I first fell in love with graffiti when my Mom brought me back two postcards from one of her regular trips to New York. One was of beautiful squiggles and zags of lime green, fluorescent yellow and shocking blues, adorning a running New York City subway car. The second was a demure mural, all maroons and browns, of a boy breaking through the wall, painted on a crumbling brick wall somewhere in Harlem. When I saw these two very different, yet similar expressions of what is basically vandalism, I knew this was what art is all about: breaking the rules to create something new and great.

In the early days of the pandemic, when people were wasting the soon to be precious commodity of flour, I watched the documentary series ‘The Rise of Graffiti,’ on the French-German channel Arte. It was extraordinary. I’ve always confessed myself to be a graffiti aficionado, but this German doku opened doors that I never knew existed. From getting me obsessed with the classic 1983documentary Style Wars, to sending me on a wild internet chase for a copy of Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant’s Subway Art, this documentary series had me reeling. For a whole week, I was living in another world; a New York City that many are nostalgic for, but for those who lived it, not so much. Yet,they still get excited reminiscing about the danger and freedom in style writing across MTA vehicles.

Let’s talk semantics. I prefer to call it what it is: graffiti. Street art seems like a way to give it credibility when so many of the murals, etchings, tiles, and stencils are pure art. The stuff that’s dull, crude and sadly legible should be called pure vandalism. The flourishes of colour—or not—depicting a scene, making a statement and stopping you in your tracks is straight up art.

I’ve seen my fair bit of this world from the ultra boughie to the cataclysmically destitute, and in ever place I have set foot I have gone in search for and found graffiti. Even in the depths of Ouagadougou,Burkina Faso, I found a fun painting on a wall about the upcoming film festival.Wherever there is an implement to leave a mark, there is expression on a surface.Just ask the cavemen. Anyways, when I travel I walk a lot, like a lot. I take public transport to the furthest stop from my hotel and I meander my way back.It allows me the privilege of seeing a place at my feet's pace, but also the freedom to duck into alleyways, side streets and big boulevards to see what’s being said on a wall. Hands down Detroit, Michigan and Christchurch, New Zealand have the best, and I mean the best graffiti I have ever seen. I reckon it has something to do with the fact that both places are in states of rebuilding,with plenty of dilapidated buildings and rough surfaces available for paint to attach itself to. The scope of the messages on these walls is always fascinating. In Oceania a lot the wall narratives are about First Nations people, either showcasing the incredible beauty of their cultures or speaking to the resiliency of their selves in the struggle for visibility. Themes that are similarly resplendent on the decaying edifices of the Motor City.

What is it about graffiti that attracts the stories of the forgotten and unheard? After all it’s art being displayed in the most visible of museums, the public space. Shouldn’t this, the biggest stage of them all, be reserved for the monied? I find it ironic that it’s not yet been completely co-opted by the wealthy secret societies of the art world(though I’m sure they’re working very hard on how to change that). We could discuss Banksy, who though very mainstream, still gives a massive middle-finger to the establishment. But I think that’s a whole other conversation that we should have later. As the conversation/discourse/dissertation on art is a never-ending story, I’d like to close with this: In Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw, the incredibly self-involved, dull, and PR perfect art gallery professional Josephina is killed by being consumed—literally—by art on the walls. Said art is in the vein of graffiti style writing. Discuss.  

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