[The Seven by Nine Squares home page] [YAWN 31] [Art Strike 1990-1993]

Notes Toward Implementing a Discussion Over the Merits of Graffiti


Street scratchings and scrawlings have value beyond their immediate property reduction value (an attack on the physical property of the ruling class). Graffiti is outside of the commodity dominated culture industry. It exists as a true folk art, a true gust of creativity in a society that forces creativity down the channels of commodity consumption: the ideal of noble aesthetic: "good taste."

Graffiti is a mode of expression that stands outside of "art": it is not created to generate capital but to express ideas and to undermine property values. These factors qualify graffiti as important as well as alternative. ("Art" is so often confused as being "radical" or is confused as a "critique," when in fact it is simply propaganda designed to justify Capital and the State, no more no less). Graffiti is at odds with capital and is not limited to the "freedoms" of the "art world."

Do musical groups exist outside the confines of advertising?

Does the sound receive any attention, or is it only accepted after the image has been considered? (Information transmitted through advertising to the sense registers.)

Graffiti as advertising medium (note 70s rock star enamored of european "political" slogans who used the medium to promote his 1974 LP). Yet, as in the case of a present new york rock ensemble who also use graffiti as an advertising medium, the use of "political" slogans to jar and stimulate the casual observer (read: target audience). Not every cloud of spray paint is spent on a trademarked logo or an identifying name (unlike the Philadelphia "alternative" group that can say nothing but their name on the walls of the city, reinforcing the division between producer and consumer (rock star and fan) (pointing them out specifically would only further advertise their "cau$e").

Graffiti is the one medium of which we can be sure.

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