It’s Vandalism, Not Art

In a scene that could have come straight out of an old Woody Allen movie, chardonnay-sipping, brie-nibbling sophisticates gathered at a Westside architecture office recently to ooh and aah over graffiti. Some of them paid up to $500 a pop for a spray painting they could have gotten free -- if they didn’t mind having their garage door used as the canvas.

Graffiti, a program director for Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Department told The Times, is “misunderstood,” the word itself “stigmatized.” ArtStorm, the group that organized the show and auction, dreams of an “aerosol art park” with an art supply store and big canvas panels. Once embraced by the mainstream and given a legal place to work, poor graffiti artists could stop risking their lives tagging freeway signs and start holding museum openings.

Right. And, as the character played by Allen tells his amateur-sleuth wife in “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” a mass murderer merely has an “alternative lifestyle.”

No, most taggers aren’t mass murderers, although it can seem that way in neighborhoods where kids kill each other over crossed-out gang tags. And yes, a city that spends more than $8 million a year to paint out graffiti could use some fresh ideas on how to keep overpasses, storefronts and even Los Angeles’ celebrated murals free of spray paint and etching acid. After-school art lessons -- after-school programs of any kind -- are great ways to channel energy and provide adult role models. Courses such as the sign-painting class at Los Angeles Trade Tech College teach a useful skill that translates to jobs in neighborhoods where there aren’t many.

But please, hold the breathless praise for graffiti “artists.” They have defaced the sides of too many elementary schools, scarred the trunks of beautiful old sycamores, destroyed sorely needed benches in already scarce parks. In neighborhoods used as canvases for graffiti, people tend to call it vandalism, not art. They don’t throw a party; they call the police.

The dictionary defines graffiti as “an inscription, slogan, drawing scratched, scribbled or drawn, often crudely, on a wall or other public surface.” The taggers at the art show seemed to understand this definition, even if their patrons didn’t. Getting paid for painting on canvas was nice, they told a Times reporter, but the real kick comes from painting at night on walls that don’t belong to them. In this comedy, they’re the ones laughing.