Blog #5

Graffiti is as much a work of art as anything hanging in any museum around the world; an idea conceived and achieved by an expressionist on the walls with spray paint to society's dismay. I don't see very much difference between the spray can of a graffiti artist and the brush of a painter, nor do I see very much distinction in their respective mediums. What I see is an artist and their intent, their creations, all conveyed in unique and equal manners. Had graffiti not originate in an urban setting it would have been much more widely accepted and appreciated by the masses. One may say it lacks substance but one of graffiti's purposes is to immortalize or commerate. Often times when someone is taken before their time graffiti is sprayed onto a wall in memory of a fallen friend or family member, usually in their likeness. Graffiti should absolutely be included in museums because it presents an alternate to oil painting, "a craft that doesn't appeal to the average man" (Dana). In an urban setting you're more likely to come across graffiti on a bridge or on a building than an oil painting. If the art authorities truly held graffiti in contempt commercializing it would likely take the purity out of the art and effectively reduce the likelihood of it surviving any longer than it has. However in order to do that they'd have to acknowledge it as art and their pride casts a shadow too broad and dark to ever do so. In the midst of the fuss of erecting a museum to intertwine the cultures of the man for the public curators "become lost in working out their idea of a museum and forget their public" (Dana).