Vandalism or Art?
Last week a two-part article ran in the San Francisco Chronicle by Steven Winn that looked at graffiti, vandalism and public art. The articles can be found here and here (the second article is the better of the two).
Unfortunately, Winn raises the question but fails to take a firm stance one way or the other. If we accept that public art is, quite simply, art that exists in public spaces than the term acts as an umbrella under which graffiti and vandalism are covered. What is absent from Winn’s explanation is a differentiation between what is authorized and what is not. This, I believe, is what distinguishes between what is vandalism and what is not, however it does not identify whether something is a work of public art or not. That determination is part of a much greater discussion.
I should mention here that I don’t think there’s any reason to go into whether graffiti or vandalism may have artistic merit since one only needs to look at the works of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and other artists to see that graffiti/vandalism may have aesthetic or artistic merit. I should also mention that acts of vandalism or graffiti on private works of art, for example, an attack on or alteration of a work in a museum, are excluded from this discussion for I believe they present some other problems other than those raised by such actions on works in public spaces.
Graffiti and vandalism can be public art but all public art is not necessarily graffiti or vandalism. I believe the extent to which graffiti or another kind of art form is vandalism is determined by whether it is an authorized or unauthorized work of art. If we can agree on this, then vandalism can not be an authorized act of public art. Graffiti and other works of art can, depending on whether it is authorized or not, be an act of vandalism. An act of graffiti or the “creation” of a work of art that defaces or alters a pre-existing work of art is an act of vandalism. Might it still be art itself? Sure, I suppose it could be (perhaps some kind of appropriation art or performance art if the actual act of vandalism is intended to be considered the work of art).
As a result of his lack of differentiation between what is authorized and unauthorized art, and his subsequent his use of the terms “graffiti” and “vandalism” rather liberally, Winn suggests that Christo’s and Jean Claude’s Gates were “a kind of benign vandalism, a willed and somewhat arbitrary alteration of a public space that can inflect a viewer's perceptions of that space years after the artwork itself has vanished." Yes—it changed the nature of the public space it was exhibited in and perhaps people’s perceptions of that space were changed but that is not a defining characteristic of vandalism. It is however, even according to Winn, what is to be expected from public works of art. The Gates were no act of vandalism because they were an authorized, temporary installation of public art.
Since I’m on the topic of changing perceptions of public spaces, Winn also mentions the public sculpture Tilted Arc by Richard Serra. Although he doesn’t go so far to suggest that that was vandalism (fortunately), he uses the work as an example of the impact public works of art have on the community and the reactions and emotions they evoke. Now, before I said that in order for something to qualify as vandalism it had to be an unauthorized act. I stand by that assertion; however as an exception to that rule I would be willing to concede that the destruction of Serra’s sculpture was an act of authorized vandalism of the grossest proportions, legitimized by the same morons who commissioned the work in the first place. As Winn professes, “the vandalizing of freely accessible, open-air artworks carries its own set of meanings and effects,” and that, “public sculpture and other forms of outdoor art are clearly more vulnerable than a museum's protected holdings.” Public works of art ARE more vulnerable and their vulnerability is not solely a function of opportunistic graffiti artists or even two lovers wanting to scratch their names into the side of something. For some reason the fact that Serra’s work was a public work of art contributed to the apparent acceptability of its authorized destruction. This, I believe, is the result of some warped logic that minimizes the egregiousness of the act of destroying art for the sake of convenience by framing it in terms that attempt to distinguish it from what it really is: vandalism.
Unfortunately, Winn raises the question but fails to take a firm stance one way or the other. If we accept that public art is, quite simply, art that exists in public spaces than the term acts as an umbrella under which graffiti and vandalism are covered. What is absent from Winn’s explanation is a differentiation between what is authorized and what is not. This, I believe, is what distinguishes between what is vandalism and what is not, however it does not identify whether something is a work of public art or not. That determination is part of a much greater discussion.
I should mention here that I don’t think there’s any reason to go into whether graffiti or vandalism may have artistic merit since one only needs to look at the works of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and other artists to see that graffiti/vandalism may have aesthetic or artistic merit. I should also mention that acts of vandalism or graffiti on private works of art, for example, an attack on or alteration of a work in a museum, are excluded from this discussion for I believe they present some other problems other than those raised by such actions on works in public spaces.
Graffiti and vandalism can be public art but all public art is not necessarily graffiti or vandalism. I believe the extent to which graffiti or another kind of art form is vandalism is determined by whether it is an authorized or unauthorized work of art. If we can agree on this, then vandalism can not be an authorized act of public art. Graffiti and other works of art can, depending on whether it is authorized or not, be an act of vandalism. An act of graffiti or the “creation” of a work of art that defaces or alters a pre-existing work of art is an act of vandalism. Might it still be art itself? Sure, I suppose it could be (perhaps some kind of appropriation art or performance art if the actual act of vandalism is intended to be considered the work of art).
As a result of his lack of differentiation between what is authorized and unauthorized art, and his subsequent his use of the terms “graffiti” and “vandalism” rather liberally, Winn suggests that Christo’s and Jean Claude’s Gates were “a kind of benign vandalism, a willed and somewhat arbitrary alteration of a public space that can inflect a viewer's perceptions of that space years after the artwork itself has vanished." Yes—it changed the nature of the public space it was exhibited in and perhaps people’s perceptions of that space were changed but that is not a defining characteristic of vandalism. It is however, even according to Winn, what is to be expected from public works of art. The Gates were no act of vandalism because they were an authorized, temporary installation of public art.
Since I’m on the topic of changing perceptions of public spaces, Winn also mentions the public sculpture Tilted Arc by Richard Serra. Although he doesn’t go so far to suggest that that was vandalism (fortunately), he uses the work as an example of the impact public works of art have on the community and the reactions and emotions they evoke. Now, before I said that in order for something to qualify as vandalism it had to be an unauthorized act. I stand by that assertion; however as an exception to that rule I would be willing to concede that the destruction of Serra’s sculpture was an act of authorized vandalism of the grossest proportions, legitimized by the same morons who commissioned the work in the first place. As Winn professes, “the vandalizing of freely accessible, open-air artworks carries its own set of meanings and effects,” and that, “public sculpture and other forms of outdoor art are clearly more vulnerable than a museum's protected holdings.” Public works of art ARE more vulnerable and their vulnerability is not solely a function of opportunistic graffiti artists or even two lovers wanting to scratch their names into the side of something. For some reason the fact that Serra’s work was a public work of art contributed to the apparent acceptability of its authorized destruction. This, I believe, is the result of some warped logic that minimizes the egregiousness of the act of destroying art for the sake of convenience by framing it in terms that attempt to distinguish it from what it really is: vandalism.
posted by Corey Wyckoff at 1:19 AM
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