Hey guys,
Welcome to my winter project!
This winter, I have been travelling around Canberra taking photos of graffiti and sharing my favourite pieces on this blog.
I have learned a great deal about graffiti as a form of art, and have come to appreciate the difference between territorial tagging and daring creativity.
Best of all, it’s been great to get out into the open on a lovely Canberra winter’s day.
Please comment on whether you think graffiti is vandalism or art.
Cheers, AVR
GraffitoCanberra 
Very interesting Armando!
Graffiti – art or vandalism? I don’t have a legally consistent opinion, but if it’s well drawn “art”, I think it can really liven places up. I’ve often thought that there should be much more “graffiti” commissioning in pubic spaces – though perhaps that takes a counter culture into the mainstream unwillingly? Lazy taggings, seem more like a dog marking its territory.
I’m very intolerant about racist graffiti though perhaps it isn’t as common as it used to be.
When I was living in Ashfield the war memorial there was heavily graffitied with “Asian out” . It used to be quite common graffiti. Graffiti like this on a war memorial shows bad history as well as racism, since in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam Australia was fighting with more Asian countries, than it was fighting against.
Do you see this kind of graffiti much these days? How about political graffiti? My impression is that both have declined, but they are probably a different demographic / type of person to contemporary graffiti artists.
I read this the other day; you might be interested. Is it reasonable to “steal” graffiti to sell?
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jul/26/banksy-graffiti-disappears-tottenham