Style Wars Response

When I was younger, my sister would write her name, Kelly, over everything. She still does. The infatuation with her name not only gave her the reassurance that “Kelly Green” not only stood as color but also the “cutest” color. (She had an infatuation with wallets and what not with the color, it continues today). She took pride in her name and let everyone know. Her name became a symbol. As I continued to see the name Kelly and the color green, I quickly developed a brand, something more local than the marketing of Coca-Cola, but yet just as powerful. As a little boy, I was confused, sometimes angry. My manila envelope filled with the weekly news in my 2^nd grade class to my mother was tagged on both the back and the front with a delicately and artistically rendered version of the name Kelly. It was not only an art, but also an obsession to my sister. I don’t even know if she could tell you why she did. She just liked doing it.

“Graffiti...is not an art…Graffiti is the application of a medium to a surface. Is that an art form? I don’t know, I’m not an art critic. But I sure as hell can tell you that that is a crime…” said detective Burny Jacobs. Hell, if I didn’t believe in artists like Banksy, Shepard Fairy or any other contemporary street artists I might have an easy time agreeing with the detective. However, isn’t the “application of a medium to a surface” apply to most art throughout time, isn’t that, from what I’ve been taught at the basic level, art? Isn’t it an expression of the individual? It can sure as hell get me mad that my sister tagged my folder and that New York City youth ruined half of Manhattan’s rail system because of a personal expression. I’d say that both my sister and the New York City youth dealt with a similar problem. I believe that both the physical and metaphorical vehicle for which they both expressed themselves was and is partially incorrect and that in the time between 1982 and now, vehicles like the internet, student galleries and liberal publications has allowed for the younger generation, one who is interested in a jazz-like, bop form of expression to bring their symbol and voice to the world.

Today’s “graffiti artists have taken the form and idea of street art into a proper and more appropriate space. I’m not saying that vandalism is acceptable is appropriate, but I do believe that the symbols and ideas that the artists now today are expressing are far more advanced and developed than those in the short film ‘Style Wars’.

Banksy may be the most respected street artist today. He has turned what even I found unattractive in earlier street art and graffiti into works that are purposeful and meaningful. Pieces on Israel’s west bank barrier have not only become a symbol of the artist, but also an act and address of the something wrong. Kids playing amongst the wall with the gate to a “paradise”. The kids are playing right? Or are they painting? Are they waiting? What is odd and wrong about this? What is odd and wrong about our world? Questions are asked by the artist and not by the viewer. Banksy writes, “How illegal is it to vandalize a wall,” asks Banksy in his website introduction to his Wall project, “if the wall itself has been deemed unlawful by the International Court of Justice? The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin wall and will eventually run for over 700km - the distance from London to Zurich. The International Court of Justice last year ruled the wall and its associated regime is illegal. It essentially turns Palestine into the world’s largest open-air prison.”

Back to my vehicle. Back to my sister. Back to the beginnings of street art. Just the beginning. Street artists, or writers, and you can include my sister if you want to, found a physical and metaphorical vehicle to express themselves that the local world around them would see. The train would pass through downtown, in and around Manhattan for everyone to see their name, their symbol, themselves. These young artists took pride in what they did. My sister took pride in what she did despite my disappointment.

With the advancements of technology and especially the Internet, street art and graffiti has begun to take hold of a more respected market. It is now not only trains that are tagged, but it is also the street walls, streets, lampposts, signs; everything and anything that the world takes in daily. The world now becomes flipped upside down. Someone in Nebraska notices Banksy’s piece of a paradise in Gaza and wonder’s, “wow…that is powerful”. While locals in Israel debate whether or not it is art, much like the angry locals in NY, He or she in Nebraska is sending the art via email to his friend over instant messenger. The idea of the wall, in Nebraska, no longer becomes a local idea but a global idea and metaphor. Street art has only really begun to show itself in an articulate manner. Artists like Banksy have forwarded the idea that this work brings about what really needs to be written.

Whatever the case may be, it is hard to now criticize earlier graffiti and street artists who found their medium as a respected and legitimate form of expression. It’s similar to Lebron James boasting about his pre-season predictions of multiple championships. (Even though I hate Lebron, I’m sure great things will come from the earlier turmoil of the Heat). Earlier street artists saw something great. They believed in their art. Some even lost limbs, some lost the respect of their family, and most lost the respect of the community. But whatever it was, they saw their vision. They saw a wall that needed to be painted over with a view of paradise.