Graffiti: Modern-Day Cave Painting and Social Commentary

Modern-Day Cave Painting
Graffiti has been around for a long time, far back to the prehistoric times, where cavemen would spend hours drawing on walls, reflecting their daily lives. However, these walls were not walls of their own homes; they drew on walls that might have been someone else’s home, yet no one sees their “works of art” as vandalism. Archaeologists have even used graffiti on the walls of many areas to better understand different ancient cultures. Graffiti is a type of art that is popularly used among many young and middle-aged males, although it is considered vandalism, it is still an important piece of popular culture because of it’s ability to act as an effective form of communication and expression of identity, which can be used to reveal problems in society.

Graffiti is a form of street art; it ranges from tagging a name in a unique style to creating a masterpiece which usually reveals a message.

Even though there is a fear of getting caught, this is what artist usually consider the very core of graffiti culture. Many critics have argued that graffiti is vandalism and should be removed. However, “someone painted over your house and, of course, you’re not too happy about it. No one has the right to do that without your permission and, without even looking at it, you can pronounce it vandalism. But would you feel the same way if you saw a really breathtaking piece of graffiti art on an otherwise dull wall in the city?” (Kordic). Yes, by definition, graffiti is “an action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property”, And we can not really argue that graffiti often ends up someone’s walls, we do have to think about if it really is “destruction”, and if, perhaps, we have been asking the wrong question the whole

time.