Art, like fashion, is cyclical. Hang onto those bell bottom trousers and wide-lapel jackets, and they’ll eventually be cool again. Dust off those graffiti paintings from the late 1970s, and they’ll align nicely with today’s cutting-edge creations – because the “movement” doesn’t seem to have moved at all for the past 50 years. That was the chief impression I took away from Searchers: Graffiti + Contemporary Art, at the National Art School Gallery.
There are 39 contributors to this show, put together by Fiona Lowry and Katrina Cashman, nine of them local graffiti artists commissioned to paint new pieces directly onto the walls of the gallery. These artists - BAGL, BREAK, LAZY, MACH, POWER, RUM, SNAIL, SPICE and TAVEN – may be Australia’s star performers, but their work looks exactly like all the other labels one sees scrawled and smeared on city walls – although I’m sure the connoisseurs view it differently.
For a large proportion of the public, graffiti art is simply vandalism and visual pollution. Few people getting on a bus or train covered in spray-painted squiggles will pause to admire the artists’ efforts. Few will look at a huge ‘tag’ plastered on the wall of a building and feel that urban space is improved by this egocentric decoration. Indeed, many would probably favour the Japanese approach to graffiti, whereby taggers are given hefty fines and prison sentences.