Judging graffiti: Art or vandalism?

Piece Description

As you go from place to place in San Francisco – in neighborhoods like downtown and the Haight, and along Market Street – all around you'll see graffiti. Some of it may be giant or it might just be simple bubble letters, filled in with color, behind a billboard high above you. In San Francisco and many major cities, there is a never-ending public controversy over graffiti. People think one of two things: either the graffiti is vandalism or it’s art. When I walk through my neighborhood, I don't see much graffiti, but what there is stands out.

Lakeview is a working class and mostly quiet neighborhood in the southern part of San Francisco. Right next to the local elementary school and park there is a corner store called Nora’s Market.

Usually when I walk by, I don’t expect to see anything on the old green wall, just peeling paint. But one day, I saw layers of spray painted trees covering the side of the store. I could tell from the style of the drawings who was responsible for them – a graffiti artist who goes by PLANTREES. His work is all over the city. His character – that's like a signature – is a pine tree. The trees are cartoonish, and the entire wall looks abstract.

Mike Abbushi owns Nora’s Market. When I ask him about the graffiti, he says, "That's not graffiti that's a nice picture of the trees." He likes having art on the outside wall, in part because it keeps other graffiti away. He actually allowed PLANTREES to make the piece.

About two miles down Mission is a small bakery called Rosita’s. The wall outside is covered by a mural of roses and a cake with the bakery’s name on it. I walk in to ask about it and meet Marco Bertolazzi, the owner’s grandson, who used to be a tagger – someone who may quickly write his or her nickname on a street sign, but probably won't make a mural. Bertolazzi says there’s a difference between the kind of art on the wall of the bakery, and what Mike Abushi calls “scribbles."

Officer Martin Ferreira, a graffiti abatement officer with the San Francisco Police Department, doesn’t make the same distinction. “It doesn't matter if it’s a Rembrandt. It doesn’t matter if it’s Picasso, if illegal,” says Ferreira. “We’re not art critics.”

Ferreira says it's his job to be a graffiti expert, and to know who's writing what, but that doesn't mean critiquing work. He says illegal taggers cost the city about $30 million per year.

In the graffiti community, there are different labels to describe different types of work. “Writers” are more professional. They do, at times, have permission, and benefit the underground culture by creating work that people are happy to have. “Taggers,” on the other hand, seem to have just started out and are not as interested in improving their work. Marco Bertolazzi, being a former tagger himself, says that's bad for everyone.

Breaking the rules is always fun. When taggers really start to get into it, maybe with a crew, they make a name for themselves. They start getting bigger around the city and they never want to stop. But after a certain point, it doesn’t really get them anywhere. If there is no improvement, no one will ever admire your work, you’ll just be a well-known vandal.

This is where Bertolazzi and Ferreira agree – it doesn’t make a lot of sense to get rid of graffiti when so much of it adds so much beauty to the city. Not all of it destroys and can even add to the city’s beauty. But tagging illegally gets in the way of positive graffiti – and keeps real artists from doing their work.