While some consider street art a form of vandalism, others see it as a powerful platform for reaching the masses.
Graffiti is directly influenced by how rapidly and successfully a society adapts to the never ending changes it faces. It is the people’s response to how they perceive the world. It is true that the motivation behind it varies from artist to artist, some might just want to share with the public their personal work, while others take it as a mean of communicating social or political issues. Graffiti is a free and anonymous way to create a voice, in a world where commodity and branding is the principle of capitalism.
From Asia to Europe and America it happens all around the world and it is a powerful tool to address social issues. It provides criticism to the culture we live in and intrigues the human society. And what’s more interesting is the fact that nowadays the reach of the artist’s work does not resume itself to the crowd passing by it daily, but with the help of social media they get to have a new type of fan base thus enlarging its audience, here we have examples like Banksy or Morley.
Some say that it is a form of vandalism. But is it? Vandalism is defined as: “deliberately mischievous or malicious destruction or damage of property”. Is that what real graffiti artists do? I am not referring to the ones deliberately trying to destroy the public space, or to random or hateful writing you find on the street that are linked to graffiti. I reference the graffiti that challenge society and that try to raise awareness to certain social issues.
If you think about it, there are tons of commercials that you bump into very day, trying to sell you an idea, a product, some sort of change. Shouldn’t be artists allowed to share their ideas freely too?
Written by C.C.
