Not art.
While I thought the matter had been settled by better people than I, a friend just asked me about graffiti, thus obligating me to write up a bit about it.
In regards to the question of whether or not graffiti is art, my stock response is to ask “is painting art?” This response is not intended to be flippant, rather it indicates my actual view on the matter which is a serious philosophical position.
Contemporary graffiti is, by its nature, a form of painting. After all, the person creating the graffiti (typically) uses the methods and material of painting (although the paint is typically spray paint). As such, specific examples of graffiti would be assessed as art or not art by the same standards by which a painting would be assessed. For example, a crude tagging involving a person spray painting his/her name on the hood of your car would no more be art than it would be for a person to sign his/her name on a canvas using a brush. As another example, if the ghost of da Vinci manifested and grabbed spray paint to create a work on par with Mona Lisa masterfully on the side of a business, then that would have the same status as the Mona Lisa, at least in terms of being art or not. Thus, given that graffiti is essentially painting it follows that it is as much art as painting is or is not. In fact, given that graffiti involves the very same techniques and mediums as “conventional” painting, the burden of proof would seem to be on those who would deny that graffiti is (or more accurately, can be) art while maintaining that painting is art.
One common objection is that graffiti is not art because it is vandalism and hence a criminal act. While it is true that it can be vandalism and a criminal act, these facts would not seem to have a bearing on its status of being art. The mere fact that something is illegal or classified as vandalism hardly seems sufficient to make something fall outside of the realm of art. After all, imagine a state in which music was a criminal act and labeled as a vandalism of the public sound space. It would hardly follow that music would thus cease to be art. As such, this objection fails.
Another common objection is that graffiti is crude or simplistic and hence cannot be considered art. The obvious reply, to steal from Aristotle, is that not all graffiti is to be condemned, just that which is crude or simplistic. After all, music would not be considered non-art simply because some musicians create crude or simplistic music. The same should hold for graffiti as well.
Thus, graffiti is as much art as painting is or is not.
Yup.
I think a good reason for the claim that “graffiti is art”, is the objectivity of mass subjectivity. In other words, if lots of people (the major part) think of a graffiti as a work of art, then it is. If they don’t then it’s not.
For me, the major reason I resist the “graffiti is art” movement is ownership. If I create a painting it seems I have a large degree of control over how it is used. I don’t mean that I can keep people from parodying, commenting on it, or using themes from it to create their own art. Nor can I control how others relate to it. But it seems that I *can* choose to display it or not. I can license people to make reproductions or use it commercially, and I can sell the original.
None of this applies to graffiti. In fact, it seems a large point of graffiti is to take away someone else’s right to control what he owns. (I read a study, I forget where, attributing much of graffiti to a desire for the poor to “make their mark” in a world whose power structures seemed to silence them.) I’m not sure whether this is essential to art or not, but it does seem like a reasonable objection that should be answered.
If I were asked the same question, the first thing I’d do is try to find a good definition of art. If I have to judge whether something is an example of xyz then it makes sense to know what xyz allows and doesn’t. Mike, you seem to take it for granted everyone knows that definition. But reading your essay doesn’t entirely convince me that you do. At one point, I was sure that you figured art had to be a painting, but at least you were liberal enough to accept the possibility of using paint that is sprayed from a can. You get kind of tricky as to where one can produce a work of art. On the hood of a car? No, especially if it’s yours. On the side of a business building? That’s okay if da Vinci did it. What if he did it on the hood of your car? Or some vandal, i.e. someone who is not da Vinci paints the identical picture on the building?
From your first sentence you admit there are other people who with respect to this question might be better than you. Okay, I took your word for it and went to Wikipedia and found Tolstoy had given a definitive answer as to what art is. Heck, can you get a much better authority? He did write all those physically weighty books.
Among other things he wrote:
“. . . it is unfitting for people in his society to continue to embrace the Greek tradition of art.”
And he:
specifically condemns Wagner and Beethoven as examples of overly cerebral artists, who lack real emotion. Furthermore, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 cannot claim to be able to “infect” their audience, as it pretends, with the feeling of unity and therefore cannot be considered good art.
So, what’s a person who wants to know if graffiti is an art to do?
‘So, what’s a person who wants to know if graffiti is an art to do?.
Slightly more than googling ‘What is Art?’, clicking on the Wikipedia entry on the Tolstoy essay of that name, and randomly quoting from it perhaps?
GRA, if you’re looking for a decisive and final definition of art, give up.
Furthermore, you misunderstood Mike. He wasn’t claiming to put forward any definition; he was doing a comparison technique. We all agree that some painting is art, graffiti is painting, so the burden of proof is on someone who would claim that graffiti cannot be art. Put succinctly, insofar as painting is an art form, graffiti is an art form. That was his point.
Jim and Justin,
Jim: My quote choices weren’t random. They were picked to help make a point, admittedly, my own, viz. that when it comes to defining what art is, if one of the most proclaimed authors ever, in his attempt for such a definition comes up with such garbage, maybe the word “art” should be used with more care, or better yet never used in a situation such as the present one.
Justin: Assuming he needs one, your defense of Mike’s position is good by me. But just to try and absolve myself from being accused of not understanding the question at hand, might I refer you to the title of the essay.
Also, what about painting makes it an “art form?” Obviously, it can’t be just the use of paint
Gra,
Tolstoy’s opinion that the Greek tradition of art is unfitting, that Wagner is one of several ‘overly cerebral’ artists, and that Beethoven’s No.9 is not good art, are claims about the value of certain traditions and works of art and the merits of certain artists. These opinions have no bearing on the question that Mike does not address, and that you think (in my opinion wrongly) that he needed to address in order to answer the question put in his post title.
The opinions you cite are only concerned with the separate question of what makes good art. They do not make the point that Tolstoy’s attempt to make a definition of art resulted in garbage. Perhaps Tolstoy’s “What Is Art?” fails to provide a ‘non-garbage’ definition of what art is, but presumably such a judgment should be based on rather more than a cursory glance at a Wikipeadia article.
nb.
“if one of the most proclaimed authors ever, in his attempt for such a definition comes up with such garbage” then…
You just made the point on a nearby thread that you would not expect people who study aesthetics to be great artists. Why would you think it works the other way around and that being a great artist should qualify you to provide a good definition of what art is anyway?
Perhaps another way of determining whether something is art, or not, is representation. But it is not mere resemblance, it is representation as such and such. That is, it’s predicative. I think that it’s Goodman and van Fraassen who make this point more salient. Even abstract art tends to predicate concepts, or leaves open what is predicated. But it appears that predication is a crucial aspect of aesthetics. In this respect, one might say that graffiti in terms of tagging isn’t art because it doesn’t represent anything as something else. However, when graffiti takes on a more political tone or social tone, then it’s no different than caricatures being art. Where once something represents something as such-and-such, it highlights the context and interpretation to offer a view point. Some graffiti can do this very well.
But the flip side of this is that graffiti can be aesthetic without being art under this interpretation. There is some very beautiful graffiti that does not represent anything nor keeps it open as to what it is representing as. Yet, it is still aesthetically pleasing. So in that respect, we need to make it more salient as to whether we consider graffiti art, or simply an aesthetic piece.
I hate to take such an unphilosphical position, but for me, art is what we say it is. If you fart into a microphone and call it music, it’s music. That doesn’t make it *good* music, but it’s still music.
On top of that, I view art/vandalism as a false dichotomy. Something can be both art AND vandalism. What if the Mona Lisa had been painted on the side of a building without the owner’s permission, as the article states? Art AND vandalism.
Jim PH,
I believe you made several good points in your last two separate comments. Let me try to address them.
I admit that my search for information connected with this subject was cursory. When I looked up “What is Art” on Google I pretty much would have used any definition that was offered to further my argument. Tolstoy was the first to come up and satisfied my needs. I probably would have been willing to spend another 15 minutes looking around.
Next, you say the question of what is art is not important to what Mike was arguing about. Never mind the title of the piece, whatever he’s writing about does have to do with whether or not graffiti is art or at least comparable to something artistic. Does it really make sense to you to put graffiti next to a painting and try to determine anything from that? Say we establish that the two have nothing in common? Would that satisfy you? Somewhere, somehow, one has to deal with whether or not graffiti has any of the qualities, or characteristics that one attributes to a piece of art.
I stand by my previous statement made on a different posting, i.e. that one shouldn’t expect a scholar of aesthetics to be a great artist. I do agree with you that “the other way around” is not necessarily true either, as Tolstoy exhibited to us. My point is that even a person of Tolstoy’s literary stature who takes on trying to define what art is, failed badly.
There are a few other points in your comments I’d like to address, but it might be reduced to nit picking.
Hi Gra,
I don’t think Mike needs to define what art is no.
We have an unproblematic genre in painting on canvas or indeed church ceilings – we can all agree that painting on canvas etc sometimes produces artworks. There are a range of fruitful questions you can raise about what needs to occur for the act of putting paint on a surface to result in the production an artwork, and this seems a fine place to discuss them. But in order to deal with the question of whether some graffiti can also be art it seems sufficient to think of the unproblematic cases and ask whether what distinguishes a thing as graffiti can be plausibly held to prevent it from being an artwork. And there seems no reason to think that the fact a painting is done without permission and usually with a spray-can is pertinent to the question of whether a given painting is art. I think if you look at the street art of Banksy and others and look at paintings done, legally, in more traditional settings you can just see that it if the latter are artworks then the former are too – it is not even a case of comparing a piece of graffiti with a painting. It is simply a case of comparing two paintings. Street works by Banksy are intended as art, are looked as art and are accepted by the art-world (of critics and artists) as art.
‘Somewhere, somehow, one has to deal with whether or not graffiti has any of the qualities, or characteristics that one attributes to a piece of art.’
Not necessarily, we can agree that football is a game without being to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions of being a game. Perhaps there is no property that all and only artworks have? In any case, I simply do not think we need a universally agreed upon definition of art to decide that a street painting by Banksy is both an artwork and a piece of graffiti.
I don’t know that we should write off Tolstoy’s musings on art as ‘garbage’ without attending to them, but the fact he was a successful artist gives me no reason to expect them to have any more merit than writings on art by non-artists tend to have.
I don’t expect to have the opportunity to be online much during the next couple of weeks so, if I don’t reply promptly to any further comments you wish to makes please don’t take that as a snub.
Hi Jim PH,
Hope your vacation from online is a pleasant one.
graffitti art is like beauty
either you appreciate it for what it is or you dont
if you dont like it dont look at it
if you like it, take a picture and keep it forever
but who actually gives a crap, and why is it even up for discussion?
I see graffiti, from crude vandalising tags on public and private property to detailed, colourful, painstaking, thoughtful, legal and illegal wall paintings as art. The crude tags are performance art – they are the anguished angry only half conscious acts of individuals whose every public space, from the sports arena through the shopping centre to the music concert, even shcools has been branded with a corporate logo. The world seems to belong to corporates and there doesn’t seem to b e a place for many undereducated youth in it. Tagging a railway carriage r slashing a seat is an artistic way of saying “I also have a place in the world and I can’t find a more coherent way of claiming it!”
Klover,
Some folks still contend it is not art. In any case, if you don’t like the discussion, don’t look at it.
In my humanities class on popular culture, we were asked to peruse the internet and find someone who argues that graffiti is an art form. I found Mr. LaBossiere’s article to be a fabulous one! While he doesn’t ever actually say “Graffiti IS art,” the conversation incited by the comments will be perfect for my class discussion.
Mike LaBossiere,
Some folks actually contend it IS art. Some teenagers are raised to do graffiti in many places. In this case, if you don’t like Klover’s comment, then don’t look at it.
grafiti is art you pices of shit lo your all gay
Nicky,
Spelling and grammar count, even in graffiti.
When asked at a press conference, “What is art?” Picasso answered “What isn’t!” That says it all really. The Graffiti Artist.
Its jokes to read some of the comments. Honestly, fuck what you all are arguing about. Think for yourself for once and not let an article make up your mind for you. I dont even really see whats up for discussion in the first place. Cause graffiti is an art. Even tagging. Anyone who cant see that is an ignorant motherfucker.
Artistic use of the ad hominem there.
Are early man cave paintings merely scribblings of Graffiti or is it art?
Are the great frescos (Wall paintingas)painted by the likes of da Vinci (The last supper) only more important because of the subject and for who painted them. Today exists equal works of great merit made on walls, aren’t they both art from different generations?
Surely anything created by man, in whatever field, in whatever medium, in where ever location, is art!
In a world press conference, a clever reporter asked Picasso ” MR PICASSO, WHAT IS ART?” he simply replied “WHAT ISN’T” I will leave the last word to him!
If everything we do is art, then this would entail that it is not a very useful term. After all, if the pancakes I made for breakfast are just as much art as the plays of Shakespeare or the works of Michelangelo, then what good is the term for sorting things out? It is somewhat like saying that all human activity is running-that certainly makes the term rather less than useful.
I take your point, however some people would say that their is an art to cooking. Some people do it well others dont.Likewise in art.But we digress from the point.Is Graffiti art? It has to be.Ofcourse many would argue for both sides.That I think is the “Art” of debate.Yes we need labels, and we put many creative forms under the label of art. Graffiti is an artform.It is created, influencing emotion wether good or bad. Isnt that the whole point to it.Art I mean.
Some artist like cutting sharks in half, sticking them in a glass case and calling it art. Many shelves of many stores in many museums have many such like exhibits, but they are not classed as art. Somewhere I believe we have become lost in this crazy world, and wondering if graffiti is art pales really into insignificance. I believe some graffiti is wonderful, some really tasteless.It doesnt have to be liked just understood. Like in fine art, the Impressionists were laughed at and scorned as being rubbish paiters.Whister the same, “Throwing paint into the faces of the public” that was then but look now it is happening again with street art.Which is what it is. Try and look at it from another perspective.Treat something as art, and the world will follow.
Graffiti is not art, because i define art differently. Art to me is something that invokes a response or emotion, which graffiti absolutely does, but its much more then that too. Art is also something that inspires us by showing us how to view the world in a different way. While graffiti does this graffiti fails on the final point. Art must increase the value or our experience in someway, and it must leave the world better off in someway then it originally found it. This is subjective, but in my opinion graffiti detracts from the experience and leaves the world more corrupted and tainted and less beautiful then it originally found it. The people who designed a park for example, where expressing themselves and creating a work of art, only to have their experience destroyed by the tagger. The building designer who spent countless hours to create something that not only fit into its surroundings but enhanced the world in some way as well. The building designer was creating art for us to enjoy, even if the intent to create art was not there. That experience in my opinion is corrupted and that work of art is harmed by a tagger, who we so ignorantly label an artist. bottom line to me, they may be expressing themselves, they may inspire others and show us a new way to look at it, but by corrupting and by detracting the world around us, and leaving the world worse off, the graffiti “artist”?! doesn’t get to hold the title of artist and instead they just get to hold the label of tagger. I can pee in snow in public and it may be really creative, but its still not art.
Thanks for writing this piece.
In response to is painting art? is it the act of painting the art or the piece created? This was a problem i found within aesthetics, the labelling of “art” as much is subjective. However unlike the past with institutional theories of art, the world as we know it could be deemed an artwork.
In response to those who like to personally define art in their own reality tunnels, and also to those who respond with graffiti is not art,
http://www.streetartutopia.com/
There are some beautiful pieces, another artist Blu-Blu, http://blublu.org/sito/walls/001.html
Has produced some amazing works.
Art is ever evolving in a symbiotic manner with humans methods of productions.
Many forget that renaissance artists such as Caravaggio were not producing works as works of art for the church, but depictions of narrative tales. We have only come to label it art over time.
Of course graffiti is art; it’s an expression. If it’s vandalism it’s an expression of rebellion.