The Art In Graffiti

Today walking down the street it’s very often and common to see graffiti on walls of buildings or bridges around the city or even some towns. Many people have been on the debate if graffiti is an art form or just straight out vandalism. But I think it all starts out with the artist purpose, graffiti under the right statement and place it can actually serve as real beauty and a true piece of art to the people and the community. Some places in the world, and graffiti was made into murals and are a sense of culture for people and inspire more young artist to go out and try to bring a change to their community.

Have you ever been in a metropolitan area and you head into downtown and you see what looks to be an older abandoned whorehouse? You think to yourself that it’s old, smelly, and has lost its value as a building. But then you notice on the back side of the building is all this great graffiti and that if anything brings life back to the building because of all the color and art that has been placed on it gives it a sense of hope. “It can mean a colorful mural with a message of diversity or a black an white stencil piece protesting police brutality in each case, graffiti art makes a statement.”(Is Graffiti Art?, Steve Dolan) the quote supports that graffiti is a sense of art by the message it repents of where it has been placed and what it shows.

Graffiti is widely know in this world most of all city. But also counties as well, for example, Mexico has many graffiti on many building and even the president at the time for Mexico in 1921 supported graffiti to share knowledge and history of Mexican culture around Mexico by simply having artists create historical Mexicans and relatable Mexican culture through out cities and towns. “the graffiti in many Hispanic neighborhoods in the United States is quite elaborate and is regarded by many as a form of urban art.”(Britannica, by Glen D. Carry, Scott H. Decker) this quote supports that graffiti is a type of art and supports that graffiti is also used for cultural purposes and it can help and strengthen ones culture.

Artists usually when making a piece of art have a message behind it. Many graffiti murals today are put in communities that need the help or need the message, or can even be put there to bring their community a little more purpose than just “downtown” or “the hood”. Community are people who also share the same streets, stores, buildings, and laws. when you have something like that you wouldn’t want it to be a shit hole. You would want to keep it at its best at all times because that’s where you live and keeping safe and clean betters it for everyone. “In communities around the world, individuals have been using street art to transform dull parts of a city into vivid representations of local identity. In some cases, graffiti artists employ themselves as the voice of the voiceless.”(Global Citizen, By Caryn Carver) this quote shows that graffiti can actually help a community out by its arts and messages.

Graffiti has its way to benefit a community and also has its way to fail. But most importantly graffiti is found around the world, there are famous murals in Japan, America, Mexico, and the U.K and many more. “you can travel almost anywhere in the world, and you will probably see graffiti.”(Is Graffiti Art?, by Steve Dolan) this quote supports that graffiti is such a mass worldly thing that to me graffiti has to be an art.

“grafitti” by color line is licensed under CC BY 2.0.