Which is why watching him try to dissect the problem of graffiti was like trying to watch a baby whose just learnt to sit up, work out the TV remote control.
Graffiti is an emotive subject. Since the times when the Greeks were using it to advertising prostitution services or when the Romans were carving love poems onto walls through to Banksy's take on modern day life in Britain, the owner of the canvas has always been at odds with the artist. Some people, like Mr. Sweetman, consider it the ugliest of all vandalism. Some people call it a cry for help. Some people call it art. Either way, everybody has a very clear opinion about it.
But there is an awkward contradiction about graffiti. It's hard to isolate graffiti writers as criminals in a city that allows other nominated 'artists' to deface our telephone junction boxes. Mr. Sweetman writes:
"I reserve the right to choose when I am to be visually confronted..."
Unfortunately, in this day and age, he doesn't have that right. I may find certain graffiti aesthetically pleasing, but I might not like the council-approved art daubed throughout other sections of our community. What if I find the statue of Wally Lewis at Suncorp gaudy and pointless? Just because everyone else might love it and find it inspirational, should we have it removed if some people don't want to be visually confronted by it?
One of Mr. Sweetman's colleagues, Paul Syvret wrote an enlightened piece a few weeks back about the freedom of the internet, and how the government's attempts to install filters on Australian-based ISPs was doomed to fail. Both are comments on free speech. Mr. Syvret believed that restricting access to the internet was tantamount to censorship. Irrespective of what you wanted to see on the net, you had a right to do that - and if that bordered on the illegal, then the police had a right to track you down, arrest and charge you.
Graffiti is the same. You have the right to write what you like, when you like and where you like in the name of free expression. If what you do is illegal, then society has the right to lock you up for it.
But the real question here, is 'is it art?'
Back to Mr. Sweetman's problem with being visually confronted with something he doesn't consider art. Lets look at this example:
I live in a house with a view of the mountain. One day my neighbours on the other side of the road, choose to build a new house - one designed and conceived by a modern architect. The house is usual and in my opinion, non-traditional and not in keeping with the rest of the houses in the neighbourhood. But the architect is world famous and with this house, wins lots of awards. I now have to look at my view of the mountain every morning with this ghastly new house in the middle of the scenic panorama.
One morning, four weeks after the house was completed, a graffiti artist comes along and writes his tag on the white wall out the front of the house. The owners are incensed.
Does anyone else see the irony here? One man's art is another man's vandalism. Not all architecture is good. Not all graffiti is good. Mr. Sweetman has managed to defeat his own argument. He may not want to be visually confronted by graffiti on the wall of a building. But many people might not want to be visually confronted by the building itself.
Clearly, Mr.Sweetman only wants to be visually confronted by things he likes, or with his comment about Banksy's work where he states 'their social and political significance sometimes eludes me', he only wants to see things he understands. I'm sure we'd all like that, but unfortunately that's not how the world works. We have to watch the bad news on TV to appreciate the good news. We witness dear family members die, whilst celebrating the birth of new relations. To really appreciate good art, we have to witness the bad.
And Mr. Sweetman finally poses this question for us:
How can anyone presume the right to alter...somebody else's creation in the name of art?
Given Mr. Sweetman's age, I would imagine he grew up as a fan of a band like the Rolling Stones, whose first five singles in the UK charts, were actually cover versions of other people's songs. They'd altered someone else's creation in the name of art. And how about Andy Warhol? We're witnessing his work right now - his very being is based on altering someone's creation in the name of art.
Salvador Dali once wrote: "Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad."
Graffiti is art. You might not like it. It might be good or bad. It might be on a canvas in a gallery, or on the wall of the local street. But it is still art.
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