Scratch: Is graffiti a form of mixed media painting or just vandalism?

In this essay I will cover many arguments for and against street art being a form of mixed media painting or an act of vandalism. Some of the arguments against are from the local councils who want to keep streets clean. I have a real advantage with this topic because of my unique location in central London, where art is rich in culture and present in several areas of London where it is encouraged and flourishes.

In the case of ROA’s Rabbit present on the Hackney Road in London, there is a very split view on whether graffiti is a form of painting or vandalism. The argument seems to divide the local people and the local council perfectly, the locals are strongly in favour of keeping ROA’s Rabbit and treasuring it as a piece of valuable, cultural art, which can be shared by everyone. On the other hand, there’s Hackney Council that wanted to remove it, dubbing it ‘vandalism’. This story got me interested in investigating other views on wall paintings and graffiti, and deciding the best place to start was where any form of wall paintings were first recorded. Most notably, the Lascaux Caves in South - western France.
The oldest of any recorded notable drawings or paintings is arguably the Lascaux Caves, which are 17,300 years old. But these caves haven’t been classed as vandalism or anything close to, but they depict a specific chosen subject matter, which is close to the hearts of the people who painted them there so long ago. They were created using a variety of materials and pigments including using the walls of the caves as a primitive canvas. They were evidently prepared with a keen interest because of the accuracy of the drawings and the resemblance the drawings of animals bear to even modern animals, the variety and use of colours and the tools used to apply the materials and pigments to the wall wouldn’t have been available inside the Lascaux caves as they are quite long tunnels which reach caves quite far down. This means a group of people prepared everything to take before hand. Modern day artists of all kinds do this. We produce initial sketches, experiment with materials, experiment with colours and textures and employ techniques such as stencilling. There is no difference between then and now, only the French Council of Montignac didn’t take steps to remove it as vandalism when they were discovered in 1940. They took steps to protect it, sealing off the caves when they realised increased human presence deteriorated the cave paintings and reproducing the artwork in a separate cave because of the value and the character the paintings added to the area; and arguably most importantly, both Lascaux and modern day graffiti is inspired by a desire to practise the arts, which in any culture or society is beneficial to that culture. Why can’t modern wall paintings be seen and treated the same way, such as ROA’s Rabbit, it is seen as a piece of art by the locals and should therefore be treated as one.

Graffiti has obtained a negative stigma which implies dirtying anything on which it is created and the surrounding area. But from a different perspective and to the open mind graffiti becomes street art, which can be vulgar at times but also fantastically ingenious, unique and inspirational to aspiring young artists. This is everything modern art is, so therefore we can include Graffiti or street art within the artistic field, especially as it requires great skill. But the problem is finding where the boundary lies between street art and vandalism. We can only judge ourselves on each piece we see, but ‘tagging’ is an example of non-artistic graffiti, which would be easy to dub vandalism and so should be. Tagging is seen as your street signature on walls or an object, some people see this as purely ‘territorial’ whereas others see tagging as ‘texturing’ a wall and it becomes a mural classed as art.

The content of the graffiti is arguably the overuling factor in whether it is vandalism or a form of mixed media street art. The content detirmines people’s view on it, if the content of the graffiti is in any way descriminatory or generally vulgar it can become contravertial, which in a way can elavate its importance but it becomes generally unnaccepted or infamous. Despite artistic preparations it may be put down to vandalism based purely on the content of the image or text, and may be removed.
Although the content can be enough to raise the artist to fame and gain a lot of public support. A few artists have gained such popularity and fame that the councils will have taken steps to protect them just like the Caves in Lascaux. A Banksy stencilled piece of street art was protected on Essex road in London, a piece of clear plastic was screwed into the wall over the mural. This solidified its artistic status.

Location of graffiti is a big factor in this debate too. The definition of vandalism is to deliberately damage or destroy (property), so this implies that owners of the property havent given consent to the graffiti. But street artists like ROA and Banksy ask permission from the owners to produce art on their walls, just like ROA’s rabbit on Hackney Road and Banksy’s piece on Essex Road. If even the finest piece of artistic graffiti was on the side of a building where the artist didn’t ask permission of the owner, then the graffiti is immediately dubbed as vandalism and is removed.

In conclusion, the debate on whether graffiti is vandalism or a piece of mixed media painting is dependent on each piece of graffiti. The dependent factors are location, content and whether the owners of the property on which is has been painted, have given their concent. Then can it be seen as a truly valid artistic form, with even stronger links to the first signs of human ancestors being interested in art and creating culture than almost any other form of art available today.