Graffiti--What's New is Old

When I first moved to New York, the streets were remarkably free of graffiti. This is no surprise, since I moved to New York in the Guiliani years and after the controversial 1995 Anti-Graffiti Task Force/Quality of Life crime enforcement. And, in particular, in my neighborhood, there was no graffiti whatsoever. Lately, however, a group of kids have been tagging in my neighborhood and it's really given me pause. I have always been a fan of graffiti that makes me think, that interrupts the urban landscape, that poses questions, problems, and challenges. In short, graffiti as political protest and graffiti as subversive commentary speaks to me. From the Brooklyn Museum: Forms of graffiti have been discovered on ancient Roman and Mayan architecture and like today were both illegal and a form of communication. Modern graffiti, which is associated with hip-hop culture and spans all racial and economic groups, began in the mid- to late 1960s; it made its way to New York City and quickly became a phenomenon. Urban youth used the sides of subway trains and buildings as their canvases, reclaiming sections of their neighborhoods by "tagging" them with stylized renditions of their names or the names of the groups they formed. The self-taught graffiti artists turned the walls of public (and sometimes private) buildings into giant panoramas and subway cars into moving murals. I "get" the history of graffiti, and I think it's an important form of social commentary. For example, early on in my New York life, I got lost trying to get to the BQE. I ended up on a street in Brooklyn, lodged between a police depot and a large urban housing project. On the wall of one of the buildings was an amazing piece that said "Ain't no fuckin' co-op here." Thus, the beginning of my awareness about housing issues in New York. But lately, I've been annoyed in my neighborhood because a tagger/group of taggers have taken to scribbling on every possible surface, including the wall of a local preschool. And I hate it! Seriously? The poor janitor for that school is perpetually painting over the word "srry." Can you imagine a lifetime of erasing sorry? It's just obnoxious and I find myself wanting to find the kid who keeps doing it and slap him/her silly. So, I've been struggling with what that means. In response, I've spent the last few weeks taking pictures of graffiti. My eye is definitely drawn to the more colorful pieces.