Chronopoulos Graffiti Essay

I argue the main theme present in Chronopoulos’ Graffiti as a Manifestation of Social Disorder, is how hip hop culture in New York; more specifically the use of graffiti, challenged social order by taking over public space and the governments disapproval through their attempt to regulate the manifestations of the hip hop culture (p.91-93). Chronopoulos goes on to explain how the hip hop culture is seen as threat by the government in the 1970’s, and narrows in on graffiti in particular, due to “it’s disorderly appearance in space” (p.91). What he means by this is that graffiti was a visual representation of the urban youth challenging social order. It was a clear representation of the cities loss of public authority, instead of focusing on the overlapping issues within the city; these artists “functioned as scapegoats for many of the problems the city experienced during the postwar period” (p.92). Government officials took these freedoms of expressions that had symbolic meanings and change their perspective into tricking higher classes …show more content…
Lindsay declared war on graffiti by refusing to accept this as public expression, but instead plaguing it as vandalism and defacement; while linking the artists as unsafe criminals who are defacing the city and what it stands for (p.101,106). Laws were set in place to try and take back the public space so it is more attractive to tourists (p.111). Neoconservative and Neoliberal responses were: influencing public opinion on the safety issue with graffiti, setting up razor edged fences to keep artists out of subways, setting an age restriction of 18 for buying spray paint, arrests, etc (p.112). This leads to graffiti being associated with the fiscal urban crisis and ultimately the decline of graffiti work, until the boom of the 1990’s