Comprensione Graffiato

Bloomington, IN: Google defines graffiti as “writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place.” For the average Joe, modern graffiti, at best, strikes as something creative individuals do in their free time.

But the art form has been in existence for sometime now and has a rich history, especially in the United States.

It made one of its earliest significant impacts in the US when, as a sign of disapproval to the US involvement in both the World Wars, an inscription at the fortress of Verdun¹ read:

Austin White – Chicago, Ill – 1918
Austin White – Chicago, Ill – 1945
This is the last time I want to write my name here.

While traces of the earliest modern graffiti in the US was found in 1920s, the precedent for modern graffiti performed today dates back to the political activists² and gang members from 1960s.

Graffiti during those times appeared only on boxcars but over the years they have branched out to any blank public space that provides them and their artwork visibility and exposure, both in big cities and small towns. But many pioneers of the art were not fond of naming their practice as “graffiti” because for them the term meant scratching or crude crawls³. Few of them, even today, prefer themselves to be addressed as writers. Till date this has been a cause for debate among the artists and there has not been a concrete solution to resolve this conundrum.

Irrespective of the conflicting opinions on the nomenclature, from the first modern graffiti writer, Darryl McCray⁴, to the kid today who creates street art as a manifestation of his or her dreams, from the heavy metal spray can those days to the light weight spray can used today, modern graffiti has come a long way.

The art form, with roots in ancient Greece, ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire⁵, has evolved into a medium that encompasses part-hip hop culture⁶, a voice box for political beliefs and a representation of a different form of art which can be performed artistically by those with an inherent interest. Hip-hop culture⁷ was developed in the 1970s and was used as a platform to voice people’s opinion on the actions and steps taken by the government. And a natural connection⁸ between the two grew when modern graffiti came into existence in 1980s and was seen as means to put forward collective or individual opinions that would otherwise not reach the table of concerned authorities.

But during this evolution, be it in a major hub like New York or the random marking on a wall in Bloomington, Indiana, the sole purpose of graffiti artists has remained constant - THEIR CREATION SHOULD BE SEEN.

However, the platform in itself is not sufficient to gain prominence and the artistic aspect is critical for the public to take the written message seriously. A tag done with little creativity would be seen as a piece of work done shabbily and shifts the focus from the actual message.

Like any other art form, graffiti artists need loads and loads of practice right from an young age to master the artwork. But, unlike other forms of art, the passion for graffiti grows from witnessing the work of graph writers in alleys and street corners around the city. Additionally, there needs to be an inherent interest in the art as it cannot be forced upon an individual and there are hardly any centers that methodically teach graffiti.

Mike Burchfield, 33, grew up in Bloomington, Indiana and has been practicing the art of graffiti from the time he was 13-years-old. Despite being in the field for 20 years and having family commitments now, he still prefers to go out and do graffiti when he gets the time and the weather is good.

“Twenty year ago, I went to Bloomington High School South in Bloomington and would walk into town and in doing so discovered the old train yard here in Bloomington. The train yard was full of train cars painted with graffiti, really inspired me, interested me, brought about a lot of questions that I spent several years trying to answer,” said Burchfield, recollecting his childhood days and his foray into the world of graffiti.

The interest factor comes from the curiosity to understand the complex nature of the art and being ready to perform an art that requires paying attention to a lot of nuances.

The aforementioned complex nature of the art entails envisioning the final artistic outcome whilst determining the one-dimensional focus or message of the finished piece. Do you intend it to be a message to a fellow graph writer? Do you want it to be a medium to reflect your political ideologies? Or do you simply intend it to be an art in its purest form?

Burchfield points out that certain graph writers use their artwork to communicate with fellow writers and it is more of a personal choice of the writer to use it as a platform to voice their political beliefs.

So, what runs in the mind of an graffiti artist?

“The process of imagining doing a work of graffiti starts on a black book, a sketch book. You are constantly drawing trying to perfect your form, whether that’s a tag, which is basically a calligraphic script version of your name or larger pieces, throw ups, which are single color outlines or single color fill-ins that are ballooned up versions of your tag to master pieces, much more complicated multi-colored objects that have outlines and layers of color and background and interior fill-ins. All that stuff gets designed and practiced in a sketch book,” said Malcolm Mobutu Smith, former graffiti artist and associate professor of Ceramics at Indiana University’s Bloomington campus.

Smith started practicing graffiti at the age of 13-14 in the affluent suburbs of Philadelphia and continued working on it when he went back to live with his mother in Flint, Michigan.

While it is obvious for the graffiti artists to consider their work as noble and free-spirited, a simple google search⁹ of the “opinion of graffiti” will list results that lead to articles questioning whether graffiti is good or bad. It would be interesting to establish the reasons for the possible disconnect between the artists and people outside the graffiti community. In other words, how are the opinions on this particular art form different for the two parties on either side of the fence.

The public outside the graffiti community find it hard to wrap their heads around the motivations of a graph writer. As a result, the art form has, more often than not, been in the news for all the wrong reasons such as destroying public spaces¹⁰, spreading hatred and the artists themselves being labelled as anti-social elements.

The disregard for public spaces by the graph writers could be a major driving factor for the non-graffiti community members to not give the art much importance and a reason for them to look down upon its’ creators. Their point of view is understandable as it would obviously irk people who like their streets to look unblemished and not like the background of a gangster movie!

The gangster reference was intentional as there is a genuine assumption that if an area in a community has been predominantly filled with graffiti work, the presence of gang-related crime¹¹ is assumed. In the past, the state of Indiana had released a bulletin¹² informing community members about the ill-effects of gang graffiti and how it leads to increase in other forms of crimes. In 2017, the Graffiti Unit of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department¹³ had an annual target of erasing or covering 30,000 square feet of graffiti.

Coming back to the issue of using public spaces, both past and present graph writers feel the restriction to practice only in designated areas or “legal walls” deprives them of the entire purpose of the art.

Legal walls are government sanctioned public spaces in the city or town provided to the graffiti artists to showcase their creative talents.

“As far as location is concerned - scouting a location, knowing where you want to do it- it is about visibility and opportunity. So, those two things kind of work in unison or you have to compromise one for the other,” said Smith, as he outlines the thought process of a graffiti artist when finalizing a location.

“If you have a secluded area or you have the opportunity to do it without getting noticed, you take that. But if you have the opportunity to have some kind of lookout system and you find a location that is front and center where lot of people are going to see your work, then that sort of prioritizes.”

However, he does not deny that there is always a certain degree of risk involved and that every artist has their own threshold of tolerance. But, he identifies that the main ethic within graph “is to be up and be up all the time. Being up means out, visible, your work is visible.”

The practice of utilizing public spaces by graph writers, over the years, has led to the arts’ association with vandalism¹⁴ and the phrase “vandalize properties”.

Vandalism translates into “willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property”¹⁵ and hence is seen by many as synonyms with the actions of graffiti artists.

The IU professor of Ceramics underlined that “the confusion, if there is some, between what might be considered out and out the use of spray can and markings in public space as vandalism as its prime directive,” exists because there is the impression that both are done by the same set of artists. He explains that this is not the case and responsible graffiti artists have an “unwritten code” followed within the community which does not encourage using the art as a vandalism tool.

“It’s about attracting attention through your artwork but not attracting attention because of how you operate in the public sphere that’s going to cause negative attention to you. If you start hitting and tagging building that are incredibly important monuments like that, you are defacing something that you already respect,” said Smith, who created his own graffiti crew in Michigan as a youth. “So there is a code about respect within the graffiti community that isn’t broken.”

While those who intend to vandalize properties target multiple sections of the society, the form of vandalism that attracts immediate attention, from the public and law enforcement officials, involves those that has something to do with the prevailing political situation in the city or country.

This variation of vandalism might include, not limited to, spray painting a swastika symbol or writing messages associating oneself with the ideologies of a political candidate or targeting a particular community based on color, caste and creed.

But, most of the hate-filled messages may not necessarily be thoughts that have been in the heads of the artists for years together and could be manifestations of temporary frustrations within their surroundings or cities during a specific period of time.

This brings us to the role played by the surrounding in the deciding the nature of political graffiti.

The environment in which the graffiti artist lives plays a prominent role , especially in deciding the tone of political graffiti put out there. For instance, in a republican or democratic dominated region, the politically-inclined messages, if any, could be (not always) based on supporting the ideologies of either parties (need not necessarily be racist or hateful messages) whereas, in a closely contested area, the type of graffiti could be less biased. The results of the 2016 election invited a lot of hateful and bigotry messages¹⁶ against different sections of the community.

Located in the Midwest, Indiana, primarily considered a red state, voted for the republican candidates in three of the last four¹⁷ presidential elections and the manner in which their victorious presidential candidate ran the 2016 election campaign only boosted their followers into committing more hate crimes and vandalizing properties.

Indiana has been home to couple of such incidents after the election. Vandals spray painted “Heil Trump”, a swastika symbol and an anti-gay slur on the St. David Episcopal church¹⁸ in Bean Blossom, Indiana. An Indian couple¹⁹ from Indianapolis, who have been in the US for nine years and recently became American citizens, became victims of hate crime for the first time in September, 2017, when vandals spray painted anti-Hindu graffiti and grease marking²⁰ on their business Signs by Tomorrow.

While it is unfair to characterize graffiti artists from rest the state into the same box as these vandals, the environmental influence must be factored in when contemplating the reasons behind such brazen attacks.

Bloomington, IN Chapter

Graffiti in Bloomington has generally been viewed for its artistic credentials and has rarely been subject to controversies. The college town is considered an anomaly from the rest of the state in terms of ideologies (especially political beliefs) and has a strong diverse population owing to the presence of a university.

Burchfield, who has travelled to different corners of the country spray painting his legacy on walls, feels Bloomington is a welcoming place for artists to try their trade and there is little room for negative emotions here.

“This (Bloomington) isn’t a place where racism or white supremacy last or have any foothold. Klu Klux Klan (KKK) all the time tries to have rallies here in Bloomington and they always end up cancelling them because they understand the opposition that they have here, “ said Burchfield, with a smile on his face. “ This isn’t a place that preaches or deals with hate or bigotry or racism, this isn’t a racist place, it is a very interesting place. It is an exception to the rule as far as the state goes. I don’t know anywhere like this in the state.”

Given that Indiana is still one of the states in which KKK is still active²¹ (as of June, 2017), Bloomington has done a good job in that, of late, the KKK have had largely unsuccessful attempts²² in gathering people to support them in this vibrant college town. This could be an indication that Bloomington is not home to most, if not all, racist narratives.

However, people from different walks of life associated with the art in the city of 84,465²³ have contrasting opinions on the controversial nature of the art in recent times.

Sean Starowitz, Assistant Director of Economic Development for the Arts at the City of Bloomington, Indiana, has a different opinion on the controversial nature of graffiti in B-town (a famous nickname for Bloomington).

“There has been an uptake (racist remarks in public spaces) in a lot of communities. Usually it is probably about a, I would assume, a 15-year old angsty teenager that is probably doing it. I don’t think it is actually coming from a real place yet, “ said Starowitz, a 2014 Charlotte St. Foundation Visual Art Award Fellow²⁴. “But that is some of the evidence we have seen on some of our other public artwork. It mainly happens either on the lamppost or the B-line and we have couple of incidents on public artwork.”

Being a predominantly republican state²⁵ and the general environment of hostility created nationwide for anything non-American (owing to the priorities of the current administration at the center), a powerful tool like graffiti could be one of many means to drive ideologies and attract eyeballs.

However, professor Smith who has lived for 17 years in the town with Indiana University’s flagship scenic campus, feels there has not been much rise in terms of controversies surrounding the art and ascertains that, of late, the collective number of graffiti in the city itself has been few and far in between.

“I haven’t seen a lot of action (in Bloomington) go on local crews lately. A lot of participants in the group are aging up , not necessarily aging out, but aging up and they have other priorities in their life, they have families,” said the IU professor.

He further went on to add that, “the bug of doing graph is always there and they will never not go out if they have the opportunity to go out and do a piece.”

The supposedly docile and innocuous outlook of the art, which most of the time offers no monetary benefits to the artists apart from a sense of internal satisfaction, in this college town could be attributed to a couple of factors.

First, there is this sense that the university brings a lot of liberal minds together from different racial backgrounds to study and work at one location. This in-turn could leave little room for hatred to dominate and engineers a greater degree of acceptance. Second, the lesser the level of hatred or discrimination in a community, the lower are the number of controversial messages put out in the public.

But despite the clash of perspectives, most of the controversial plagued graffiti, if any, are done on illegal public spaces and depending on the type of area, different departments of the city government have the responsibility of clearing them out. One such department is the Parks & Recreation department which removes illegal artwork from the 2,275 acres²⁶ of property in the city including 34 parks and a host of other recreation spaces.

Mark Marotz and Dave Fox from the Parks and Recreation team agree that a busy season has them occupied round the clock as they are always on the lookout for tags in the parks around this lively Hoosier town.

According to the duo, except for a few tags that have targeted specific sections of the society, like the perennial abusive slurs intended for the police department, most of the hundreds of graffiti removed during a “busy season” are not necessarily provoking messages intended to hurt sentiments. Fox, who has been in the department for 40 plus years now, suggested that these tags are works of individuals who “ain’t nobody got anything better to do.”

With the city government having several teams to tackle graffiti, it may seem that the police department too have a crucial part in eradicating or minimizing the impact of graffiti in the city. Though this might well be the case in larger cities in the country, the Bloomington Police Department have not had any significant impact on the graffiti scene in the city beyond arresting few graffiti artists in the past for placing art in public.

Burchfield who has been convicted in the past for graffiti, details that things could get a lot worse depending on the seriousness of the crime.

“Personally, I have been arrested for graffiti. My punishment was a misdemeanor. It was a very long drawn out battle were it went from one to 20 charges I believe at one point. But, eventually, after it was all said and done, it was one misdemeanor, “ said the 33-year old artist. “ But, I know people that have been caught for painting trains and other things, it can be a lot more serious than that. It can land you in jail for a felony. Felony is a very serious, it follows you around. It is a pretty serious punishment for placing art on something in my opinion.”

Barring city-run properties, the police department gets notified only when art work are done on private properties without the discretion of the property owner.

Captain Steve Kellams from the Bloomington Police Department corroborates Professor Smiths’ version by stating that graffiti is one of the least worries in the city for the department.

“If anyone reports, graffiti would be vandalism, so when people call and report vandalism to their property, we send an officer. The officer will view that and sometimes take a picture. Sometimes it is already gone or something like that and so there might not be the evidence gathered,” said Captain Steve Kellams from the Bloomington Police Department.

“But, generally they take photos for evidence purposes, they will get the information of the business owner or the home owner and they will do a case report. Generally, case reports are small because there are normally never any suspects or witnesses to the event.”

In such scenarios, the police are seen as mere “record-keeping” organization and the onus is on the owner of the private property to contact the concerned department for the removal.

“If it is on private property and the property owner wants it removed there is usually, it is called a work track, which is a system which anybody can file a complaint. And then we review it and send out a crew to power wash it or paint over it. It just depends on where the tagging happens,” explains Starowitz about the procedure to file complaints for private individuals whose property has been vandalized.

With people finding it difficult to get a firm grasp on the necessity of this art form (sometimes finding it anti-social), the city government on the lookout to remove the artists’ work on public spaces and the police trying to arrest artists who believe they are pursuing the art the way it is meant to be, the artists must possess a strong will and drive beyond explanation for the art to go out with their spray cans and brushes and do what they do best.

But people on either side of the aisle (graffiti and non-graffiti members) are finding it hard to comprehend the oppositions’ opinion on the topic of placing art in illegal public spaces.

“That’s one thing I don’t understand is to why graffiti happens on other people’s public art. That’s like a conundrum that I am trying to figure out for a long time, I don’t thing I ever will because there is plenty of other places that can exist, right,” chuckles Starowitz.

According to Smith, this mentality contradicts the motives of a graffiti artist and forms the core of the disagreement between the two parties.

“The primary reason for graffiti is to do it where it is not sanctioned. It’s a apprehending of the world and you are claiming as a member of humanity, a member of the population of the earth, you are saying all space is our space. And that is pretty much the underlying rule governing how graffiti exists, ” said Smith, strongly emphasizing the sole purpose of the art.

However, he goes on to say that the “local graffiti codes” does not advise them to perform on “people’s personal homes, people’s cars” and buildings that are of architectural significance for aesthetic reasons and are understood as a monument that is already a piece of art.

Having faced serious consequences in the past, Burchfield passionately summarizes the core discrepancy in the mindset of the public who fail to differentiate between actual graffiti art and the random markings on the streets.

“There are lot of people that will never take the idea of graffiti seriously. It’s another one of those things that were the word graffiti encompasses so much. It is everything from the 1800 eat s*** on the bathroom stall to the elaborate mural that is on the wall that took somebody days or weeks to do. It’s all the same thing,” said the experienced graffiti artist. “ You get people that can’t differentiate those two things. They want them all together and can’t see the mural for the mural because for them graffiti is the bathroom stall wall. It’s one in the same. It’s a waste of time or whatever they feel that it is.”

Having been in the field for 20 years now, he further added that that the impression on the art of graffiti created in the minds of people, who are not artistic in nature or who do not really care for art, is not going to change either way.

“There are lot of people who don’t like it because they don’t understand it,” signs off Burchfield.

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti#Contemporary_graffiti

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_in_the_United_States

3. History of American Graffiti, About the Title

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8. http://www.hiphoparea.com/graffiti/hip-hop-culture-and-graffiti-today.html

9. https://www.google.com/search?ei=43rPWtKXDoui0gK97YvADw&q=opinion+on+graffiti&oq=opinion+on+graffiti&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i30k1j0i5i30k1l4j0i8i30k1l3j0i5i10i30k1.12329.14635.0.14837.11.11.0.0.0.0.151.1421.0j10.10.0..3..0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.10.1416...0i7i30k1j0i13k1j0i7i5i30k1j0i8i7i30k1j0i7i5i10i30k1.0.Crk1MHb1E6E

10. https://www.graffiti.org/faq/graffiti-is-part-of-us.htmlGraffiti as a form of Public and Political Resistance

11. http://www.museumofthecity.org/project/graffiti-art-or-vandalism/

12. https://www.in.gov/iifc/files/Community_Graffiti_Information_Bulletin.pdf

13. https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/arts-culture/graffiti-exhibit-ima/

14. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/11/when-does-graffiti-become-art/graffiti-is-always-vandalism

15. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalism

16. https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/us/post-election-hate-crimes-and-fears-trnd/index.html

17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states

18. https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/us/post-election-hate-crimes-and-fears-trnd/index.html

19. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2017/09/22/indian-business-owners-targeted-hateful-graffiti-standing-strong-after-attack/689106001/

20. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2017/09/22/indian-business-owners-targeted-hateful-graffiti-standing-strong-after-attack/689106001/

21. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/CR_5173_Klan Report_vFFF2.pdf

22. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/kkk-members-plan-racism-bloomington

23. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomington,_Indiana

24. http://www.sean-starowitz.com/about/

25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Indiana

26. https://bloomington.in.gov/departments/parks