Graffitis Role in Contemporary

Art
We come across, at least, some form of arts almost every
day. We perceive them in different ways depending upon their
types and basis for perception. We view paintings and
sculptures, we listen to music, we watch drama, and we read
literature. Now, it seems that graffiti will soon take up a
prominent role in contemporary art, due to its newfound
acceptance in the diverse world of modern art.
Graffiti art, and underground street culture in general, has
long been seen as provocative and uncompromising. It has close
connections to gang culture; originally vandalizing objects and
places to mark their territory. Today, graffiti art is now a
respected and new art form, a rich medium with no restrictions
and plenty of freedom to work with. Since, graffiti is a subjective
art form, some regard it as a new and rising art form, and others
regard it as plain vandalism. In most countries it is regarded
illegal. Thus graffiti art is sometimes referred to as underground
art. Artists are forced to create their works in the dark, hiding
from the police, officials and the common city dwellers.
Since it began to receive commercial attention in the early
1980s, graffiti has long since existed as a point of contention in
artistic and social communities. Graffiti as we know it has
endured an evolving history, its origins linked to both urban
gangs as well as to pure artistic expression. PBS says, Graffiti
is, by definition, a defiant and public exhibition, referring to the
reputation that graffiti has earned, with respects to its rebellious
nature. Public opinion of graffiti is ever-changing and diverse.
While some see it as street art, still many others say it is
unacceptable vandalism. However, despite the social
perceptions of graffiti, now these images and words have an
incredible global presence, especially in modern art.

Up to ten years ago, graffiti art was strictly an underground

activity. Teurk was on the bridge in Mostar as a result of having
been arrested by the French police, spray-painting a Paris
freeway bridge. A community service order brought him into
contact with Guernica, an activist group in Toulouse that had the
bright idea of buying a bus and driving to the former Yugoslavia
to put on an informal art festival for children. Like hip-hop and
Travellers, graffiti was counterculture. No longer this was the
case. Last week, the Tate Modern, housed in a former power
plant on the Thames, brought six street artists together from
around the world to spray-paint giant murals on the museum's
river facade, kicking off the first major public museum display of
street art in London.
In February, "Moona Lisa," a stencil by the British street
artist Nick Walker, depicting Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic
beauty baring her bottom, sold for 54,000, or $106,000, at a
Bonhams London contemporary art auction, more than 10 times
the top end of its preauction estimate; and this month a bronze
rat by Banksy, another British street artist, fetched $169,000 at
a Sotheby's contemporary art sale in New York.
This change has definitely been positive to graffiti as a
whole. "Graffiti is revolutionary, in my opinion", Terrence Kindall
says, "and any revolution might be considered a crime. People
who are oppressed or suppressed need an outlet, so they write
on wallsit's free." In the future, this can only improve. Maybe
in later years, the rise of this new art form will bring about new
laws legalizing them, instead of restricting or forbid graffiti.