do you think graffiti should be legal? i do because it is an art form and in my opinion it makes things look better.

Whether art or not, if its not your property you have no right to touch it.

Now are you talking about publicly funded properties?

Considering that one person's junk is another person's art and vice versa and in this age of trying to be so political correct probably less headaches to just leave things alone. I can see it now, teenager falls off ladder while painting a highway sound barrier, (assuming its legal), sues government.

i should probably define my standards and the way i would be happy with it being legalized:
any publicly funded building
any government property
any signs, bridges, benches
any buisiness
no houses or apartments

I say no then.

How do you regulate what can be painted? Someone will always be offended.
Who decides who gets to paint what or is it a free for all, first come first serve?

Graffiti is vandalism.

Perhaps if you make it yourself and display it in the normal way for art on your own property, then you can call it art.

Until then, it's disrespect for property and just plain vandalism

i would say it would be a free for all, if you dont like something, paint over it

Humans are too stupid for a free for all situation ever to work.

Tonight on the 6:00pm news - "5 youths shot in a drive by shooting in what police characterized as a gang related revenge killing over repainted graffiti."

If I owned a business and someone grafiiti'd on it I'd be really, really irritated. I don't even see how you could believe in such a thing.

Headrush is right, a lot of 'tags' are gang related.

Graffiti is going to happen, and in some cases it's beautiful. However it's still vandalism and should be illegal.

those kids are idiots, you have to know what the situation is with gangs before you ever go over anything

that would lead to a situation where there are several coats of paint over everything. Bad for the environment, ugly when it starts falling off. Also, how can it be art if others are painting over it?

i dont feel at all guilty when i mess up walmart or subway, i feel no remorse doing itperformance art

You should feel guilty over your lack of capitalization. Lets see some pictures of your art. Do you even live in a ghetto area? Since you have a macbook pro I kind of doubt that. Thanks for ruining Illinois, asshole.

Yeah, I have no idea why any public property should have legalized graffiti. What if everyone covered the speed signs across America, so no one could tell how fast they should go? Bad idea.

He should be pissed about people ruining other states. I mean old people already ruined Florida and he's running out of options. No one is ruining California if I have anything to say about it.

actually numbers, i saw a speed sign graffitied to say 88 mph, instead of 30 !!!!

And you think that's safe...

WTF? i meant it wasn't safe!

Well, you started your statement with 'actually,' so that made me think that you thought the opposite. Learn2English.

OK.

About the graffiti: How could you think it looks better? I mean seriously? It looks like crap.

i just think it gives life to the otherwise boring buildings of industrialist america
and @ erie33, i'll admit i am from a middle class family who lives in a 3 bedroom house in indiana, im not in the least bit ghetto, but who said that graffiti is ghetto only?

Hmm soundless, you google'd graffiti and posted the tenth option, nice work. I've never had a problem with you, so I'm not trying to come across as rude but: that's private property. If you did something like that on the side of a building I owned I'd beat the {censored} out of you.

Okay, Let's give an example.

We have just got a pretty major train line where we live, and it has been open for no more than 5 or 6 days.
Already the windows, seats and outside of the trains have been tagged and vandalized. The windows are all scratched up, the back of the seats inscribed with offensive comments.
I fail to see how this is a form of 'art' and cannot possibly think that it should be legalized.

Another example:
The school I go to has frequent people tagging and vandalizing the property, causing them to constantly have to repaint their walls, costing heaps. Also, people are ruining expensive equipment (air conditioners etc.) on the roof which are worth upwards of $10 000.

Again, it seems pointless and destructive.

I wouldn't care if people tagged my shop. I'm all for freedom of expression. And that's what it essentially is. Artform or not, debatable. Some of it looks utterly horrible, probably cause they have no idea what they're doing. But when someone knows what they're doing, it's amazing.

Down with conglomorates.

That seems pretty racist erei. Only minorities tag building? What are you trying to say by that? I take offense to that comment. I agree with Soundless, graffiti isn't just for ghettos. I know a bunch of white people, matter of fact there's a gang of em near me that tag all the time. They come to me to know who tagged what already. (I'm cool with all the gangs here).

It's hideous, and looks a mess and makes the area look degraded.

Well done

whoever said that it was minorities in the ghetto? Do whites not live in the ghetto also?

I think I know who the racist one is now. It is you!


when tagging is used primarily as a form of gang war, there is something wrong. And I would say that most of tagging is due to that very reason (though I have nothing concrete to back this up).

That's not racist, that's stereotypical. Both of you. ^
There aren't as many 'hooligans' where I live, unless you go to the outskirts of San Francisco, and maybe the warehouse buildings near the highway. But really, it isn't an artform. Do you think the people who painted the offensive words on the back of the seats wanted to make it look prettier? No.

I never brought up race, I brought up poverty. How are you suggesting that I implied only minorities lived and poverty and were in gangs? I don't see that at all. Also, it's not only whites who live in the non-ghettos. I'm sure you weren't intending to be racist, but that's how it seems to me. You miss-interpreted my post.

Graffiti.. When I was in high school I made a video about the pros & cons of graffiti, and nothing seems to have changed much.

As I see it, graffiti is 2 things: sheer vandalism & street art. Some pieces are valuable for their beauty, some for their intellectual content (the work of banksy comes to mind) but the practical reality is that the vast majority of graffiti practitioners are kids who just want to spread their tag as a form of rebellion and ego-boost. Almost everywhere where you see a piece of colourful, exciting artwork on a dull grey wall, you see someone has come & tagged over it, simply as a territorial mark, like a dog pissing on a lamppost, and with as much artistic value.

As an example from my own life, I have on various occasions been responsible for walls, and in a position to request a piece to be painted on them. I have asked around, but despite finding people with the skill and experience, no-one has ever come forward to use my walls for their artwork. What has happened however, is my waking up to find someone has sneaked in overnight & magic-markered a huge penis and their tag over & over again on my wall.... Obviously, we just paint over them & wait for the inevitable re-occurrence of this banal childish vandalism.

It appears to me that the majority of graffiti is utter crap. The minority is valuable beautifying art, but as long as the world is full of out-of-control teens with an attitude and a spray can or indellible marker, graffiti as an art form is doomed, because the practitioners are too busy being selfish & arrogant, rather than actually engaging with their environment and making the city a better place to be.

out of all the places ive seen in chicago, like %90 of the tags were just people. the other %10 is GD, latin kings, and gmc. the majority of graffiti writers i know are well off 18 yr olds wishing to express their discontent with the lives they have been leading

thank you Hagar!

seriously, the people who just tag stuff to piss people and other gangs off are the ones doing the crime. The great artists aren't. They are giving people something beautiful to look at! There is this underpart of a bridge, where the Mayor got the best graffiti artists in my area to do real graffiti. It looked awesome! But then a couple of years later, without the Mayors authorization, the police whitewashed the whole entire place! They said it was attracting too much crime!

not all of it is about beautification, it is also about expression. sure they wrote something offensive, why dont you write over it?they do that, but can i ask what bridge that was?

i remember that, 47th street and below tends to have more crime then the rest of the area, so i can understand why they would paint over the GD tags that were undoubtably there. i dont aprove of the over painting, but its understandableso you like the lifeless bleak grey of urban sprawl?

I don't know why but I find that really, really irritating. By well off you mean of decent financial background, right? Why don't they:
A) Spend more time at work
B ) Prepare for College
C) Try to work out relationship issues or
D) do something to better themselves, rather than vandalize private property.

I can understand that in poverty stricken areas, graffiti can be a great and necessary form of outcry and protest. But well off 18 year olds?
Soundless and other fans of graffiti, I'm not trying to personally attack you guys if I'm coming off as harsh.

Not the point and a totally different question than what your poll asked.

There is a big difference between "should we have a beautification for ugly buildings" and "should free for all grafitti be legal."

exactly!

because that is what they have been raised to do, and they don't want to do that. They find the social ladder you have to climb in our society pointless and false. And ofcourse because they enjoy it. It is fun climbing onto roofs to paint something

Yep, it's so hard to privledged and in the middle class.

Yea, I can imagine that that would be pretty fun. (being serious here)

So say your father sets up a business, works real hard, barely gets by, and prides himself on keeping the place clean, fresh, and modern looking. Suddenly, the outside of his store gets vandalized with some crap drawing/painting. He then has to pay his hard-earned money or invest his valuable time from his business to go out and clean that {censored} off. And you support that crap? You're seriously screwed up. You don't feel bad about vandalizing places just because they're not yours or stores are actually performing their function and making money and provding jobs? Wow. Talk about selfish. It's nice art when you have permission to do it...otherwise it's just inconvenient, selfish, stupid crap.I can't believe anyone would support graffiti; talk about being selfish.Ah, "industrialist america." You're on of those kids, huh. You think you're being nonconformist by being just like every other brainless anti-establishment sheep that ever lived. Not to mention that looks like utter {censored}...

Interesting in that 5 people have voted yes it should be legal yet really only 1.5 has posted why.
Would be interesting to hear some reasons/points from the yes voters.

(Bedlight I only counted you as a half. Although you indicated you wouldn't mind if you owned a business, not sure you were agreeing it should be a free for all. )

actually only 4 people voted yes :\
i thought the topic was "do you think graffiti should be illegal"
so i voted yes
my bad

Someone might say that now, but if they ever really owned a business, the fact is they wouldn't allow it. Period. Most of the kids in here have no idea what the real world is like.

No, I live in the country

I live in a town which is supposed to be beautiful (a UNESCO World Heritage Site).
But give me Leeds, UK every day. Otherwise, countryside.

im not saying its hard to do, it is quite easy. but they dont like the idea, they dont want to live like that. they dont want to work untill they are 60 and then count on their 4 perfect children to sustain them in retirementdude, chill, and dont label me. i do what i think i should. i dont do stuff to try to be in a group. and when i do it, the only stores are chains, and ones owned by people i dont like. i will agree that tags, gang or not are not pretty, but pieces and murals are some of the most beautiful/badass looking things out there

Oh OK, so that makes it just fine because they're chain stores and you don't like the owners. So I should graffiti everyone's house which is a townhouse (part of a chin of houses), and that I don't like? Pieces and murals can be cool, but how does that possibly make it right or acceptable, and what idiot would legalize it? Sigh. There are people in this world who work hard, and there are other people in this world who like to ruin that work because they "think it looks cool" or because they "don't really like" someone. Those people are assholes

I know whites live in the ghetto aswell. I know a bunch that do actually. But most people in the ghetto are minorities. And usually whenever someone says something is ghetto, they aren't talking about the wiggers.

Like I said, usually whenever someone says ghetto, they mean minorities. I've just gotten used to it being meant towards minorities, since I am one and grew up with that. Misunderstanding, that's all.



Yes and no. If I liked something, it would stay, so it'd be a free-for-all til something good was painted. If there's some giant schlong on there, I'd start watching the place for whoever did it.

I do have a grasp of what the real world is like actually. And my parents have owned a business before. And my dad let people tag it, cause he's all for expression. But as soon as there was something he didn't like, he got rid of it.

thats what im gonna do with my van

Two problems:
1. Why the hell would you graffiti your own car?
2. Van? LAME.

Pointless? I like being rich, and I'm sure it's just as fun as "climbing on roofs."

i love my hippy van, coupled with something like this http://www.flickr.com/photos/cassidy/2577543/in/set-58512/

and thats good for you, but some of us get bored of the rich life, i find it empty after living it for the majority of my life

That flickr picture is amazing Soundless. That's something I would want to have painted on my bass or something.

done by my favorite crackhead in sanfrancisco