Grafitti is a difficult topic. I dislike it when trams and buses are vandalised and filled with repetitive tags and I am not impressed by any sloppy, messy and defacing uses of a can of spraypaint. However this doesnt mean that I dislike everything I see. Some of the work out there falls into a category of its own. I am particulary fond of social commentary. Where there is a large communicative process. The difference? Well tags are simply the marking of turf in the same way as a dog would pee on a lamppost. Important to the dogs in the area perhaps, but not really a communication to anyone else. Social grafitti partakes, and asks others to partake, in a social discourse. One of the best examples of this I have found is the work of Banksy, who makes grafitti a form of social commentary.

“Imagine a city where grafitti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a living breathing thing which belonged to everybody, not just the estate agents and the barons of big business. Image a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – its wet.” Take a look at examples of his outdoor collection here. I particularly like his work on the Israeli/Palistine wall which can be seen here. His work can also be seen in Retort Magazine – Where you can see a picture of Mujahidin Mona Lisa. More of Banksy’s work can be found in his books Existencilism (2002) and Wall and Piece (2005)

Books by Banksy

Another interesting example of interesting grafitti is done by a lesser, but more local anonymous hand holding the spray-can. I came across this wall while working in a nearby town. I would not really have bothered with it much since it is simply the words “Civil Disobedience” (in Swedish) sprayed on the wall of a concrete underpass. The thing that makes this interesting is that the writer asking for (demanding?) disobedience corrects his own sign to conform to spelling.

On a wall in Uddevalla (Now repainted)

If its disobedience you want – then why bother correcting the direction of the N? Is this actually more than simple tagging? Has the hand that sprayed thought about what it was doing? Is the changing of the N actually a subtle communication by the artist on the ways in which even disobedience is ruled by conventions? This work was trivial but with the changing of the N it becomes a subtle form of communication on the nature of laws, rules and social conventions. All this in two words on a concrete wall that never previously inspired me to think. Dont tell me that grafitti isnt important.