today's graffiti eduction lesson.
building a portfolio on graf ed. here's a summry i wrote on this article from '09.
Article 3:
A Sociologist’s Look at Graffiti
Sewell Chan
The New York Times
February 17, 2009
“Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in a New York’s Urban Underground” is a book published by sociology professor Gregory J. Snyder of Baruch College. During his graduate studies at the New School in New York, Snyder connected with graffiti writers, earning trust, interviewing, and even collecting their visual interpretations of words he wrote in a sketchbook. Synder explains though graf culture emerged during the early 70’s and around the same time as hip-hop, it comes from a cross culture of: class, race, ethnicity, religion, and age.
“...writers define themselves not by what they look like, or what language they speak, or what clothes they wear, but by what they do. Their identities are as writers first, and as members of ethnic, religious, and other subgroups second”
He continues, “in its purest form, graffiti is a democratic art form that revels in the American Dream.”
Snyder describes reasons why a diverse group of youth is inspired through graffiti: it is free art [though there is the constant argument between vandalism and street art] when it comes down to the technical aspects. Money is not involved; there is no needed prior knowledge or I.D.s to gain access to view it.
The leading argument against graffiti is that of social scientists George L. Kelling and James W. Wilson who introduced the widely known ‘’broken windows theory’’. This claims that crime and disorder go hand in hand with graffiti. Further, that from unaddressed ‘’low-level and petty crimes’’ emerges violent and more serious crimes.
In the 80s, the era of subway graffiti in New York, the city viewed this movement as a crisis and in ’89 refused service of any painted rail cars. City Council passed a law to pan aerosol paint and broad-tipped markers to anyone under the age of 21 more recently in 2006. This law did not last with such broad stipulations.
A map in the book “Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City” published by the Columbia University Press in 2001, includes an eye-opening discovery like no other of its kind. It further provides, “…suggested ’quality of life’ crimes, such as graffiti does not tend to be focused in poor neighborhoods with high rates of violent crime.’’
In further defense, have a look at So-Ho. Graffiti happens to be one of the neighborhoods selling points. The point many in society may be missing is that it is not the goal of the graf writer to earn their respect in low-income areas – they are searching for the walls to meet their demographic. Spots where the viewership is high and mixed cultures congregate. The areas home to the greatest amount of illegal graffiti is: the Lower East Side, East Village, and So-Ho. These neighborhoods are hardly poverty stricken and crime ridden.
Moving forward, many modern day writers have been able to turn their driven illegal efforts into legal art careers.
Snyder ends with this strong case, “These kids refused the meager options presented to them by the larger society, and instead perfected extremely risky cultural pursuits. There success in this form eventfully opened up other opportunities, and today those efforts, in some cases, are paying off, literally.”
