I was looking through old pictures today and found this photo from a trip to Iceland a couple of years ago. It's better than some shit graffiti any day. That's one thing that really struck me as I travelled round Europe by train, just how fucking moribund graffiti is as an "artform". It hasn't moved on one iota since Henry Chalfant's
Subway Art was published 25 years ago, and people are still treating that as some sort of untouchable rulebook. It's like the visual equivalent of Oasis — be inspired by something that was revolutionary and experimental in its very essence (late period Beatles), then ape it ad nauseum, pursuing a warped idea of "authenticity" until it's stripped of everything that made it exciting in the first place.
Read more...