7. Graffiti
←- →
Burnt-out buildings, dreary overpasses, the rust-stained walls of desolate parks, underground passageways, rail yards, the least loved and lest visited subway terminals and neighborhoods all of these places collect the lively scripts of graffiti. Like hieroglyphic weeds the names of the artists call out in bright and surprising color. On the grimmest city blocks it may be the only color in sight. When the adults, the authorities and the city government have all abandon these places graffiti flourish and sing out defiant responses: This place is not forgotten, not by everyone. Not by me. I am still here. I live.
Graffiti are the glowing embers of civic energy, signs that in the gray places rebirth is still possible. Because it is not for money, but for glory, not for dollars but for art that people risk arrest, and at their own expense create public artworks that cover every unloved surface in the city.
Of course, anything in excess may become a nuisance. And a graffito would be a mere mural if there was not that constant battle between the unbridled creative energy of the people and the forces of law and order.
We can, at least, learn to see graffiti in a new light. Not as a tragedy of blight, but as a sign that life is still glimmering in the ashes of the burnt out regions of wounded cities from which the civic spirt might yet rise again.
Last: 6. Passing Through
Next: 8. Naming Places
From: The Urban Naturalist.
Burnt-out buildings, dreary overpasses, the rust-stained walls of desolate parks, underground passageways, rail yards, the least loved and lest visited subway terminals and neighborhoods all of these places collect the lively scripts of graffiti. Like hieroglyphic weeds the names of the artists call out in bright and surprising color. On the grimmest city blocks it may be the only color in sight. When the adults, the authorities and the city government have all abandon these places graffiti flourish and sing out defiant responses: This place is not forgotten, not by everyone. Not by me. I am still here. I live.
Graffiti are the glowing embers of civic energy, signs that in the gray places rebirth is still possible. Because it is not for money, but for glory, not for dollars but for art that people risk arrest, and at their own expense create public artworks that cover every unloved surface in the city.
Of course, anything in excess may become a nuisance. And a graffito would be a mere mural if there was not that constant battle between the unbridled creative energy of the people and the forces of law and order.
We can, at least, learn to see graffiti in a new light. Not as a tragedy of blight, but as a sign that life is still glimmering in the ashes of the burnt out regions of wounded cities from which the civic spirt might yet rise again.
Last: 6. Passing Through
Next: 8. Naming Places
From: The Urban Naturalist.