Glasgow city council + Strathclyde police are trying to have their cake and eat it with the blatant hypocrisy and comic incongruity of their current graffiti policy.
First of all, we have Mr McGeady talking about graffiti being a 'signal crime'. Does he have any evidence that graffiti causes other crime? Does he fuck. He equates graffiti with broken windows in a deliberate attempt to disregard one indisputable fact; graffiti is vandalism, but it's not necessarily destruction. There is no artistic element to breaking a window; there is often an artistic side to graffiti. The council is pretending not to know this.
This is where the hypocrisy comes in; Mr McGeady wants to portray graffiti as devoid of artist merit, he then goes on to boast that he has commissioned murals around Glasgow. But according to Mr. McGeady, these are not 'graffiti' they are 'photo-realistic art'. Mr McGeady knows these murals were painted by graffiti artists, which means he knows that there can be an artistic element to graffiti, otherwise he wouldn't be paying for it.
His sophistry is ludicrous; what's the difference between 'graffiti' and 'photo-realistic art'? It's simply a matter of who's paying for it. Smug is a graffiti artist, Ejek is a graffiti artist, Elph is a graffiti artist. Vandals, bastards, according to Mr McGeady. Until he wants a favour, then they become artists.
Mr McGeady, after bragging about his organization’s collaborations with graffiti artists, then goes on to describe how he is responsible for hunting down and catching graffiti artists. This means that Strathclyde Police are catching graffiti artists, fining them, and then spending that money on commissioning the very same people to do paintings in partnership with them. What are they trying to achieve by this? They are more concerned with persecuting and criminalizing young people than actually addressing the issue of graffiti's place in modern society.
Ian Davidson doesn't think people judge see 'art content' in graffiti... I think that says more about the ignorance of our elected representatives than it does about graffiti art. Ian Davidson is part of the Labour Party. The same party who spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a 'graffiti style' Olympics logo. If the public doesn’t see graffiti as having artistic merit, WHY THE FUCK is Ian Davidson's party spending money on graffiti style logos?
The fact is, the council and police are run by middle-aged, middle-class white men who just don't get it. They don't understand graffiti and they don't understand art. They think inflatable football pitches and 'stamping down' on young people are the answer for everything.
But this won’t last forever. Their outdated views and obsolete methods are counter-productive and built on a foundation of sheer willful ignorance. Their stupidity and hypocrisy has had its day. They'll retire and be replaced by a younger generation who don't see graffiti as a bunch of 'nigger lines'. Society will be better for it.
2 comments:
Glasgow city council + Strathclyde police are trying to have their cake and eat it with the blatant hypocrisy and comic incongruity of their current graffiti policy.
First of all, we have Mr McGeady talking about graffiti being a 'signal crime'. Does he have any evidence that graffiti causes other crime? Does he fuck. He equates graffiti with broken windows in a deliberate attempt to disregard one indisputable fact; graffiti is vandalism, but it's not necessarily destruction. There is no artistic element to breaking a window; there is often an artistic side to graffiti. The council is pretending not to know this.
This is where the hypocrisy comes in; Mr McGeady wants to portray graffiti as devoid of artist merit, he then goes on to boast that he has commissioned murals around Glasgow. But according to Mr. McGeady, these are not 'graffiti' they are 'photo-realistic art'. Mr McGeady knows these murals were painted by graffiti artists, which means he knows that there can be an artistic element to graffiti, otherwise he wouldn't be paying for it.
His sophistry is ludicrous; what's the difference between 'graffiti' and 'photo-realistic art'? It's simply a matter of who's paying for it. Smug is a graffiti artist, Ejek is a graffiti artist, Elph is a graffiti artist. Vandals, bastards, according to Mr McGeady. Until he wants a favour, then they become artists.
Mr McGeady, after bragging about his organization’s collaborations with graffiti artists, then goes on to describe how he is responsible for hunting down and catching graffiti artists. This means that Strathclyde Police are catching graffiti artists, fining them, and then spending that money on commissioning the very same people to do paintings in partnership with them. What are they trying to achieve by this? They are more concerned with persecuting and criminalizing young people than actually addressing the issue of graffiti's place in modern society.
Ian Davidson doesn't think people judge see 'art content' in graffiti... I think that says more about the ignorance of our elected representatives than it does about graffiti art. Ian Davidson is part of the Labour Party. The same party who spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a 'graffiti style' Olympics logo. If the public doesn’t see graffiti as having artistic merit, WHY THE FUCK is Ian Davidson's party spending money on graffiti style logos?
The fact is, the council and police are run by middle-aged, middle-class white men who just don't get it. They don't understand graffiti and they don't understand art. They think inflatable football pitches and 'stamping down' on young people are the answer for everything.
But this won’t last forever. Their outdated views and obsolete methods are counter-productive and built on a foundation of sheer willful ignorance. Their stupidity and hypocrisy has had its day. They'll retire and be replaced by a younger generation who don't see graffiti as a bunch of 'nigger lines'. Society will be better for it.
who was RAED?
Post a Comment