Graffiti is ubiquitous on the streets of Chinatown and the Lower East Side where I live and work. It's an integral part of the urban landscape and it inspires mixed reactions and emotions.
For some, it's an eyesore, a symbol of disorder. From the perspective of the authorities it's evidence of criminal activity - graffiti related arrests are on the rise in New York and property owners can be fined if they fail to clean it up in a timely manner. The cans of spray paint...
more »Graffiti is ubiquitous on the streets of Chinatown and the Lower East Side where I live and work. It's an integral part of the urban landscape and it inspires mixed reactions and emotions.
For some, it's an eyesore, a symbol of disorder. From the perspective of the authorities it's evidence of criminal activity - graffiti related arrests are on the rise in New York and property owners can be fined if they fail to clean it up in a timely manner. The cans of spray paint favored by graffiti artists are kept under lock and key in stores, their sale to minors regulated as if they were controlled substances. From a law enforcement perspective graffiti isn't recognized as street art - it's criminal vandalism.
But at the same time there's a seductive beauty, an undeniable sense of urban energy and vitality (and sometimes a sense of humor!) to some of the graffiti I see as I walk the streets of my city. On occasion, with their raw, primitive quality, and their textured layers and surfaces, they remind me of a hybrid between the cave paintings made thousands of years ago by Upper Paleolithic hunters and the modern art of the abstract-expressionists, a cross between prehistoric man and Jackson Pollock.
The prehistoric hunter-gatherers who painted their masterpieces of cave art at Lascaux, France are long gone but their cave paintings remain to proclaim their existence. Likewise, the graffiti I see every day on the streets of New York proclaims (at least temporarily) the individuality of the unseen urban outlaws who roam the city at night, leaving their tags for the rest of us to see as we leave our apartments and go out onto the streets the following morning.
FINE ART PRINTS FOR MANY OF THE PHOTOS IN THIS GALLERY AVAILABLE FROM JEFF.
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