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Unfortunately, life is not black and white. Even without knowing anything about graffiti culture, there is a border between defacing and improving. And graffiti
by oaiey 2y ago
Unfortunately, life is not black and white. Even without knowing anything about graffiti culture, there is a border between defacing and improving. And graffiti artists are moving over that border back and forth.
Some of the most beautiful art I have seen are graffiti
- constantcrying 2y agoI have never seen a good looking graffiti which was defacing public property. Granted, I have seen competent images which obviously were commissioned by building owners. All of it was bad art though and immensely displeasing.
- petre 2y ago[flagged]
- constantcrying 2y ago>Are you an art major to be able to judge objectively? There is precisely nothing about "being an art major" that gives you any more or less right to an opinion. Especially if you actually had read anything about current philosophy of art you would realize how dumb that sounds in this context. Since "postmodern" theories of art focus on the inner expression of the artist, contrasted with the subjective experience of the art by the viewer. I am the one who has to suffer through this every day in the train. How am I not entitled to an opinion about that "art"?
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- joquarky 2y agoThe path to alleviate suffering involves letting go.
- yesco 2y agoAre you suggesting most people enjoy graffiti? Because I don't know anyone irl who does so I'm a bit surprised by this perspective. I've personally always viewed it as equivalent to littering and assumed the ones doing it were just thrill seekers up until now...
- jorvi 2y agoThere are two types of graffiti: actual art, and tags which are akin to the forum signatures of yore. The actual art is often a bit strange but can be beautiful, and is more interesting than a bare concrete wall or train hull. But I agree with you that virtually all tags are ugly. And not only that, tags represent an extreme concept of ego, where you subsume the art, spending your entire canvas on your signature.
- nicolas_t 2y agoWhat I despise the most are taggers who tag on top of a beautiful graffiti with lazily styled letters.
- flohofwoe 2y agoI do. When I first moved to Berlin I was thinking the same, but now I prefer it when modern concrete buildings are touched up with graffity no matter if commissioned or "illegal" - the important part is to give the eyes something to stumble over. Historical buildings is a different matter of course.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- petre 2y agoYes, I used to view it like that as well, until a host of grafittis offering a different perspective appeared in my city. It turned out that the author was an art student and a neighbour of mine from the lower floor. Not Banksy level but still good. Sadly he moved or who knows but his grafittis are gone and the awful football related vandalism tags are here to stay.
- kichimi 2y agoDefacing is your opinion, I think a city without graffiti is a dead city, it's an improvement.
- wiseowise 2y agoGood for you. Keep it to your backyard.
- yardstick 2y agoHave you seen any Banksy? Do you consider his work graffiti? Most of his work is graffiti’d onto public property without permission. https://www.artsy.net/artist/banksy https://www.artsy.net/artist/banksy
- kmmlng 2y agoOf course you can find stuff that's high quality, but that is rare. Rather than looking at outliers, it might be more sensible to look at the average and the reality is that the average graffiti does not have any artistic value.
- constantcrying 2y agoI grant Banksy that he has some technical competency and is able to do something somewhat visually interesting (his use of color works quite well and makes his pieces stand out within the medium), but I really hate him as an artist. There is basically no one who makes greater kitsch than him. Everything he makes is steeped in the middle class, liberal, mediocrity of someone who points out that things, which everyone agrees are bad, actually are bad. It seriously is something of the worst "art" I have ever seen and actually makes me quite sympathetic to the post modernists whose movement is a reaction to people like him. The middle schooler, scribbling on canvas, is at least not trying desperately to impress the most bourgeois group of people the world has ever seen. That alone puts everything he does a serious step above Banksy.
- wiseowise 2y ago> Have you seen any Banksy? Do you consider his work graffiti? Yes and yes. Overhyped "I'm 14 and this is deep" energy.
- highcountess 2y agoOf course it’s graffiti and it’s still imposing on others against their will, regardless of whether it’s peak narcissist Banksy or someone else. Is very much about transgression and imposition and sadistic domination for personalities like Banksy and graffiti artists in general; it’s precisely why they put their “art” in other people’s things against their will. So if I graffiti your car because I believe it improves your car; would that be ok with you? It’s art. You should be happy, right?
- TapamN 2y agoThere are a few here that are actually pretty good: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4032118&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post532948460 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=40...
- carstenhag 2y agoAhh yeah, the typical reason people hate forums nowadays. Registration-wall/paywall. Amazing
- kalleboo 2y ago"Nowadays", Something Awful has required paid registration since like 2001
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- TapamN 2y agoI didn't realize that thread was totally paywalled. Here are direct links to two of the images: https://lpix.org/4545647/IMG_8335.jpeg https://lpix.org/4545647/IMG_8335.jpeg https://lpix.org/4545648/IMG_8336.jpeg https://lpix.org/4545648/IMG_8336.jpeg
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago[flagged]
- charamis 2y agoLife would be meaningless if it was just black and white. Fortunately there are times that we're reminded that people do live in cities and do stuff other than just minding their own.
- z500 2y ago> Life would be meaningless if it was just black and white. Someone should probably tell that to the graffiti "artists" in my town
- rangestransform 2y agoI really wish people minded their own more, then my ears wouldn’t be assaulted by boomboxes on the subway and I wouldn’t be accosted at an atm vestibule
- 72deluxe 2y agoWhat a strange argument that seems to romanticise this "border" called "the law". It is black and white: someone is defacing something that doesn't belong to them. You can call the result whatever you want ("art","expression" etc) but the fundamental issue doesn't change. Would you be happy to wake up and see your car covered in paint? What about the windows on your house? Would you see this as an "improvement" too?
- nicolas_t 2y agoI think I’d be relatively happy if I woke up one day and saw a banksy or an invader mosaic on my wall. I’ve seen graffiti art that definitely improved grey ugly walls and barriers. I’ve also seen ugly tags that are nothing more than letters. It’s relative
- LoganDark 2y agoHonestly, I would too. Illegal or not, whether it's "defacing" is definitely subjective.
- highcountess 2y agoIs not relative at all to rational people. Let me just put it this way, do I get to just move into your home and take it over simply because I believe that I can make it a better home than you can? Do I get to steal your car/property because I believe I can make better use of it? Stop rationalizing narcissistic behavior and people trying to impose themselves on others. It’s not relative at all. You or the narcissistic graffiti vandals have no right to impose themselves on others.
- nicolas_t 2y agoThe nice thing is that in democracies you can influence what is done against graffitis. Don't like graffitis? try to push your local representatives etc to be stricter on them or move to a country that has no graffiti like Singapore. One of the most sterile, boring city in the world. For whatever reasons, Germany is rather lenient towards graffiti artists which, in my eyes, makes Berlin more enjoyable than it would be otherwise. I've lived in a lot of places and I've learned that I hate grey boring walls a lot, I much prefer it when they're covered by colorful graffitis. It seems I'm not the only one so some localities tend to be rather lenient towards graffiti artists and even invite them, other places are much stricter and so you can enjoy bleak concrete walls unblemished by any graffitis. As to your example about homes, well, in France and in some other European countries, in the 90s there was a bit of a left leaning political push for "right to lodgings". This movement made squatting much easier (in France, it was extremely difficult to get rid of squatters if they moved in past 48 hours). I've always personally thought those laws were stupid and they were eventually repealed and amended recently. But that's the way it is with governments, you don't get to agree with all the decisions made. If it's a democracy you have some measures of influence.
- wiseowise 2y agoMost of the time this is a black and white matter.
- highcountess 2y ago[flagged]
- latentcall 2y agoYour reply is way out of whack compared to that persons comment. You seem to have taken it quite personally which I find strange but interesting. Also please refrain from name calling, it isn’t in the spirit of this site.
- mkmk3 2y agoGood username for this kind of talk...
- agumonkey 2y agoThen let us buy them some large white boards so they can paint on it and move them somewhere else later
- p_l 2y agoSome areas had, if not fully formally, dedicated areas for graffiti. As in, "we will leave this unadorned wall, and we won't clean up the graffiti unless it's truly an eyesore, and we won't chase you for it". The wall I most recall was close to quite utilized road, so yes it was very "public facing". The end result was that it was the one place where I would see actually impressive graffiti, with competition to make better stuff, instead of random vandal tags.