Graffiti Lecture

Today in lecture we watched a video called Bomb It. It was a long video about graffiti and art and how the artists are people fighting against the system. A lot of people consider graffiti to be a bad thing. They say that it's a bunch of people destroying the city putting their tag there, marking their territory. But each story has different sides to it. A lot of people only consider their side of the story. What they fail to understand is the story of the person bombing the walls with their words and art. It's pretty much an all out war. The artists mark the walls with their words. It's their way of saying that the government doesn't care about them. They could go anywhere in this world and mark it as their own. The world belongs to them. The government doesn't care about them and the government doesn't give them anything. they don't help so they throw up their words and pieces on the walls as if to say that since you don't want to help we're just going to take it. It's a form of rebellion towards the government. Some graffiti pieces are a way of showing that that area is a place where the government doesn't help and where the government doesn't care. The cool thing that i learned in the video is that the reason they call it "bombing" is because it's their non-violent way of bombing the walls. In war, people in planes drop bombs and destroy the city. with graffiti, the artists are bombing the walls figuratively. They put up their signs as a symbol of that canvas being taken down. The thrill of running away and getting caught or beaten up for painting over someones tag is all part of the art. It's not just an art of painting on canvas. It's a physical art; a performance art. We also learned that people who do graffiti for money are taking away the meaning of graffiti. Graffiti is done in the streets and when it's put into a museum it's like you're caging that form of art. You're taking away the gunpowder from the guns of the rebellious. There's so much to learn about graffiti and art in general. In the end, to me it's all art. People may think it's bad and stuff but it's still art. Some old paintings from way back were also considered bad. I remember the teacher showed us a painting that just looked like a boat sailing down a canal and told us that the painting was one of the most offensive paintings in it's time. I thought that was funny but that's how some people think. Graffiti is the same thing. It takes the questions that would offend anyone and throws it in your face, in your city, on your walls. Graffiti is a very deep art and although society may not like it or think of it as art... it still is. And i think it's freakin awesome.