22/11/12…..Who decides whether Graffiti is ‘street art’ or ‘obscene?’
SUCH was the topic for a heated discussion at Tuesday’s meeting of Thame Town Council’s Policy and Resources committee.
The proposal on the table was to adopt the council’s revised policy for dealing with graffiti, which aims to remove ‘offensive’ graffiti on council-owned property within 24 hours, and any other graffiti within three days of its discovery.
All very uncontroversial until it got to the bit about the skate park. The proposed policy stated that: “On the Skate Park facilities, graffiti should be left as it is classed as artwork and of amenity value to the local surroundings.”
To Cllr Vaughan Humphries, a published author, that was like offering a glass of lager to a Real Ale drinker! But he had done his homework and had come prepared. His lyrical lesson in the history and philosophy of graffiti was more akin to something one would expect to hear delivered in the House of Lords, rather than the council chamber of a market town:
“Personally, this is something I find rather irksome,” he began. “I acknowledge that graffiti has been a problem for municipal bodies dating back to classical times. However, it has become part of our ‘pop’ culture from the stencilled street art of ‘Banksy’ to Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence, where you can quite clearly hear “the words of the Prophet are written on the subway walls and tenement halls…”
“We cannot deny that one of the fundamental rights that we uphold in this country is the Freedom of Expression and quite justifiably so; art is a form of expression.
“Where does the line become blurred? There is a difference between ‘street art’ that has been sanctioned and ‘graffiti’, which is defacement or vandalism of property, both of which are crimes.
“Reading a number of academic studies on the subject, it has been suggested that 85% of graffiti was of the ‘tagging’ variety, a further 10% a form of gang communication, be it asserting territorial claims or serve as a warning to others, which leaves us with 5% that we could consider to be defined as ‘art’ – and I use that term rather loosely, as I am certainly no fan of ‘contemporary art’.
“This leaves me with the following questions based on my interpretation of the (Clerk’s) report.
1. What is considered to be graffiti?
2. How will it be determined? Will it be based on a specific definition as above, and on whose judgement?
3. Why and how does the graffiti at the skate park qualify as ‘art’? (Although for the main part not offensive in content)”
Cllr Jeannette Matelot Green jumped to the defence of the skate park graffiti: “If you take the graffiti away from the skate park, you will be taking away the souls of the skaters!” she said.
Deputy Mayor, Peter Lambert’s view was: “As long as it is not offensive, it’s not doing any harm.” But this begged the question put forward by Cllr Mike Dyer: “Who makes the decision as to what is Art and what is graffiti?”
Finally the committee agreed that ALL graffiti around the town would be removed, except graffiti at the skate park, unless it was consider offensive. But the vexed question of who decides what is ‘offensive’ remained inconclusive.
IMAGE: Copyright MerlinJnr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/merlinjnr/
