r The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
New Student Edition - 7D
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom New Student Edition - 7D
B EYON D
~THE
I
Graffiti walks a fine line
in underground art
By Whitney Pow j Daily Fine Arts Editor
Feb. 21, 2008 -
et's admire a wall for a
moment. It's made of red
brick, and it's about 18 feet
tall. It runs about a quarter of a
city block, around 88 feet. It keeps
a building up, and it keeps the rain
out.
In short, it's a good wall.
But it's boring and, let's face it,
pretty unsightly. According to a
graffiti artist, though, it's about
1,584 square feet of unused canvas.
"I just have this desire to put
graffiti on banks, and I don't know
why," said an LSA sophomore
and graffiti artist who agreed to
be identified only by her initials,
S.H.R, because her work is illegal.
"I think it's mostly because they
have these big blank walls outside
of them. Most of the buildings are
prettyuglyastheyare, so Iwouldn't
care about putting paint on them,"
she said.
And even though the artists
view these paintings as art, graf-
fiti carries different connotations
and conjures stereotypical images
of kids with spray paint covering
street signs with drunken, low-
brow homages to sweethearts. But,
while some graffiti may be treated
as such, it's much more than juve-
nilia.
There's a whole culture of crafts-
manship beneath layers of aerosol
paint, an entire art form that needs
to be unearthed with a discerning
eye.
Take, for instance, some ama-
teur graffiti that's begun to appear
around campus. - it's one word,
written in an untrained hand:
"FRESH." Where do we draw the
line between graffiti as vandal-
ism and graffiti as art? Arguably,
nowhere. "I get annoyed with bad
graffiti. What are you proving,
other than the fact that you have a
lot of spray paint?" S.H.R. said.
There is a point to most graffiti.
The pieces often have a certain rele-
vance to the artists themselves, and
graffiti for art's sake is rarely done
for the sole purposes of annoying
property owners. The pieces intend
to make a statement.
"One of the (graffiti pieces) I
did was of a child who has an 'M'
print on his back, and it reads, 'UM
Apparel Is Made in Sweatshops,' "
S.H.R. said, referring to a piece of
graffiti found near the East Quad
residence hall. "There was aprotest
last year against sweatshops, and I
just wanted to put something out to
support them, because there wasn't
a ton of publicity for that."
She was referring to a sit in held
by Students Organizing for Labor
and Economic Equality in April.
Twelve students were arrested
after they refused to leave Univer-
sity President Mary Sue Coleman's
office. They wanted the University
to sign on to the Designated Suppli-
ers Program, which would require
the University to only license its
apparel to companies that adhere
to the program's labor standards.
"I originally wanted to put (the
graffiti piece) near the Fleming
buildingso that Mary Sue Coleman
would have to walk by it every day
and see it, but I never got to finish
the one I put over there, and it just
got defaced, unfortunately," S.H.R.
said.
The meaning and culture behind
this urban art form has spread
widely beyond the "local kids fool-
ing around" connotation, becoming
a national phenomenon.
Websites such as Streetsycom
seek to unite graffiti as a cultural
art form, linking the street art cre-
ated in big cities like New York,
Tokyo, Reykjavik and Tel Aviv.
"Graffiti is used for all sorts
of purposes and for all sorts of
causes," said Jake Dobkin, the web-
site's founder, about the use of graf-
fiti in politically-charged cities.
"Take (the conflict in Israel) -
there's plenty of anti-Israeli graffiti
on the Palestinian side of the sepa-
ration wall. But there's also plenty
of pro-Israel stuff on the other side
of the wall, and in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem," he said. "Both sides
use graf(fiti) because it's an easy
way of getting attention."
It's also an easy way of portray-
ing personal or cultural views to a
big audience:
The public.
Graffiti is a transient art. What
maybe on a wall today might not be
there tomorrow. Graffiti Archae-
ology, a project dedicated to the
study of graffiti, treats graffiti as
an artifact preserved through pic-
tures that the site's founder, Cassi-
dy Curtis, assembles in a timeline
format.
"Change has been essential
to graffiti since almost the very
beginning," Curtis said. "The fact
that writers expect their work to
be painted over eventually creates
an entirely different value system
around the work.
"It's not the finished object
that's important, but the act of
painting it."
The website considers graffiti
a social art form - the graffiti on
a building from three months ago
might not be the same graffiti that
existsthere now, but there's oftena
dialogue between different artists
who approach the same canvas.
"Graffiti does have a social
aspect to it, certainly," S.H.R. said.
"It's awesome to see what other
people are doing and take ideas
from them, just as much as any
other form of art when you play off
other people's ideas."
Graffiti is controversial in rela-
tion to the dynamicsbetween legal
and illegal, public canvas and pri-
vate property.
The issues are subject to debate,
especially between the people who
advocate graffiti as a legitimate art
form.
According to Dobkin, the differ-
ence between graffiti being legal or
illegal lies in questioning the role
of anti-graffiti laws themselves,
and not in questioning graffiti's
role as an art form.
"Obviously, graffiti takes a dif-
ferent view of property, so it's not
surprising that most 'upstanding'
citizens react to it with disdain,"
Dobkin said.
S.H.R. agrees that there are cer-
tain complexities put in play when
people relegate graffiti to the "art
of the slums and ghettos."
Curtis, however, thinks differ-
ently.
"You can't separate the destruc-
tive component (of graffiti) from
the creative," he said.;"But you can:
choose to perceive graffiti asa gift,
a piece of free art done at no cost to
you; or you can choose to perceive
it as theft, as the taking of public
or private space. It's all amatter of
perspective."
Either way, the artistic, social
and cultural roles graffiti plays
shouldn't be holed into pre-
conceived notions of the graf-
fiti artists' intentions. Graffiti is
a charged art form with a charm
that bridges the concepts between
"high art" and the perception of
"low art," between what's in the
Museum of Modern Art and what's
on the streets.
"In the end, I think all that mat-
ters is what's on the wall," S.H.R.
said.
Madmen & Specialists
by Wole Soyinka
In the pursuit of power, must one abandon
all one'snoral values?
Athur Miller Tbeatre Oct. 9 - 19, 2008
Dept. cof Theatre & Drama
Rent
Music, lyrics and book by Jonathan Larson.
Eightfriends, one extraordinary year -
one of the first companies to present this Broadway
phenomenon outside New York
Mendelssohn Theatre s Oct. 16-19, 2008
Dept. of Musical Theatre
Eugene Onegin
by Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky
A tale of love set to a rich, passionate score
Sung in Russian with English translations
Power Center * Nov. 13 - 16, 2008
University Opera Theatre
Musical Theatre II-
TBA
Arthur Miller l heatre
Nov. 20 - 23, 2008
Dept. of Musical Theatre
Pride & Prejudice
Adapted from the novel by Jane Austen
Sometimes your one true love turns
out to be the person you initially disliked
Power Center * Dec. 4 - 7, 2008
Dept. of Theatre & Drama
The 2008-09 U-M School of
Music, Theatre & Dance
season promises superb
entertainment at agreat value!
Student tickets are only $9 with ID
o off the regular price! Get yours
now at the League Ticket Office
in the Michigan League.
Arcs in Time
Choreography by laura Dean & faculty
An important revival ofa modern dance classic
and neu creations by fculty
Power Center * Jan. 29 - Feb. 1, 2009
University Dance Company
f_ f
The Show-Offc
By George Kelly"
Pretension and bravado abound in this hilarious
comedy about a love-struck opportunist l
Mendelssohn Theatre * Feb. 12 - 15, 2009
Dept. of Theatre & Drama
Spring Opera - TBA
M cndelssobn Theatre * Mar. 19 - 22, 2009
University Opera Theatre
Jonesin'
By Seth Moore
A HopwoodAward-winning plsy
by a Ul-M undergraduate student
For mature audiences only
Arthur Miller 'Theatre - Apr. 2 - 12, 2009
Dept. of T heatre & Drama
42nd Street
Music by Harry Warren
Lyrics by Al Dubin
Hear the beat of dancin' feet -
ajazzy, exuberant tribute to
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Power Center
Apr. 16 - 19, 2009
Dept. of Musical Theatre
Buy two student tickets for the price ot one,
or any of the 2008-09 U-M School of Music,
Theatre & Dance mainstage productions.
Gffer subject to availability. Limited to one free
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