Week 7: Graffiti

 What is graffiti? This is one of the questions that I have been wondering about for years because it can be taken both ways tagging is graffiti and that can be taken as something illegal and a form of art. The difference between artistic graffiti and vandalism graffiti is that artistic graffiti is pretty much someone paying you to do graffiti on a wall, building, ceiling, or anywhere that they own. Meanwhile “tagging” which is still graffiti, is still categorized as vandalism once it’s done on someone’s property or public property without consent and with malicious intent; with intent of making their tagging name known. So if one looks at graffiti, there are basically so many different perspective points of views that one will never really be able to know if it’s actually vandalism or art because since you see it everywhere only the painter will know if it’s actually considered vandalism or art. Therefore, graffiti has a lot of perspectives, but to me graffiti is both a form of art and ways people can express their emotions, so in all forms I consider graffiti, the big pieces of art and color, as art. 

However, Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez in “Graffiti is Art,” brings up the ideas of graffiti and how graffiti brings out one’s identity and culture in a way. In that sense, I do believe that graffiti brings out one’s identity because even though we may not understand what is written or drawn on the wall, by looking at the piece, we automatically start labeling and placing these people into identity boxes. So after reading Chaz’s personal story about graffiti art, I have a better understanding of graffiti as a whole. 

          A prime example of graffiti that is considered art.