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What's appearing on our streets.......vandalism or art?


embley

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Most graffiti is rubbish the same as most art. I acknowledge it's wrong but I can condone it to an extent if it's good.

 

I like Banksy, he's done some good stuff around London -- I got a pic of his Mona Lisa with a SAM-7 just of Poland Street in Soho before it was painted over.

 

The analogy of slashing a painting is inexact. Firstly because defacing a work of art is different to defacing a wall. Secondly because there's usually only one original copy of a painting but there are a million walls.

 

I also think it's different spraying a public or corporate building to private property. It's wrong to spray anywhere, but wronger to spray an individual's house than the Shell Centre on the South Bank.<div>00ASuZ-20944684.jpg.a2273bbd5ae0b39962119e6dd62cd797.jpg</div>

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Richard, you're implying that architecture is not art. I feel that defacing an architect's art is similar to defacing a painter's art. In regard to your second point, there is only one Mona Lisa, just as there is only one Chysler Building. There are millions of paintings by unknown painters and millions of walls designed by unknown architects. I don't want to see any of them defaced.

 

And the difference between defacing a residential building versus a corporate/government building is negligible because in the end individuals always pay for the repairs. To pay for repairs vandals cause, Shell just raises their prices. In essence, Banksy is ripping off the public just like those "evil corporations" becuase the costs of cleaning and repainting buildings is paid for by individual consumers.

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@brian diaz

well.... could you say the same of sketches at Lascaux. those are the early graffiti as we know, drawn by people on the rocks in places where they lived. the events they recorded were close to their hearts . so why modern graffiti can't be seen the same way ?, simply because we have an abstract idea of a private property.

<a href="http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/">lascaux</a>

k

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thanks for getting it

 

art is art

art is subjective

art should make you feel

make you think

make you pissed off

make you inspired

 

just let people do their thing...why is that so difficult?...censorship is such bullocks

 

tagging (gang names) is not the same as the stenciling that banksy and other artists do

 

and yeah stenciling is quite easy to do hence the reason some of it has been going mainstream with ad campaigns

 

but banksy creates to make a statement like the girl hugging the torpedo and that i think is a valid reason to do what he is doing and i dont feel the need to condemn him

 

i support him and other artists who do the same type of work

 

i think grafitti can be very ugly of course but sometimes it can be beautiful as well

 

 

and thanks for the props on new sites and artists to check out....brilliant

 

 

stu:

<<Same crap at the railyard. Go down there and play.>>

was that a shit comment or a supportive comment? sounds kinda shit

 

xxemilyxx

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"art is art art is subjective art should make you feel make you think make you pissed off make you inspired

 

just let people do their thing...why is that so difficult?" Emily, first it is difficult because I have no idea what that first sentence you wrote means..

 

"...censorship is such bullocks" Emily, thank you for NOT getting it. This is not censorship as no one is saying you cannot express yourself. But to vandalize property is not self expression. If you want to find someone to donate you a wall or if you pay for wall space, go ahead, make your art. But vandalizing architecture cannot be justified your imaginary rights to free expression.

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Lascaux? Okay, 17,000 years ago, society was much different, and their ideas of property was much different. As I recall, anthropologists speculate that the Lascaux caves were sacred places, and the artists were most likely commissioned by their society's leaders. It's like the pope calling in Michelangelo to paint his ceiling. But I imagine that if someone decided to carve his name in someone else's spear, they would be taking it outside.

<P>

I know that art is subjective, and I fully support people doing their own things, UNLESS that infringes on other people's rights. I appreciate Banksy's statements and enjoy his visual style, and I'm blown away by work like <a href="http://www.banksy.co.uk/indoors/images/people-di-everyday2.jpg">this</a>, but if your canvas belongs to someone else, it doesn't matter whether what you do is beautiful or ugly.

<P>

I find Agnes Martin's work boring, but would you support me if I went into MoMA and wrote that on one of her paintings?

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Hi Brian,

 

>Richard, you're implying that architecture is not art...

 

No, I recognise that architecture IS art but, like other art, 80% of it is crap. I have no problem with a great piece of graffiti on a soul-less concrete wall of a parking structure or something. I do have a problem with crap graffiti on peoples' homes.

 

Graffiti is wrong but sometimes subversion and lawbreaking are needed to make statements. Banksy can have a web site but stuff he puts there won't have the same expressive effect of the stuff he does in public spaces.

 

I don't argue that graffiti isn't a crime and shouldn't be prosecuted, but there are worse things going on in the world.

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@brian diaz

... true, but intentions were the same, to be in the presence of art. modern society has norms to control everything. we are surrounded by law and rules, left and right. the angst of a human soul to break away from this structure is oneway represented by what bansky is doing. average crowd does not go to see art anymore so art goes to see them, to provoke, to challenge, to question the grey mentality and social norms.

 

i have no problem with your agnes act, it might actually enhance her work to another level. your act if you were to do, would be in the true spirit of dada. agnes might be pissed of about it, but then we ( the audience ) could decide upon if. so.. , many spat on reinhart's work. he did not get angry about it, he then painted another one.

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<i>No, I recognise that architecture IS art but, like other art, 80% of it is crap. </i>

<p>

Architecture is not art, it can be in certain isolated cases but in most it's a business that deals with solving programmatic issues for clients within their budgets. Artists create art without any restrictions.

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>Artists create art without any restrictions.

 

Do we want to get into the discussion about the nature of art? Many supposedly great

artists have done work on commission, for example the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Does that

invalidate their art? We may have to talk about fine art rather commercial art or craft.

 

If architecture isn't art, the argument that graffiti is defacement of art goes out of the

window.

 

Graffiti is anti-social behaviour, and draws its power from being subversive. If art is

created by artists working for their own ends, graffiti is truer art than anything made for

galleries, which is produced to be sold.

 

Perhaps a more interesting discussion is whether stencil graffiti is a valid form of graffiti

compared to freely drawn spraycan work.

 

Relating this topic back to street photography, what do people think about shooting other

anti-social behaviours on the street?

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