Here we go again. One of our recent posts touched on the issue of graffiti – and it quickly became a debate as to whether or not graffiti is art. Now Santa Ana College is addressing the same issue, with an art show devoted to graffiti.
Here are some excerpts from an article in the O.C. Register about this art show:
The exhibit, which opens to the public on Thursday, treats graffiti as an act of expression, not just an act of vandalism.
The director of the gallery, Phillip Marquez, has already heard grumblings from people who say the show glorifies the kind of criminal behavior that blights the community. After all, the City of Santa Ana measures how much graffiti it has to scrub out every year in millions of square feet.
“It’s a huge problem. That’s really the reason I wanted to do a show about graffiti,” Marquez said. “There’s always going to be that element of adolescence that needs to express itself.”
The exhibit opens with real-world photos from Santa Ana, black-and-white images of graffiti sprayed across buildings and block walls, fences and trucks. The city has such a graffiti problem that a special police task force focuses on it full-time, and the current city budget sets aside nearly $2 million for graffiti abatement.
Santa Ana police made more than 500 graffiti-related arrests last year. But the city still gets hundreds of calls every month from residents and business owners complaining of tags or graffiti sprayed across their property or scratched into their windows.
Marquez got the idea for a graffiti exhibit as he biked along the paint-splotched Santa Ana River Trail. He wanted to give the people who paint graffiti a chance to explain what they do, and why.
Most of the 20 graffiti painters whose work appears in the show are students at Santa Ana College; Marquez met them through a digital media class. Only a few of them signed their real names to their work; the others used their monikers: Slug and Mewt, Stud and Majik.
One of them, Frank “Knuckles” Torres, wrote in a short essay that graffiti is “my way to express myself to the public without saying a word
Some of the art is really breathtaking. There are painting walls in Los Angeles that sponsor competition between these urban artists.
Here is a great site to get an idea of what the competitions look like: http://www.graffiti.org/
Unfortunately, in Santa Ana the only people who are marking things up are uncreative and destructive. Usually just some stupid letter carved into glass, metal or painted on buildings. Abolutely no creative expression.
When our native Americans carved into the walls of caves or cliffs we called it Art. What’s the differance? I say it’s all art if you look at the good in these young people. All deserve to express themselves. Some carve initials into tress or write Kilroy was here on a wall or stick a piece of paper into the wailing wall. It’s all art….some we choose to recognize now and others need time to appreciate. I say let the good times roll. We need to make it easier to buy spray paint and wide tipped Sharpies. The pen is mightier than the sward and a Sharpie is the mightiest of all. This show is a good first step to helping people understand what these artists have to say. Well done Santa Ana College!
Anon 2
This is a joke right? How do you compare the art the Indians did on the walls of caves to a bunch of kids vandalizing someone’s property. I do appreciate Graffiti Murals not tagging. Santa Ana College is showing Graffiti as an art show. There not going to show the tagging of kids crews. I’m an Artist myself and when I was growing up I would express myself by drawing on paper and drawing on a canvas with markers and charcoal pencils.
There’s a reason why it’s hard for these kids to get sharpies and spray paint. Do you truly want our city to be vandalized by these taggers.
I don’t believe Anon was kidding and there is a lot of truth to his/her point. When enough time passes, like with Native American “Graffiti” on cliffs and cave walls it’s considered ok as is carving initials on rocks like Lewis and Clark. In 100 years some guy will be paying $1,000 for a guided tour by a park ranger to see the original tagging on some freeway underpass!
The Native Americans had every right to mark up their walls, they owned them.
Painting a commissioned mural like the ones in LA is totally different than guerrilla artists sneaking around in the night to paint up someone else’s property.
Most grafitti is not art. If it was, the artists would get permission and be commissioned to do pieces. Instead, they tresspass and vandalize others’ buildings and walls, and actually inflict violence on those that would try to stop them. (The SA police department regularly tells neighborhood asociations that if they see tagging in process, not to intervene, or they could be hurt or, worse, killed.)
The city of Santa Ana spends a couple of million dollars annually to eradicate this vandalism, money that could be spent for many positive and inspiring youth programs, and maybe even art lessons for youth that show some promise. Instead, that money is wasted when it is spent on erasing unwanted and unwelcome vandalism.
There are very specific laws defining acts of grafitti as a crime. That’s one easy way to distinguish between criminal activity and alleged “art”. It’s not artists clogging up the court system; it’s criminals.
For councilmember Michelle Martinez to condone illegal activities that lead to vandalism and violence, and drain the city’s minimal resources shows a complete lack of good judgement.
its all B.S. you can sponcer a graffiti seminar , but you cant sponcer a remote controll race track for our youth, instead you want to brainwash the youth by telling them tagging is better,next its going to be a gun show at the college telling kids not to shoot anyone…WHAT A WASTE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY!!!
Can’t believe Michelle Martinez is promoting Graffiti in our city. Shows just how guetto she is.
The debate as to whether or not graffiti is art is completely irrelevant. To some, Jackson Pollack’s “drip” painting are art…to others, it’s just senseless drips of paint…something “a child could do”.
But Jackson Pollack did not paint on other people’s property. THAT is the ONLY issue that matters here.
So if Obama wins I’ll have a Ghetto President and a Ghetto councilwoman (Martinez) Wonderful!
That’s a great idea, Cruz!
Maybe Michelle Martinez can sponsor or help underwrite a gun show next.
The art of “communication”? What is the message we are to take away?
I notice Pedroza failed to even comment on Michele Martinez’s involvement in the event. What a fricken hypocrite!!!
If Miguel Pulido, Sal Tinajero or Claudia Alvarez had been involved rather than his darling Michele he would have gone absolutely nuts screaming that these folks were promoting vandalism.