In today's society graffiti has shrouded itself with images of inner-city buses, old steel trains, and non-working pay phones. Many also believe that graffiti is something new, a response to the conservative past of an older generation. We now know however, that graffiti has existed ever since the first man marked his cave with stone and rock. To me the connotation that graffiti is ugly and serves no purpose in American society evolved in the 1990's and has grown to become either as a nuisance or original thoughts of self-expression and identity. An art and a form of personal philosophy, graffiti is rhetorical because it allows people to gain insight of an ideology belonging to a younger generation.
The picture above was stenciled on the corner of Mesa and Executive shortly after President Bush declared war in Iraq. This stencil clearly shows that graffiti can be political and convey a message of opposition.
2 comments:
Great picture. For the paper, I would interview people and ask them about how they feel about "graffiti" or wall art, or whatever you want to call it. This could be a survey.
Mrs. R
This is a very interesting topic since it is all around us. I myself have to admit that even though I might enjoy art, some of this "art" on freeway billboards are just disturbing. These so called artists should maybe try and work on making the city beautiful like the mural next to the Goodwill store on Alameda is. But it is like you said, it is a reach out for attention. All they want is to get their point accross. I definitely agree that their should be a designated are for graffitti, kind of how it was done for the skaters.
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