Is it really art? Or just good old fashioned vandalism?

We ask the question and conveniently receive the answer in around 700 words.

Andy Exell

So I’m sitting in Exell HQ drinking instant coffee from a mug which tells me how wonderful I am. The dog is on fire, squirrels are gnawing their way through every electrical cable they can find and threatening to deprive me of South Park forever, the local council have dispatched a team of highly trained Rottweillers to gnash through my door and snap my femurs like chicken bones for playing my harmonica at 3am. And to top it all off my friend asks me to write up a piece for his stunningly sexy new site, on the age old topic of Art Vs Vandalism. And who am I to challenge the whims of fate?

The question itself is as interesting as the possible answers. Mainly because both Art and Vandalism are entirely relative terms, there is no “set in stone definition” for either of them, one man’s broken window is another man’s impromptu ventilation improvement and one man’s modern art master piece is another man’s piece of excrement smeared on a canvas. So the whole deal is tricky from the get-go but I’ll try to lay out some ideas to help you define or re-define your opinion.

Some people have deep rooted misconceptions about graffiti and street art on the whole, they think that spray cans are not a valid artistic medium, used only by delinquents and malevolent social activists out to wreck the stability of our great respective countries. This is and always will be the most purest grade A insanity ever heard since the whole WMD debacle. Those people should actually try to use a spray can, to get varying line thickness’s and fading effects and generally to use the medium, takes enormous effort and practice and quite frankly if I see something done in spray’s I give it extra marks right away, because I know how hard those wonderful little tins can be to use. I have always equated the skill involved in an endeavor as the highest priority for ranking it’s worth, and in that way Graffiti will always be ranked loudly and proudly high in my eyes. Of course some people choose to put it in places that it shouldn’t necessarily be, but that is beside the point I feel, when you are talking about it’s status as a valid art form, it’s important to remember what your judging.

If you think about it long enough you may come to the conclusion that I have, which is that both Art and Vandalism like most terms, are so insanely relative that it becomes hard to justify applying one to a single thing. For instance a hell of a lot which is exhibited in the Tate modern is to my tastes not art but just offensive to my eyes, however many many people consider it Art and not just Art but amazing Art. My point here is that just because I feel something is downright offensively bad, doesn’t mean it’s not art at the same time and conversely, not that it’s not Art and not also terrible at the same time. So instead of arguing over whether it’s one thing or another, just accept that it is two things simultaneously and that those two things, may change according to peoples preferences.

A broken window is vandalism to some, a poetic display of expression to others and just a broken window to the rest, so I take the opinion that Graffiti is both Art and Vandalism. And that would make three types of people in the world, those who think Art first Vanadlism second, those that think Vandalism first and Art second and those that think it’s just plain vandalism, and that’s that aside from the inevitable “don’t care” vote, and out of those I know precisely which one I am.

Summing up this kind of topic in less than 700 words is an impossible task and I have barely scratched the surface here but I hope that this at least gives some of those who had negative opinions, the motivation to question and perhaps change them. If not look at it this way, I just stole 5 minutes of your life, and your never getting it back.

Adios

Andy Exell

Andy Exell is an I.T consultant and freelance artist, illustrator, designer and writer based in London. He lives with his computer and his cacti collection.

Submit your views?

Get your article published here?

Commit your views to paper on the subject of "Art vs Vandalism" in around 700 words then mail us.
It really is that easy.

42ND

27 Feb 2007, 21:58

I think the vandalism mean the way how we did the pieces on the public space (street) that's why they call it artcrimes...we make a very nice art with no permission and they can't denied that graffiti it's a very nice art pieces.
It's only about the medium, about the way were doing the art and where we do the art pieces...
peace out 42ND ' 07...=)
(check my sites www.42nd.tk)
thanks!

disordered

28 May 2007, 23:57

all art is subjective. one person likes this, another hates that. 'street art' leaves a lot of the general public confused - is it art? is it vandalism? i suppose really i would see it as self expression. people have always felt the need to express themselves through graffiti - it shows that we are still alive and still capable of saying something. i think it's a real farce to see uk councils running around destroying some graffiti and saving others as 'art pieces'. so if you are banksy you are an artist, and if you are not you are a vandal - where is the sense in that? no wonder everyone is confused.

SwITcH

26 Oct 2007, 00:10

I Personal think that their is a huge difference between vandalism and street art. Its all a matter of opinion though. if you look at awall and it is just covered in random words and shit, yea its vandalism it doent represent anything,but if you see an awesome murral that an insane tagger put up it's not vandalism its art. Vandalism is the deffication or destruction of something. Art is the creation of some imaginative or beautiful yea sure maybe graffiti isn't "beautiful" to some people but its an art form the only difference is we don't use a canvas...

Sarah

05 Mar 2008, 21:40

"Don't do Poetic Terrorism for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what MUST be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives - but don't be spontaneous unless the Poetic Terrorist Muse has possessed you.

Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best Poetic Terrorism is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.

Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune -- say 5000 sq. miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical manuscripts. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of existence." - Hakim Bey

i think the creation of a strip mall is a from of vandalism moreso than graffiti. putting up a mcdonald's defaces property just as tagging does.

- Sarah
wearealwaysalwaysmortal.wordpress.com