My first impression of Paris, as I headed from the airport to the cité universitaire, was neither of crêperies on every street corner nor of majestic neoclassical architecture. Instead of taking a shuttle into the city or using mass transit, I had gotten a ride with my cousin, so I had a front seat view of the highway—and more importantly, the graffiti alongside the highway.
Parisian graffiti art can be found in the most picturesque and idyllic corners of the city. I found colorful sketches and spray painted tags on old buildings in Montmartre. I ogled art deco-inspired cartoons in alleyways. I found colossal slogans alongside popular roads, and black and white sketches on the metro.
Graffiti, whether in New York or in Paris, could easily be viewed as defamation of public property, but as I discovered at Columbia, graffiti art represents an alternative space for discussion in an increasingly divided and marginalized society. Yes, graffiti art is defiant. Yes, graffiti art is illegal. Yes, graffiti art takes a lot of skill and practice. As noted by pop culture professor Joe Austin in “More to See Than a Canvas in a White Cube: For an Art in the Streets:”
“Graffiti art performs the theatrical right to the city, to the streets, to the shared public
spaces of urban modernity. It enhances city life. A revolution that does not allow the citizens
to write on the city walls can be no revolution at all.”
He also argues that “[s]pontaneous and unauthorized public art has value in its potential to reflect the ignored or yet unarticulated public sentiments, offering an alternative public venue for public discussion, information sharing and creation.”
My sophomore year, I took a sociology class with Dr. Victor P. Corona called The Culture Industry, in which we spent a few classes studying graffiti art. Vic, called him, even brought in a graffiti tagger to come speak to us about his work. I was so fascinated by graffiti work that I half-jokingly asked our guest speaker, Anger (yes, that was his artist name), if he had any tips for aspiring graffiti artists.
I’ve been traveling around Paris on foot for about three weeks now, and I’ve noticed this: Paris is not a quiet city. And graffiti art, more than anything else, speaks as a visual marker of this unrest. I love the Louvre and the Pompidou, but I’m also making sure that I don’t overlook he art right outside my door.
