Graffiti is controversial, sparking the debate of what constitutes art and what is vandalism. Your perspective on the issue might depend on whether or not you own the wall that has been on the receiving end of a can of spray paint. While the level of visible skill and creativity may have something to do with it, what gets categorized as street art and what is criminalized involves a complex interplay of social factors, government policies, artist reputation, and public opinion.

Historically, where there has been a city, there has been some version of graffiti, as people manipulate their physical environment and leave their mark, however temporary. A tour of the Capillo Real cathedral in Granada, Spain, reveals names of scholars written in cow’s blood high on the walls of the church from at least the 1500s. Stories abound of graffiti in Pompeii, destroyed over one thousand years earlier, and evidence of the practice elsewhere dates back even further.

Graffiti varies widely in style and method, but is typically put up without permission, within public view, and is provocative by nature. Classic graffiti is done with spray paint, paint, or marker. It can range from a quick and simple tag of someone’s name to detailed pieces made by suspending oneself off of a bridge to paint. Its installation on public or private property is illegal, but enforcement and punishment differ between countries, cities, and communities.

Graffiti in its modern iteration grew from a handful of graffiti writers into simultaneous movements in New York City and Philadelphia in the 1960s and 70s, with tags covering walls and subway cars across the two cities. Its ubiquity in urban areas in the U.S., coupled with a heavy connection to the rapidly commercializing genre of hip hop, led to its spread into Europe and later, worldwide. Cities around the world now have famous graffiti that draws tourists, with places like Melbourne, Tel Aviv, and London having tours dedicated to the street art of the city.

The decades of graffiti’s growing popularity and convergence with pop culture, though, were full of cultural and legal battles. Like hip hop, graffiti has been considered a language of people experiencing disenfranchisement and marginalization. Government authorities launched campaigns against graffiti writers and artists, seeing the practice as symptomatic of urban social and economic issues. New York City mayors of the 1970s notoriously vowed to clean up the city, or at least its walls, and anti-graffiti task forces were established to arrest graffiti artists, paint over pieces or clean them, and issue fines. Graffiti, in turn, became increasingly political, as the form of self-expression became a conversation between artists, communities, and authorities.

In Detroit, for example, the local government’s war against graffiti is at its height. Thanks in part to the abundance of blank canvases on vacant buildings, the city has had a recent boom in uncommissioned street art. In response, the mayor and the anti-graffiti task force have allocated significant funds and effort into their “zero-tolerance” policy on graffiti, as part of a city wide campaign for “blight eradication.”

Even in its early years, graffiti gained respect in the art world, with galleries in the Bronx and Manhattan showing work by graffiti artists. Now a globally recognized genre of art with millions of dollars in the mix, the practice is as complicated as ever. The majority of artists remain anonymous, using a moniker to sign their work, even after achieving fame, to avoid negative repercussions. Banksy, typically regarded as the most famous graffiti artist worldwide, continues to work in anonymity. His pieces, which often feature provocative political messages, have led to censure in some countries and accolades in others. In Melbourne and London, bulletproof glass has been placed in front of a Banksy piece to protect the work, and an arrest warrant was actually issued for someone vandalizing his piece on a public wall in San Diego. The city of San Diego paid over $8,000 to restore the piece, a small fee compared to the millions an original Banksy has cost at auction.

Graffiti itself has become more nebulous, evolving into a language, not just a method, that transcends spray paint and stenciling. Alternative graffiti methods have grown in popularity. These methods still operate in a semi-illicit space, and can grab the public’s attention or speak to a current social issue, but they are designed to be less permanent and less destructive. Artists have created uncommissioned pieces involving temporary installations, light projections, reverse graffiti, wheat pasting, and yarn bombing.

Stickers and magnets are some of the simplest installations, as they can be mass produced and quickly placed onto a variety of surfaces. The Harrison Center adapted the logo of Polk’s Sanitary Milk Co., once a staple in the Indianapolis community, into a magnet installation of Polk-a-dots. Created by artist in residence Abi Ogle, the designs reference an Andy Warhol interpretation of the original logo, and were placed on the large metal garage doors of the still-standing Polk Stables building during PreEnact Indy.

Temporary light projections invoke the spirit of graffiti, as they are used for similar purposes. The Graffiti Research Lab, responsible for the invention of Throwies, states its purpose as facilitating “urban communication” through innovative graffiti methods. Throwies are small LED magnets that can be tossed at random on metal surfaces like statues or highway overpasses or used to spell out messages. ProJECT Truth, an art activist collective based in Louisville, Kentucky, has done light and photo projections onto public and government buildings to call attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and make social and political statements. Lighting designers in other cities around the U.S. have similarly joined protests, pointing light and photo projections onto statues, like a monument to Robert E. Lee in Virginia, which is viewed by many as a monument to white supremacy. In addition to traditional graffiti covering the statue’s surface, a photo of George Floyd and the phrase commonly chanted at protests, “No Justice, No Peace” were projected.

Reverse graffiti is created via power washing over a stencil, leaving the clean letters or image behind. 96 Acres Project, in Chicago, has done community interventions using reverse graffiti outside the Cook County Jail, the looming institution that dominates the neighborhood surrounding it. Messages created by youth lined the sidewalks and walls outside the jail, exploring themes of social and restorative justice in the community heavily affected by incarceration.

Wheat pasting is commonly used to affix posters onto a wall or surface with a glue-like paste made from flour and water. They can be quickly hung and replicated, and are often used to advertise for artists and events. Some artists have adapted the practice to small scale word art or essays.

Yarnbombing is another common graffiti alternative that was developed by knitters in Texas and has since appeared in cities around the world, with collectives like Knit in the City, in London, and Yarn Bombing Los Angeles. The practice, with the majority of participants being women, is often feminized and delegitimized, seen by some as a kitschy craft take on fiber art or graffiti in general. Annette Dimeo Carlozzi, curator at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, however, describes the practice as an injection of positivity: the “juxtaposition of something that is clearly personal, labor-intensive and handmade in an urban, industrial environment.”

The Harrison Center aims to capture this sentiment through its own public yarn art installation. A community oriented project from the start, the installation consists of crochet and knit flowers hung on tree trunks. Each petal was hand made by neighbors during quarantine, following a pattern and using materials distributed to give community members a sense of social connection and a creative outlet during physical separation due to COVID-19.

Yarnbombing, like every other form of graffiti, has its proponents and its detractors, but it enjoys a uniquely high degree of acceptance from the public and from authorities. It is not often criminalized and is seen by some as a symbol of gentrification. The artists and participants of this version of graffiti are often distant from the marginalized communities of graffiti’s original artists and writers, who bear a much higher rate of criminalization and incarceration.

Yarnbombing has also gone a quick route of commercialization. Yarn artists and collectives have been commissioned by major brands like Toyota, Miller Lite, and Valentino. Other graffiti methods have similarly been utilized by brands and businesses. In 2001, IBM launched an advertising campaign in New York City and Chicago, painting logos on walls and sidewalks. They later paid the city governments for damages and clean-up, but the situation is emblematic of the embedded privilege that exists among large corporations, businesses, and graffiti artists who are not people of color.

As in the case of Detroit, and in many other cities, years of legal pressure have stifled the graffiti scene in the city and resulted in many artists being deterred or arrested. The anti-graffiti policies are coupled with a cultural rerouting of street art and murals. Pieces pop up on walls in commercial areas and sites formerly frequented by graffiti artists, this time approved and paid for by authorities, corporations, and businesses. Questions of authenticity and intent arise, as graffiti, called “a democratic art form” by sociologist Gregory Snyder, is reversed into a top-down process. "The grassroots — the authentic activity — gets sort of co-opted and tamed, and dressed up for mainstream consumption," said Vince Carducci, a dean at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

While visually, graffiti on the streets and street art advertisements have much in common, their purposes exist in different spheres, with graffiti maintaining anti-authoritarian strains due to its illicit nature and often political messages. Current, well-known sites like the West Bank wall in Bethlehem, heavily covered in graffiti, evoke other sites in history, like the Berlin wall. Scaled down to specific neighborhoods and cities, graffiti is still a conversation. Between writers and artists in different areas, between social groups, and between those with power and those without, graffiti is a means to publicly declare a message. Though it may appear random or unintelligible to passersby, the quick tags, planned pieces, and art created in response to social movements all have something to say, even if that message is, “I was here.”

Author: Macy Lethco

Consulting Supervisor: Kipp Normand

Humanities Delivery Essay Series: Graffiti