him due to how slow he painted, his crew then abandoned him and left him,
Banksy then hid in an abandoned subway cart for 6 hours. Art is now being also considered as a propaganda move, and many graffiti artists are putting attention towards hot political and governmental issues, bringing more attention to audience surroundings by the art and the messages behind it. Banksy has created more than 5 exhibitions that show various forms of his art. Some of these exhibitions were bringing attention to main problems like the migrant boat crisis, Russian horse meat scandal, and many other forms of corruptions around the globe.

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Although Artistic merits can not be denied, it is still in fact, and by law, vandalism. This graffiti comes at a very high cost for many big cities. Artists paint on both public and private property without consent. “Large cities typically budget more money towards graffiti removal. In
2006 Chicago has spent more than 6.5 million dollars in graffiti removal. Thats 100,000 dollars annually” (Sanchez, Noel. "Graffiti: Art through Vandalism”).
Research finds that artists are also stealing spray cans and markers so that adds on an additional cost to businesses. Later around the late 1970s gangs had adopted the graffiti movement and started using it as collecting or naming territories. This new adaptation of graffiti is what gave graffiti a bad reputation as “What makes neighborhoods bad”. These terms is what caused property value to decrease and crime to increase because americans assumed that graffiti may or may not link up to Gang related hateful sentiments.
The amount of dedication that an artist puts into these beautiful works of art takes talent, timing, vigilance, skill to adapt to one's surroundings, and athleticism to escape. Why destroy all this art when most of this graffiti is now used for inspiration for photographers, large clothing companies like Nike, and politics,
“Remember Obama’s 2008 Hope campaign poster? The iconic portrait of the future US president that became part of pop culture and ended up on t­shirts and tank tops was created by Shepard Fairey. Apart from being a graphic designer and illustrator, he was primarily known as a graffiti writer” (Gavriola Annabel .Graffiti– the Endless Debate of
Art vs Crime).

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Imagine this scenario you’re having a glum day, and you want something to cheer you up, you happen to stumble upon a colorful, bright piece of graffiti that influenced you with its bright, spectacular colors, and gave you inspiration to go on your day with a smile, wont you feel better when you stumble in something with such inspiration? In conclusion love the art or hate it, you will never deny the power that graffiti has on the general public and its more elaborate messages of passion and hate. Hopefully Americans can finally realized that graffiti is art in more ways than it is a crime. What you draw defines yourself and the artist in you.

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Work cited
Braver, Rita. "Graffiti: Art or Vandalism?" <i>YouTube</i>. YouTube, 30 Mar. 2014.
Web. 25 Feb. 2016. Gavriola, Anabela. "Graffiti – the Endless Debate of Art vs Crime." Cruel Daze of
Summer. N.p. Sanchez, Noel. "Graffiti: Art through Vandalism."
Graffiti: Art through Vandalism
. N.p.,
n.d.

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