The brighter the dark alley the better.

My point is merely one about subjectivity being an issue and that tagging is inseparable from other graff.

…and I also find that graff done with the owners permission tends to be sterile and is often just an advertisement – hence just adding to the branding of public space.

I guess that’s my other key point, graff is inherently rebellion, anti-systemic and provides a sense of public ownership – which adds to why tags and other graff cannot be separated.

Give it a go, let them paint. Brighten up a dark alley or two.

After all property is 9/10 of the law and putting anything on a private wall is, technically, defacing it. Especially if it is without the premission of the owner. I really can’t see that happening.

So graffiti that spoils an area should go. But graffiti that improves an area would not be defacement, and should be encouraged. This obviously depends on the quality of the graffiti, and the quality of the street in which it has been put. A big ‘fuck you’ in Collins St should be removed. A work of art in Pender Place should stay. This is precisely the point of the new Melbourne City Council policy (the original point of this post, remember?). Remove the shit stuff, and put some colour into those dingy back alleys.

Firstly, in a legal sense, how would you distinguish? Defacing private (or public) property is just that, not matter what its form is.

Secondly I think you’ll find that most people doing the most artistic stuff also tag and certainly sign their work with a tag – although not necessarily the other way around.

Finally, I think that if you see graff as a form of resistance (which I do) and youth culture then they are both part of the same whole (or hole depending on who you ask).

A tag is a big ‘fuck you, this is our street’. Aesthetics are an issue but not the only one. If you are arguing about the merits of aesthetics then you’re on thin ice, things become far too subjective (for this issue) and things like architecture and stuff start coming up – or worse!

Bollocks.

Comment by Robert at 5:22pm on 7 March 2005.

I see you are employing an age old debating technique of the left, Rob.

Tagging just doesn’t bother me.

That aside, some of the ‘art’ that is graffiti is that it is done on public spaces. Sure, you could have it in a gallery but a lot of it is lost if you do that. It becomes sterile and looses its rebellion which is part of its appeal.

In fact by keeping it illegal you sustain it in some senses.

Bollocks.

Say what you like about the merits of graffiti but to most of us it is nothing but an eyesore. Why should those people who own and maintain the property have to put up with its unauthorized installation? If you want to see it in its natural surrounds, I suggest you get together with the artists and cobble together the funds to buy a facade or something of the like, better still, hire some gallery space like most law-abiding artists would. As far as I am concerned, it is one of the biggest eyesores on the contemporary urban landscape. You can’t divorce it from tagging as they are one and the same essentially.