Graffiti: The People's Art

Capital has carved the heart out of artistic expression. True creatives are oppressed, their work has become meaningless. As it is now, art can no longer exist for its own sake. We no longer live in an age in which the artist as a profession is truly valued. Instead, they (as well as many other creative fields) have been subsumed by capital. Their true intentions subdued, their messages warped. The modern-day artist creates to live, to provide their means of subsistence. Art has died.

One only needs to look at the pervasive nature of the art market. Keith Haring, an artist whose work aims to be subversive, aims to make a social commentary, has been commodified to a horrific extent. Haring’s 1988 work, Silence=Death was sold for a staggering $5.6 million. A piece aiming to bring the struggles of the queer community during the AIDS crisis to light, as well as critiquing the horrific response of the Reagan administration, no longer belongs to the people. It has been reduced to a section of bright pink canvas hanging on the ivory wall of a bourgeois mansion. It has been cast away; the people it claims to represent no longer have access to it.

I would now like to ask you, the reader, a question. Walking around Burlington, trudging to and from class, how much graffiti have you seen? If we share similar experiences, then I’m sure you’ve seen quite a lot. This is representative of graffiti’s true nature: to be accessible. It represents the interest of the common person. Rather than hours of work, hundreds of dollars in supplies and the expectation of commodification, graffiti is accessible to anyone with 20 spare minutes after work, six dollars for a can of paint, and a powerful message to express. 

Graffiti, too, is a tool for the normal citizen to seize control of their own community. It is no coincidence that when one takes a moment to look, a pattern becomes visible: where the people are more oppressed, the more they have expressed their discontent in the form of art scribed on to walls. The rejection of respectability and honor for private property manifests as a revolutionary act regardless of its content; a city hall, a major bank, a for-profit hospital, or any other bleak and clear bastions of capital can, in a moment, have their walls morphed from stone to canvas. This is how we, the people, take back our towns and cities. 

You are more artistically talented than you think. You hold more power than you think. I urge you to reach into that beautiful brain of yours and find what you truly want to express. Take back your community.