Smooth Criminals

I will probably write something more extensive on graffiti and street art at a later date, but I thought it would be nice to offer some nice links right now. Some of the best graffiti in the world is collected at Art Crimes. If you browse the site more thoroughly you will probably notice the main artistic difficulty with this art form: that 90 % of all graffiti suck! The good stuff – like the featured piece by Graphis from São Paulo – or this painting from the early 1990s by Swedish painter Dwane (who later moved away from the streets into the warmth of the art galleries) – is really good, but most of what you can see on the city walls is pure crap.

It’s not hard to understand why the situation looks like this. Most graffiti artists start to paint in their early teens, and quit in their early twenties, just when they’re starting to get good at it. A lot of paintings are produced under pressure, having to watch for police and guards, or in bad weather conditions. Never the less, you have to look hard for the good stuff, and I do think that graffiti would probably have a better name if the public got to know the really good paintings too.

Another problem with graffiti is that the very strict rules that apply to the different styles sometimes make it pretty boring. That is probably the reason for the development of so called “street art” which is a broader concept. In street art, design is no longer everything. The subject behind the surface is just as important as the execution of the painting.

Some of the best Swedish street art can be found here. The most famous street artist coming out of Stockholm is probably Akay, who is a little to anarchist for my taste, but still produces some of the most theoretically challenging street art.