THOUGH NOT THE largest or most urban city in Canada, Ottawa is no stranger to the colourful world of graffiti art. Some adore it and others abhor it, but what but what does graffiti really say about our city?
Point: All the graffiti
Living in Ottawa, we see graffiti all the time, but rarely do we get an opportunity to truly enjoy it. Every week, Rick Mercer shows a different Toronto alley during his celebrated rant sessions, all of which highlight beautiful and ornate graffiti art displays. Some may not see the true merit of this art form, but for those who do, the world becomes their canvas.
There are many places in Toronto that display graffiti in a more refined form, like the pointillism rendition of “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat, located at the corner of Wilson and Bathurst, or the many tags that litter the downtown core.
The variety of graffiti styles is actually distinguished in some places. In Brazil, graffiti is seen as an art form, with galleries and exhibitions dedicated to its recognition. In England, however, the artist known as Banksy is viewed as a criminal by the police.
Graffiti is an expression of freedom of speech, and that freedom should be protected and even encouraged by the city government. Living in a place with very little vegetation, such as the University of Ottawa’s campus, the presence of graffiti murals would add a bit of colour to our dull grey campus buildings. We all know that Carleton taunts us for being a hole in the wall—maybe with a little bit of colour we could create a more beautiful campus.
Graffiti will always be a hotly contested form of artwork, but like many of its predecessors, it is an expression of a generation of people. It should be encouraged rather than squashed.
—Andrew Ikeman
Counterpoint: Spray-painting lipstick on a pig
Hide your kids, hide your wife—they’re spraying everything out here! Well, everything they can reach. From trains to lamp posts, graffiti has taken over the urban landscape in the past decade, bringing with it a culture of vandalism that is harmful to our communities.
In the last few years, Ottawa City Council voted to allow three graffiti walls for aspiring spray-masters to display their work. The City of Ottawa then found the graffiti walls were doing nothing to stop the spread of graffiti, because “graffiti must be illegal to be ‘real’.” And therein lies the problem.
Most people would agree that spray-painting a car without permission is crossing a line, but somehow train cars are not viewed the same way. Both are privately owned forms of transportation, yet trains always seem to be decorated with graffiti “art.” People who break into train yards can vandalize with a clear conscience, and the problem seems to be growing.
Why should the fact that some trains are owned by crown corporations mean their rights are forfeited? It should be up to individual property owners to decide what colour their possessions are, not whomever can jump a fence the fastest.
Graffiti is also prevalent in public spaces, spaces owned by all residents of the city. Putting graffiti in these places is not simply freedom of expression—it is an imposition of one’s views. If you have something to protest and a can of paint you’ve been dying to use, go make yourself a sign. Graffiti is difficult and costly to remove, and the mess it leaves behind usually lasts longer than the message.
No one wants to stop freedom of expression. If graffiti is art, keeping it to your own walls won’t hurt. But if that doesn’t satisfy your need to spray stuff, graffiti should be labelled what it is—vandalism.
—Ben Martin
Coun
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I think it’s best summed up with the idea that graffiti is by definition illegal. graffiti takes many forms and without getting into a debate about heirarchy of art, suffice it to say that graffiti is meant to express but also to “stick out,” to “interrupt” the normal.
I like graffiti – it livens up the city, it gives it character. I think the city should commission it anywhere it can because it gives benefits to creative and talented people. The government gives entrepreneurs and business-people support so why not artists? You can ask any traveler why they go to certain places and invariably “culture” comes up – not businesses. And if ours is a society that value diversity and pluralism, it would only be in rare cases that limits on this form of expression would be enforced. This doesn’t mean that everyone can just go out with a can and start “doing art.” That’s ridiculous – just because we have the ability to do things doesn’t mean we will do them! That’s a scare-tactic used in politics and social issues arguments. It’s clear graffiti needs to be illegal. To me the real issue is if the graffiti actually will “harm” someone, or whether it’s offensive – both very subjective criterion.
Yet the fact remains that graffiti is inherently rebellious and galvanizing; it is an act of interruption, a “jarring-loose.” Seeing it in exclusively capitalist (property) terms limits and reduces the scope of its intent; as well as being short-sighted it is the height of officialism. We can’t all be art conoisseurs, but we can’t all be beady-eyed bureaucrats either.