Some thoughts on graffiti

Just to show everyone that I am indeed engaged in something called academic work, here's some thoughts I've had on graffiti that are the result of my research so far.

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Butler and Graffiti: Identification and Subjectivity

            Graffiti in some form or another is as old as humanity. Examples can be found in the caves in Lascaux, France, later in Pompeii, Italy, and frequently in contemporary bathroom stalls. However, graffiti as it is popularly understood, spray painted images on urban surfaces, developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Philadelphia, then New York. It has been a text-based art form (which is why it has become institutionalized largely through graphic design departments within art schools), but is now transitioning to refer to a particular style of art, bleeding from the streets onto the internet. In some ways, the internet (often a fleeting space of presence and disappearance) is more permanent than the street, betraying a desire for stability in an art world under constant erasure.

            Graffiti is clearly an embodied process. The body acts, the paint does not simply appear on the wall. From whence does this drive come, to engage in illegal activity in order to see a name in public? In popular discourses it appears that the graffiti artist is merely a vandal, an anti-social actor in opposition to the status quo. There is certainly some of that within the broad, worldwide movement of graffiti or street art. However, as an identity, graffiti cannot be so essentialized. Understood through Marx’s concept of alienation, graffiti as an identificatory practice becomes clearer. In an advanced capitalistic society, such as the United States, the extraction of surplus labor, mass production, and the profit motive combine and give rise to subjects alienated from their own labor, and in the conditions of hypercapitalism, labor is life itself. Closed out of viable economies due to racism, lack of education, and other structural barriers, such alienation perhaps quickly leads to abjection. Graffiti arose given these conditions as a means to literally state: I am here, I am alive, look at me! In this case, the subject “give[s] an account…because someone has asked me to, and that someone has power delegated from an established system of justice.” Shut out of the media, many inner-city youth answered the state on the only publicly accessible platforms they could: the walls and subway cars of the city.

            Very quickly, though, the state responded with violence, as graffiti is outside of what is considered a productive citizenship. New York City’s Metro Transit Authority (MTA) noticed a decline in ridership. When the MTA conducted surveys to find out why, the most common response was due to the high levels of crime taking place on the subway; in fact, many city residents and other potential riders stated that they thought that most of the crime taking place in the city was happening on the subway. This was not accurate. The presence of graffiti gave the impression that no one was in charge of the city and combined with many other issues the city was forced to act. Graffiti was blamed as creating an atmosphere of anarchy – and graffiti was anthropomorphized, becoming the precursor to the disembodied, subjectless “war on terror” begun after September 11^th. The state struck back, erasing graffiti and jailing artists. The battle had begun and offered a new method of subjectivation. The graffiti artist as guerilla fighter was born.

            What began as a public petition for recognition is now a right of passage for anti-establishment youth, feeding into the perception of graffiti as vandalism. Regardless, something more was happening. The development of graffiti is often lumped into/with the development of hip hop. However, graffiti has equal origins in both punk and hip hop cultures, which share more than most give credit for. Early crossovers, such as the Beastie Boys (originally a punk band), and collaborations, such as Aerosmith with Run DMC, Onyx with Biohazard, Anthrax with both UTFO and Public Enemy illustrate how closely linked the two cultures were (are?). The “Do It Yourself” (DIY) aesthetic of both punk and hip hop influenced early graffiti. Racial politics, however, cloud the issue; our propensity to reduce graffiti to an African American folk art is troubled when we learn that many of the major artists of the early years were not Black. This common origin, though, is also unsatisfying because many artists claimed no allegiance to either culture, particularly once the art form began to spread around the world. This simply highlights the complexity of the movement and that in our attempts to write histories of it foreclose much of what actually happened. We are lucky that many of the early artists are still alive to give their accounts, but as Butler reminds us, they cannot give complete accounts of themselves or the art.

Public Space, Public Face: Neoliberalism, Globalism, Localism

            Given the profusion of graffiti art and artists around the world and the rise to dominance of neoliberal policies governing public space, the penalties for being prosecuted under the law are increasing. What used to be a minor crime now carries with it fines in the thousands of dollars and possible jail time for “repeat offenders” in many cities around the globe. With the stakes so high, graffiti is finding other ways to live. It, and by it I mean to summarize the art world of graffiti into the word graffiti, is finding new avenues, new ways to

…call forth a public which has yet to exist. Here calling forth this public would be part of a process called democracy: since we would reject the reduction of democracy to a mode of governance based upon counting votes, tallying numbers, etcetera… This process of constructing or calling forth or creating a public would also require some struggle, some disagreement… It would require fighting for ground lost and ground which has yet to be imagined. (16Beaver, Down by Numbers, in Art as a Public Issue)

This struggle and disagreement is part of a radical democratic project articulated by Chantal Mouffe. While traditional politics leaves little room for graffiti, agonistic politics offers a site/time for graffiti to participate as citizenship, and the internet is where much of this is now happening.

            Much has been said about the internet and its ability to replace traditional public forums. However, replacing public physical space with public virtual space is not very satisfying. We do not yet live our entire lives on-line, regardless of the clarion calls from doom and gloom media pundits yearning for an earlier, simpler time. Every time we go outside, even if it is to make the drive to work, we pass through public space. Reliance on the internet as the sole site to voice dissent and opposition actually plays into neoliberal politics as an easy, violence-free way to diffuse the masses. Having a million people send an email to the White House is still less powerful a statement than having 20,000 people gather on the Mall in the United States capital. Permits are required, and as experience in Seattle (1999), New York (2000 Democratic Convention), and Minneapolis/St. Paul (2008, Rage Against the Machine prevented from playing on stage outside the Republican National Convention, police citing “safety concerns) shows, the permits act to confine popular protest and to justify violent state responses once the terms are exceeded. Commerce is interrupted, which sets off the first domino in a long line that culminates in tear gas and rubber bullets. More and more, graffiti is being understood, at least by its practitioners and admirers, through these conditions.

            The 2007 documentary Bomb It highlighted recent trends, while also providing a strong historical backdrop to the movement. Jon Reiss, the producer and director, also focused on the global implications of graffiti as an artistic movement, showcasing global commonalities while simultaneously demonstrating the particular local styles and politics. While graffiti seems to have common elements around the globe, it is clear that graffiti in New York is not the same as graffiti in Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, or Capetown. 

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In Paris, stenciler Blek le Rat discussed how New York style writing would not fit the Paris architecture, so he helped create a unique Parisian style. This is contradicted from within, though, when Reiss interviews minority/immigrant youth from Paris’ urban exurbs, who take a less artistic view and reiterate the value of graffiti in asserting an identity in an alienating environment. Blek le Rat wants art to serve a social purpose (speaking for) and the anonymous Arab-French youth want to say “fuck you” to the system that others them (speaking from).

Conclusion

            As an art form, graffiti is well established and has been since at least the 1980s when Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat ruled the New York City art scene. However, the civic value of graffiti remains contested…sort of. Within the movement it is clear that the motivations of artists are to perform a type of “urban intervention,” while similar thoughts outside the movement are almost nonexistent. We are so wrapped up in neoliberal thought that “common sense” views of property, space (public and private), and the centrality of commerce relegate graffiti to the vandalism dustbin. My project, as I am beginning to conceptualize it, is to conduct field research in order to figure out what exactly it is that graffiti artists are doing, then work on incorporating that into political and educational theory.