The Form of Art the City Doesn’t Want to See…

…the only problem is, the city is the one that created it.

Oh no.
Even Neanderthals were painting on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago…
What a shame.
They ruined the clean look of the caves just so some Parisian journalist from The Guardian could complain thousands of years later that the walls don’t give off “pure vibes” anymore.

Oh no, oh no…

But let’s be honest.
For some people, tagging and street art are the only available ways to create, protest — and, of course, be seen.

Should we really blame them first?

Or should we start with the cities and local governments that never gave them a real chance to express themselves — or sometimes even to exist visibly in public space?

Street art, like other forms of art, seeks to convey something about the world and the person who drew it… Tagging is nothing more than a way of saying me, me, me.

Should I remind the author about the Broken Windows Theory?

The theory, developed by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, argues that visible signs of disorder and neglect — broken windows, vandalism, graffiti — can encourage more disorder.

Whether the theory actually works the way its supporters claim is another conversation.

But there’s something funny here.

Graffiti isn’t a legal form of art.
Surprise, surprise, lol.

So if your city creates neglected spaces, covers every available surface with advertising, gives young people almost no legal places to express themselves — and then acts shocked when illegal forms of expression appear…
Well.

Maybe the wall isn’t the beginning of the problem.

Sticker culture, tagging, graffiti, urban art — they’re different layers of the same thing.

They come from people who actually care about the places they live in.

Maybe in a strange way.
Maybe in an annoying way.

But they’re still trying to make empty streets less boring, less commercialised and slightly more theirs — using whatever skills, vision and tools they have.

I don’t love tags either.
But I get them.
And I can’t really judge.
As an artist, I don’t tag walls.
I have my own studio.
I can afford canvases and paint.
I have someone who mentors me.
But I still put weird stickers around the city.
Why?

Because that’s my protest.

If the city puts up another giant billboard and cuts down trees to make space for it, I’ll cover that billboard in stickers.
That’s how I push back.
Could I protest in another way?
Not really.
The system here is corrupt and mostly doesn’t care.
So should I just stay silent?

Apparently Paris has reached its limit and declared war on graffiti and tagging.
And one suggestion for the punishment?
Make the people responsible clean the areas they supposedly made less livable.

Then maybe send them to art classes.

Lol.
There’s something beautifully art-world about that solution.

Your art is unacceptable. Please attend a class where we’ll teach you how to make acceptable art.

So when we judge graffiti culture and street art, maybe the first question shouldn’t be:

“Why did someone ruin this wall?”
Maybe it should be:
Why are they doing this at all?
Do they have another option?
Do they have another place where anyone will actually see what they create?
Because tagging isn’t always simply “I was here.”

Sometimes it’s:
“You didn’t give me anywhere else to be.”

And a lot of the time, street art is also a way of fighting back against gatekeepers.

The traditional art world loves instructions.
Go to art school first.
Build your network.
Meet curators.
Get into the right gallery.
Write your artist statement.
Wait.
Wait some more.
Maybe someone important eventually decides that your work deserves to be seen.

Street art has a slightly different application process:

Find wall.
Make art.
Done.

If we look at the history of graffiti and street art, none of this is particularly new.

Modern graffiti culture exploded in New York in the late 1960s and 1970s, especially among young people from Black and Latino communities.
Tags moved from neighbourhood walls onto subway trains.
And suddenly those trains became moving canvases.
Your name could travel across the city even if you couldn’t.
People who had little access to galleries, cultural institutions or the traditional art market suddenly had one enormous exhibition space:
New York itself.
Legal?
No.
Annoying?
Often.
Art?
Well…

Here we are, decades later, still arguing about it.
And maybe that’s the interesting part of this whole contemporary art criticism debate.

Can cities completely stop graffiti?
Probably not.

But can they reduce the need for illegal urban art by giving people more legal spaces, more opportunities and better ways to be heard?
Definitely.
Because you can clean the wall.
Fine the artist.
Ban the stickers.
Paint everything grey again.

But if the reason people started writing on those walls is still there…
the problem is still the same.

The problem is still here.

...your worst artist and best friend,

hEhe and my contemporary art criticism