We’re not pro-graffiti, anti-street art. A lot of people think we are. We think a lot of those people didn’t really read what we said in our statement, but perhaps it could use some clarification.

We think graffiti is mostly boring. It has sunken into the everyday background of the city; no one notices it anymore. You have to know something about it to be interested. The graffiti that gets the most attention is the non-traditional stuff, work that stands out and grabs the public’s attention. Street art has that potential, but it risks losing this edge if the market is flooded with bad, “non-traditional” graffiti in the form of crappy stickers, posters and stencils.

The flip side of this is that what is most interesting about graffiti can also be what makes it so boring. Graffiti has a tradition; it has clearly defined steps and sequences, levels and places it exists. The fact that this tradition was formed by inner-city youth without a profit based motivation and without the goal of a tangible reward is astounding. It was a groundbreaking idea and phenomenon. Now, thirty-odd years later, the tradition still exists in practice, but graffiti has been put in its place. It has lost its potency. It has been relegated to certain neighborhoods where it is allowed to exist, places where if it is not tolerated, it is not buffed. The initial mode of being seen that accompanied the movement, namely the trains, has been co-opted by advertisers and is no longer a viable way for writers to get up. Trains are painted today because of the tradition, not as a means to get noticed by the public. Graffiti today is an undeniable fact of the city, and while graffiti still is a form of rebellion, people are no longer surprised to see it. In this way, society has accepted it.

Street art lacks this limitation in that it has the potential, today in 2005, to stick out in to the non-initiated viewer. Our apprehension comes from the fact that street art is doing nothing different than graffiti, only it lacks the ingenuity. It is being used, by some, strictly as a medium for getting up. It exists almost exclusively in the hip, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of the city and is done mostly by art school kids. “Street art” is not the voice of the ghetto, it is not the voice of the voiceless.

Neither is graffiti today, really, but that is another topic. Our point is that tagging, as an action and a medium, has got to be one of the greatest design challenges of the late 20th century. Take five letters, make them look good, then go and write them big, bold and everywhere, illegally. As it has evolved, graffiti has expanded out of the ghettos and into art school. Most good art school taggers at least try to raise the bar, to have their graffiti benefit from their education as well as the tradition. Is it the same game as the kids in the Bronx were playing in ’78? Nope, but it acknowledges the work they did and admires the effort. Some kid sitting at home designing a sticker in Illustrator, then paying to have them printed and putting them up, white it may be a good design formally, has nothing on tagging; it benefits from it’s legacy yet ignores the craft and risk that is critical to the tradition. What is frustrating is that this kid can get fame in books and on the Internet because it is this new medium and market we call street art. Through self-promotion and stamp licking, this kid becomes famous because of his networking, not the net worth of his workings. It is co-opting the hard work of graffiti without the risk and with an ignorance of the tradition.

How many times have you seen some shitty paste-up over a fill-in? In the graffiti tradition, it’s grounds for beef. In street art, it is a prized commodity because the flick looks like you did your thing in the city, in a rough neighborhood with real graffiti. Graffiti is not a gritty urban backdrop for your poster, it is graffiti, and it is someone the voice of someone else. Beef with it if you got beef with it, go over it if you want, but be clear you are going over it, and unless it’s beef, at least try to top it.

Does this mean street art should only exist within the tradition and rules of graffiti? No, exactly the opposite, it should recognize the tradition and then acknowledge the differences. Does this mean graffiti and street art can’t co-exist? No, but the inherent differences should be recognized and street artists should try to capitalize on them as opposed to trying to do graffiti with stickers and stencils.