Graffiti and Commodification Culture: an Analysis From eye-catchingly vivid, rainbow hued designs spread across facades of brick and stone, to illegible names and phrases haphazardly scrawled in subway cars and on stop signs, graffiti is meant to be seen. In a world where even art is commodified -- fine art pieces can fetch up to 300 million dollars in auctions – graffiti symbolizes to many a tactical form of resistance against consumerism in art and society. Although graffiti artists who do legal work for pay illustrates even graffiti’s vulnerability to the influence of commodification and consumer culture, the art form still manages to remain mostly in the realm of non-commodification and anti-hegemonic ideals through its illegal nature
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Examples of crude scratchings or elaborate paintings on public walls have been found that date back to ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire. In modern times, graffiti can range from a young couple memorializing their love by writing their names in wet cement to giant murals created on the side of buildings using aerosol spray paint; this analysis focuses on the later form, which originated from urban hip hop culture and has since branched out to many areas of American culture. Graffiti’s ubiquity and its presence in many people’s everyday lives make it an object of pop culture and worthy of study. (This site contains multiple examples of graffiti: …show more content…
For instance, illegal graffiti escapes the dangerous ideals of oppressive neoliberalism. Under the extreme free-market capitalism-supporting model of neoliberalism, Henry Giroux argues, “everything either is for sale or is plundered for profit” (Giroux 1). Barring some rare exceptions, graffiti artists have mostly shunned opportunities to have their work exploited for profit by large corporations. It also helps that graffiti itself is intrinsically resistant to exploitation for profit, since it is usually placed on public spaces where people do not have to pay to view it, and the wall it exists on cannot be purchased. Additionally, Giroux argues that under neoliberalism, “narcissism is replaced by unadulterated materialism, public concerns collapse into utterly private considerations and where public space does exist it is mainly used as a confessional for private woes, a cut throat game of winner take all, or a advertisement for consumerism” (Giroux 1). Because graffiti artists cover public spaces with colorful unpaid art through their own autonomy and often graffiti over advertisements, they escape the damaging effects of neoliberalism, which values the private sector over the general population’s needs. Additionally, graffiti escapes the phenomenon that Joseph
Examples of crude scratchings or elaborate paintings on public walls have been found that date back to ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire. In modern times, graffiti can range from a young couple memorializing their love by writing their names in wet cement to giant murals created on the side of buildings using aerosol spray paint; this analysis focuses on the later form, which originated from urban hip hop culture and has since branched out to many areas of American culture. Graffiti’s ubiquity and its presence in many people’s everyday lives make it an object of pop culture and worthy of study. (This site contains multiple examples of graffiti: …show more content…
For instance, illegal graffiti escapes the dangerous ideals of oppressive neoliberalism. Under the extreme free-market capitalism-supporting model of neoliberalism, Henry Giroux argues, “everything either is for sale or is plundered for profit” (Giroux 1). Barring some rare exceptions, graffiti artists have mostly shunned opportunities to have their work exploited for profit by large corporations. It also helps that graffiti itself is intrinsically resistant to exploitation for profit, since it is usually placed on public spaces where people do not have to pay to view it, and the wall it exists on cannot be purchased. Additionally, Giroux argues that under neoliberalism, “narcissism is replaced by unadulterated materialism, public concerns collapse into utterly private considerations and where public space does exist it is mainly used as a confessional for private woes, a cut throat game of winner take all, or a advertisement for consumerism” (Giroux 1). Because graffiti artists cover public spaces with colorful unpaid art through their own autonomy and often graffiti over advertisements, they escape the damaging effects of neoliberalism, which values the private sector over the general population’s needs. Additionally, graffiti escapes the phenomenon that Joseph