Four stories below Williamsburg at South Fourth Street in Brooklyn, New York, lies what would have been a train station, had it not been abandoned years ago. At first glance, it appears to be nothing but a musty cavern riddled with rats and trash. But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that it holds far more than first meets the eye. Colors pervade the walls – illustrations, murals, and messages left by passionate artists who want to leave a mark on the world, artists who found a way to do that through graffiti.
This is the Underbelly Project, an exhibit that two passionate artists founded in 2008 that, in the next two years, was expanded to include art by over one hundred street artists. Due to the site’s location so far underground, it has become almost impossible to reach by any realistic means, but it remains an example of the masterpieces that can be created with passion and talent. I would consider graffiti to be art, but in today’s culture, it’s still considered a crime by many people.
Graffiti is not a new phenomenon. The earliest examples of the art form can be found in cave paintings tens of thousands of years old in Australia, made with stencils. Despite our limited knowledge about these paintings, their style has influenced many artists across millennia. Its influence gradually expanded, with examples emerging in Ancient Rome, France, Turkey, and Sri Lanka.
Decorating the streets with illustrations, whether legal or not, is a pattern that nearly every society seems to have arrived at after reaching a degree of artistic freedom. Modern graffiti primarily grew with hip-hop culture in New York, with tags – names, logos, and initials written in handstyle, the unique font of graffiti artists – covering trains and brick walls, quickly evolving into eye-catching pieces with thick letters outlined and decorated with color. What used to be a way to spread one’s name quickly has evolved into a way to spread one’s art and ideas across the city.
Pop culture picked graffiti up and ran with it, with the art being spread across the early internet as well as having movies such as Stations of the Elevated, Style Wars, Wild Style, and Colors made about it, more recently it has played a large part in the Spider-Verse films. Graffiti had quickly become an asset to both independent filmmakers and Hollywood. During this first wave, graffiti started popping up in Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and even across the world in London, Paris, and San Paulo. People flocked to the idea of expression through art in a way that could not be ignored.
The American government has been opposed to graffiti since 1972, when New York Mayor John Lindsay declared a “war on graffiti.” In his effort to rid the city of the growing artform, millions of dollars were spent buying new trains and cleaning them over and over again, costing more and more as the years went on. Since that first action against graffiti, “The war” has become a prominent topic in almost every New York City mayor’s campaign since then. Despite this trend, the people of New York have conveyed more positive attitudes toward graffiti in recent years, with the art becoming so widespread that tourists travel across the world to view prominent graffiti. It has come to the point where the general public may now consider it wrong, but many still believe it’s worth their time.
When I interviewed Bronx Science students, something that immediately stood out to me was how even those who thought graffiti should continue to be illegal didn’t take away from its validity as art. “Graffiti is art because it’s a creative human expression, and that’s what art is,” said Ming Xin Qui ’27 when asked if she considered graffiti art. “Whether it’s tagging or murals, they’re both art, because they’re both expressions.” Even as Ming went on to say that she doesn’t agree with the way it often defaces private property, her belief that it was art never swayed. Her views on graffiti represent an idea that is still relatively new in the public’s outlook on graffiti, a separation of the art from politics.
Graffiti started as a form of rebellion, with its illegality being a large reason for why it was done in the first place. This caused it to be continuously defamed by many media outlets – it wasn’t art, it was somehow an attack on the people’s personal well being, an idea pushed by most of the politically funded channels of the time. However, as graffiti has evolved, so have people’s perceptions of it. The social issues it stood and still stands for became less villainized, leaving graffiti no longer worthy of the amount of negative attention that it garnered when it was first picking up steam.
Another commonly held perspective that I encountered during my interviews was that graffiti should continue to be illegal, but only to preserve its role in society as a rebellious act with the potential to inspire change. “It’s also an act of rebellion, and if you get rid of the illegality part of it, then you’re also taking that away in a sense, even though I [still] would like it if it was legal,” said Leena Paul ’27 when asked if she believed graffiti should be illegal. This insight highlighted an issue in many conversations surrounding graffiti today. Too often, the roots and meaning of the art are forgotten or ignored in this argument that seems to remain stuck in a time long past.
In 2014, The New York Times published an article with four different perspectives on graffiti; two people vouched for graffiti as a valid art form. One was a muralist whose artistic journey started in graffiti and the last opposed the very idea of graffiti as an art. When comparing this article’s outlooks to those of today, we see the same arguments repeated with a different coat of paint. No graffiti artist wants to eliminate their form of expression and the minority of people who don’t consider it an art seem to have their voices heard by those who hold the power in our country.
Legalizing graffiti is not the impossible task it is often presented as in political circles. In 2009, the Brazilian government passed law 706/07, one decriminalizing graffiti as long as it is done with the permission of the owner of the building. This allowed many people to openly share their art without fear of being arrested, and the new law was largely embraced by the Brazilian people. Meanwhile, in America, we argue in circles over minor differences in opinion, never changing our minds no matter what new point of view is directly shown to us.
We are at a point in history where the question, “Is graffiti art?” should be replaced by a new question, “How can this artform be shared in a way that makes its message heard and also lets it impact the world in the way it has always strived to?” Whether that is through designated spaces where anyone is allowed to contribute or a concentrated effort to allow voices and expressions to be heard remains to be seen. Graffiti might as well be a necessity in our society that must be upheld as an outlet for all views and ideas to be heard.
Decorating the streets with illustrations, whether legal or not, is a pattern that nearly every society seems to have arrived at after reaching a degree of artistic freedom.