Graffiti’s Transfer from the Streets to Canvas Prints
The mainstream artworld has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the plus side, creatives like Banksy have made walls a place to put a political point across, employing stencils to produce technically challenging artworks with a nuanced political point. This type of graffiti was bound to become popular with both the masses and the art critics : appealing to both eye and intellect. This type of graffiti is now even purchased as canvas prints, and placed on the walls of middleclass households and office reception areas.
However, what about the other end of the spectrum? – the scally, the tagger, the gangbanger variety – this sort of graffiti is oftentimes seen as antisocial, an offence committed by the talentless. However this is to misinterpret graffiti as purely an art form. To many individuals, it’s not just an artform, but a means to put your stamp on territory, or even a rejection of society altogether : anti-social, anti-art, anti-establishment.
Spraying has forever been a covert pursuit, although the results are very much public facing. The targeted audience is often unidentified. Is it for a rival crew? A message to a single person? To the public at large? Possibly it’s just gratuitous and out of boredom.
Whatever the reasons, there seems to be some kind of enduring need to spray graffiti on walls. Some city councils have acknowledged that graffiti isn’t a fad, so they’ve marked off areas where graffiti is permitted – usually unoccupied areas, but occasionally busier zones like boarding around urban construction sites.
