The mainstream artworld has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the one hand, graffiti artists like Banksy have made graffiti an artform that is pleasing on the eye, using stencils to create challenging graphics loaded with political messages attached. This kind of graffiti was certain to grow trendy with the public and the art critics : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This sort of graffiti is now even acquired as graffiti on canvas, and hung in middle class homes and office meeting rooms.
However, what of the usual variety - the tagger, the gangbanger variety - this is just seen as hooliganism, a crime perpetrated by the untalented. But misinterprets graffiti as purely art. To a lot of individuals, it’s not only art, but a means to put your stamp on territory, or perhaps two fingers up at society : anti-social, anti-art, anti-establishment.
Spraying has forever been an underground pursuit, although the effects are very much public. The intended market is frequently unidentified. Is it for a rival gang? A communication to a single person? To the public at large? Possibly it’s simply uncalled-for and out of nothing else to do.
Whatever the causes may be, there seems to be a ceaseless need to spray graffiti on walls. Some city councils have conceded that graffiti isn’t a fad, so they’ve designated areas where graffiti is allowed - usually unoccupied areas, but now and then busier areas like boarding around urban construction sites.
