Cleaning up graffiti’s act

When the Aaron Brothers chain of art supply stores created an “Artrageous” promotion for retail locations in Los Angeles and elsewhere, it planned to offer demonstrations by well-known graffiti artists and to hand out free “Graffiti Starter Kits.” That prompted Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine to fire off a letter denouncing the company’s celebration of graffiti as an encouragement of vandalism.

Company officials responded swiftly, canceling the artist appearances in the Los Angeles area, scotching the art kits — which only contained markers and paper — and assuring Zine in a letter that “Aaron Brothers does not support illegal artwork on any public or private property.”

It’s unlikely that the company intended to do anything more than attract new customers by tapping into the edgy appeal of street art. But the brouhaha illustrates how graffiti straddles the line between vandalism and art, and raises the question of whether it is possible to celebrate the art form without condoning the illegal adornment of, say, a freeway retaining wall.

Los Angeles spent $7.1 million last year cleaning graffiti. Trees, walls, trucks, even the occasional stray cat all get marked, according to Paul Racs, director of the city’s Office of Community Beautification.

Meanwhile, this summer’s controversial “Art in the Streets” graffiti exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art had the highest attendance of any show in the museum’s history, glorifying the art form far beyond any Aaron Brothers promotion.

Steve Grody, a curator of “Street Cred: Graffiti Art from Concrete to Canvas,” which closes Sunday at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, distinguishes between gang members marking territory and graffiti writers artistically expressing themselves in public places (although it’s all illegal). He also says there is an unwritten code of ethics among many graffiti writers, who believe it’s wrong to paint on houses or cars, or over a public mural, but acceptable to use an abandoned building that seems to belong to no one — or everyone.

Still, in the world of graffiti artists, Grody says, there’s a sense that you’re not one of them if you’ve never taken any legal or physical risks. That outlaw culture needs to change, and graffiti artists should be held accountable if they break the law — by having to clean up the surfaces they’ve marked or pay restitution. It may be the older artists, now working legally and being exhibited, who stand the best shot at convincing the midnight wall writers that the true artistic challenge is not scaling a freeway overpass but successfully facing a blank canvas.