"..he'd like to see some early profits send a graffiti "tagger" to art school."
I'm into photographing abandoned buildings, and the graffiti inside them is often incredibly artistic. Too bad that there's no publicly-sanctioned space for these artists to show off their work. Perhaps the illicitness of the process is part of the allure, but I can't imagine working that hard on something that would be seen by few. What's also notable is that, at least to my as a middle-class white guy, most graffiti doesn't seem gang-related. Most of the low-quality stuff probably is, but the good stuff is often something incredible like an abstract city skyline.
It's odd, but as I've gotten older I've _really_ started to hate graffiti...for every undiscovered artistic genius practicing art 'outside the mainstream', there are 5000 ignorant 'X was here' messages uglify-ing the landscape.
Paper is cheap enough that there isn't a need to vandalize your surroundings in order to express yourself. If you absolutely _must_ paint mural size graphics, do it on the walls inside your house.
I'm into photographing abandoned buildings, and the graffiti inside them is often incredibly artistic. Too bad that there's no publicly-sanctioned space for these artists to show off their work. Perhaps the illicitness of the process is part of the allure, but I can't imagine working that hard on something that would be seen by few. What's also notable is that, at least to my as a middle-class white guy, most graffiti doesn't seem gang-related. Most of the low-quality stuff probably is, but the good stuff is often something incredible like an abstract city skyline.