Graffiti: Art of the 20th Century or Vandalism

A detailed Summary of Graffiti: Art of the 20th Century or Vandalism

When discussing the topic of graffiti, the main question most people have is whether graffiti is art or vandalism. Before we can answer this, there are many more questions that must be answered. What is art? What is graffiti? What is vandalism? Is there a point at which graffiti becomes vandalism, and if so, who decides where? Only after these questions have been answered, can anyone accurately decide whether it is art or vandalism!

What is art? Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines it as: art (as painting, sculpture, or music) concerned primarily with the creation of beautiful objects. Within just these three broad categories of art, there are many more subcategories in each. Additionally, there are other categories of art, such as architectural, photographic, and digital art. The main problem with art is the broadness of its scope and the general belief that it is in the eyes of the beholder, which allows for a lot of discrepancy from one individual to another. Robert J. Belton best describes this in the following passage:

Any brief definition of art would oversimplify the matter, but we can say that all the definitions offered over the centuries include some notion of human agency, whether through manual skills (

as in the art of sailing or painting or photography), intellectual manipulation (as in the art of politics), or public or personal expression (as in the art of conversation). Recall that the word is etymologically related to artificial -- i.e., produced by human beings. Since this embraces many types of production that are not conventionally deemed to be art, perhaps a better term for them would be visual culture. This would explain why certain preindustrial cultures produce objects that Eurocentric interests characterize as art, even though the producing culture has no linguistic term to differentiate these objects from utilitarian artifacts. Having said that, we are still left with a class of objects, ideas and activities that are held to be separate or special in some way. Even those things which become art even though they are not altered in any material way --e.g., readymades --, are accorded some special status in a describable way. Because of this complexity, writers have developed a variety of ways to characterize the art impulse.

Graffiti art originated in the late 1960's, and it has been developing ever since. However, it is not readily accepted as being art like those works that are found in a gallery or a museum. It is not strictly denied the status of genuine art because of a lack of form or other base aesthetic elements. Most of the opposition to graffiti art is due to its locatio

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Approximate Word count = 947
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts