Tagging Sucks

The Tate Modern is currently hosting a street art exhibition, and whilst the Tate is often a ground for grumbling traditionalists to have a whinge – is a fluorescent tube light really art etc – I rather like graffiti – in fact, I like it A LOT. But I’m not a fan of ‘taggers’.

Of course, there’s always that age olde question of, is graffiti art? (and is ‘tagging’ art?). The olde ‘what is art’ question is not a simple one to answer, and whilst some traditionalists will forever wander round modern art galleries loudly lambasting pickled cows or messy beds, how often do they ask the simple questions?

1) WHAT IS THE NATURE OF AN ART OBJECT? What distinguishes art from non-art? What good is it? What is the function of the object? How can I tell a good one? A question of taste?
2) WHAT IS AN AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE? What goes on inside us when we encounter an art object (cognitive, sensory, emotional etc). What makes such encounters worth having or seeing? Does it cultivate something in us? Is it educational?
3) HOW DOES ART DEVELOP AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION? Are the things we value about art dependent on what someone decides is valuable? Whose art are we talking about? Is art a timeless concept, or one whose meaning changes over time? Can or should art be critical of society? Does it give us a vision of a romantic or better world?
4) WHAT DOES THE ARTIST DO THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT NON-ARTISTS DO? Art as a practice – what is an artistic creation? Is it purely a matter of technique, or does it involve genius and inspiration? What is the nature of the creative process? What role do intention and self expression play? For art to be art, is an audience necessary? What is communicated to the audience?

More questions than answers perhaps – but is that the very nature of what art is? Something that raises more questions than answers?

One of the questions that I would like answered – mainly for my own sanity – is the difference between graffiti and tagging. Whilst I think there is a big difference, I haven’t yet been able to rationalise this difference, and why I like one and not the other. Graffiti can be beautiful. It can raise important cultural, political and social questions. It can be ‘technically’ impressive. It can brighten up an area. It makes people think about issues they may not have thought of. Providing it’s not cleaned off walls by local councils, it can be timeless. It can give us a vision of a better world. It involves creativity and inspiration. And so on. What about tagging? Some tags – the more intricate ones – can be beautiful. Some can be ‘techically’ impressive. In fact, it ticks most, if not all, of the graffiti boxes, but it irritates me. You know the ones – like where kids scratch their tag onto a train window, or with one single can of paint, scrawl their tag on a garage door. It seems to me that little thought goes into this. Very few tags provide me with an aesthetically pleasing experience. I think one thing I don’t like about ‘tagging’ is its apparent lack of skill.

Whilst I don’t think these sorts of discussions need to necessarily be grounded in theory of any sort – thinking about theory can raise yet even more questions.

Plato and Aristotle (very difficult to distinguish between the two’s work) believed that the essence of art (assuming tagging is art) is mimesis – a sense of perceptual realism – something that mirrors reality. I rather like these thinkers’ ideas, but I don’t think that art necessarily always mirrors reality – in fact, far from it. Much of art – including graffiti, does and can mirror reality…but tagging doesn’t – what’s in a name?

Later in history, Renaissance writers argued that art is not just a technical skill, and later thinkers’ attention focused on the nature of the aesthetic experience, for example, Abbe Batteux (1746) who believed that fine art should be defined as something which brings pleasure for its own sake (connected to what Aristotle thought about art and beauty). Graffiti brings me an enormous aesthetic pleasure. Tagging doesn’t. Not only does tagging involve next to no skill, it brings no pleasure. None.

Romanticists believed that creating art is far more than just a reliance on rules, and that social inspiration is required to create an artwork – a special power of imagination. In this context, the possession of inspiration is what is meant by genius. Kant’s successor Hegel agreed with this, and took the stance that art embodies freedom (and a sense that people who can produce art are of a higher social status). If this is so, what imagination or inspiration do taggers have? It is quite clear that plenty of graffiti artists create inspired pieces – presumably aroused by their individual imagination and thoughts. But again, I’m not sure that taggers possess this inspiration or imagination.

Psychoanalysis and social theory (Freud, Marx, feminism etc) had a significant impact on those thinking about art and aesthetics, and thought shifted to the idea that artists were attached to a certain culture and therefore expressing deep psychological structures and the values of a particular class. If this is so, what does this say about taggers?...

Let’s forget theory for a second…Britain’s most prominent graffiti artists – by the name of Banksy – is probably the best known artist in his field. Best known by his work of course. Despite trying to keep his identity a secret, the Evening Standard printed pictures of him a few years ago. Banksy’s portolio is impressive. Not only are his stencil’s impressive – they raise important questions and issues, they’re aesthetically pleasing, they provide often utopian imagery, and challenge existing social norms. Examples include the kissing policemen, the ‘by order of the national highways agency this wall is a designated graffiti area’, ‘what are you looking at’ (aimed at a CCTV camera), ‘this is not a photo opportunity’, stencils on the segregation wall in Palestine, Queen Victoria sitting on a hooker’s face, ‘Boring’ on the South Bank, and many, many more. Near most of Banksy’s pieces is his familiar tag. Not exciting. Not skilled. But merely denotes that it’s his work. Those tags I don’t mind. Not because they’re Banksy’s, but because they’re merely a signatory to his work.

Tagging sucks. Anyone disagree?

Here’s what Banksy has to say about it all…

Graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Despite having to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually the most honest artform available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on some of the best walls a town has to offer, and nobody is put off by the price of admission. A wall has always been the best place to publish your work. The people who run our cities don’t understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit. But if you just value money then your opinion is worthless. They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society, but graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers. The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you’re never allowed to answer back. Well, they started this fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back. Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.