Add a dash more color to the capital's gray streets
November 29, 2010
New York-based graffiti artist Chris Ellis - who goes by the street name Daze - has a graffiti exhibition in Beijing, as local media have reported.
The event tries to highlight graffiti's urban roots, and includes a work of graffiti on an outside wall, as well as its acceptance in the last few decades as a legitimate art form that attracts attention from museums and has well-heeled buyers snapping up graffiti works done on canvas.
Although Ellis, who recently made his first trip to Beijing, reportedly attracted autograph-seeking fans in the capital, several online commentators have said the city's graffiti scene is quite poor, if it can be said to exist at all.
It's certainly true that Beijing is a city of many walls, both old and new and that they are for the most part blank. Other cities, with far fewer hard surfaces on which graffiti artists can paint, have many more murals.
Part of the reason for this is the continued association in the minds not only of Beijingers, but many people from all parts of the world, between graffiti and crime. This is probably because graffiti is considered vandalism and is indeed illegal in most places in most cities. It is put up on public (and sometimes private) buildings by artists working quickly, quietly and often at odd hours with spray paint to avoid being caught by the authorities. It is also because street gangs often use graffiti to mark their territory and because some people leave obscene messages.
Most people do not want to see vulgar words or gang territory markers scrawled across buildings and other infrastructure that they walk or drive past every day. But a lot of graffiti is neither offensive nor violence-related. Much of it is visually arresting and beautifies otherwise boring or unsightly urban spaces. A blaze of colorful creativity is surely better than drab gray concrete.
Many cities are known for their artistic graffiti. New York and its graffiti-filled subway is perhaps the most well-known example, but almost every other major Western city (notably Berlin, San Francisco and Amsterdam) has at least a few great murals. Many cities in South America, particularly Brazil, have prominent graffiti and Sao Paulo is reportedly a global center of the art form, with wild, vivid murals decorating much of the public surfaces available and often covering entire building sides.
The graffiti on Melbourne's streets has become a major tourist draw, with out-of-towners and locals attracted to places such as Hosier Lane and Caledonian Lane to enjoy and photograph the street art, or use it as a backdrop for wedding shoots or corporate advertising.
As aerosol-based graffiti has become increasingly accepted and galleries have displayed graffiti exhibitions, well-known graffiti artists, such as Ellis, have shot to fame.
Beijing, with its ample supply of unadorned surfaces, would do well to encourage creative graffiti artists to get out their spray cans and start decorating. There are many creative people in Beijing who are no doubt up to the task.
To avoid crass and poor quality graffiti the authorities could simply dedicate some public spaces to it and commission graffiti artists to do the work.
Although Beijing has a long way to go in terms of graffiti art to catch up with New York or Melbourne, there are a few encouraging pockets of it around the capital.
One of them stretches along a low brick wall surrounding a construction site opposite the Pingguo apartment complex, just south of the Central Business District. The bizarre but intriguing art has decorated the wall since the building site was just a vacant lot. Once the apartments are up (local residents say they are for senior members of the air force) the graffiti-covered wall will probably come down.
It adds a much-needed splash of color and pizzazz to an otherwise featureless space and the city needs more like it.