Graffiti is Vandalism, Not Art

The New York Times story on the rise of graffiti in cities both large and small is disturbing. For those who say graffiti is art, I would like to be invited to your home and I will splash paint over your entire home inside and out Jackson Pollack style, dripping and splashing it everywhere I can. If you don’t like it too bad, I’m not cleaning it up.

But you say that’s not art. I say that it is.

You say, what right do I have to come to your home and deface it?

That is exactly my point.

Our cities and public surroundings are our homes and no one has the right to deface public or private property.

The majority of graffiti artists are not frustrated artists but are in reality criminals, juvenile delinquents and gang members, who have a compulsion to etch, paint, mark or deface public property. The cost of this criminal activity is millions of dollars to taxpayers. Graffiti “artists” need to find other outlets other than damaging property.

My grandfather (who you may confuse with an Arab dictator or a Singapore bureaucrat after reading this) had a simple and effective draconian method to cure graffiti “taggers.” He said if the police caught them in the act of writing graffiti, the officer should be allowed to take their night sticks and break their arms on the spot.

Here endeth the lesson.