Last month I questioned a graffiti exhibit now on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. It’s called “Recognize! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portaiture,” and you’ll find more information about it here. Well, it turns out I’m not the only person who thinks this exhibit glorifies vandalism. Here’s a letter to the editor of Smithsonian magazine, which featured the exhibit on its pages. From Elana Bodine of California:
Curator Frank Goodyear III, of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, says the exhibit featuring museum-commissioned graffiti is “not glorifying the illegal activity” (Around the Mall, “Aerosol Art”). So what is it doing? Graffiti—the defacement of property with spray-painted “signatures”—may be an art form, but part of its appeal to artists is its illicit nature. It’s an updated, more fanciful version of “Kilroy was here,” and it assumes that the artist has more rights than the property owner. If the curators of this exhibit found graffiti on their cars or on their homes, would they still feel it is worth featuring? Instead of replicating art that is a form of vandalism, why doesn’t the Smithsonian purchase canvases for budding graffiti artists? It’s interesting that the Smithsonian itself did not allow the graffiti artists to paint directly on museum walls.
