A sign of decadence for some, of artistic vitality for others, graffiti drawn illegally flourishes like never before on the walls of the megalopolis.
The birthplace of graffiti art, New York gave birth to the greatest artists of the genre. Over 50 years ago, Jean-Michel Basquiat, aka the Jimi Hendrix of contemporary art, was already scribbling on the walls of the Brooklyn neighborhood. But since the start of the crisis, tags have flourished like never before in the four corners of the city. “If you ain’t painting right now I dunno what the fuck you are doing», Says the graffiti artist Saynosleep while attacking the frontage of a luxury store in the trendy district of Soho, in the heart of Manhattan. Looted during the demonstrations linked to the death of Georges Floyd, the brand had closed its doors in early June. Like her, hundreds of shop windows have had to go out of business, hit by the economic consequences of the coronavirus crisis.
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For Marie Flageul, curator of the Museum of Street Art in New York (MoSA), it sounds like “an invitation“. Indeed, walls, bridges or sidewalks are as many supports for artists, up to the emblematic metro cars, 34 of which have recently been painted twice since the beginning of December. “It’s a resurgence, a renaissance of graffitiSaynosleep enthuses. Passed from the street to the galleries in 1980, the tag conquered the general public at the turn of the 2000s by moving into authorized spaces. If he has always tried to preserve his street art DNA, with artists like the anonymous Banksy, he has exploded since the start of confinement in a disorderly fashion, and this, completely illegally.
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For graffiti artist Saynosleep, the reason is obvious: “People want to express themselves“. He even explains having seen sixty-year-olds at work. “They are bored. They need to have something to do.And they have things to say. The Black Lives Matter movement, for example, displays its share of slogans and demands on the walls and monuments of the city. If the health crisis paralyzes social interactions, it is a way of saying despite everything “you don’t see us, it looks like New York is dead, but here we are», Explains Marie Flageul.
But not everyone hears it with the same ear. In a video posted in early November, Brooklyn President Eric Adams protested against this act of vandalism. “It’s something that destroys the landscape of our neighborhoodHe exclaimed. “And cit costs homeowners hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean them.“A criticism all the more reinforced by the suspension last March, for budgetary reasons, of the Graffiti-Free NYC program which had made it possible to clean up nearly 15,000 sites in 2019.”I find it really ugly“, Growls Darcy Weber, recently installed in”the city that never sleeps». «There are people who say it’s art, but is it allowed? No, she repents. So it’s vandalism.»
A drop of 35%
For New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, this graffiti is a “another sign of degradation”, Like the many shootings that resound in the city and the increase in crime. The latter notably criticized last July the mismanagement of the Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio, whom he accused of laxity. However, the figures point in the opposite direction. Asked by AFP, the New York police ensure that the number of incidents related to tags has fallen by 17% compared to last year. And this decrease is also observed on the side of public transport, the curve of which shows a decrease of 35%.
“Here in New York, it’s a hell of a mix between what’s clean and what’s dirty”
Bryce Graham, Chelsea resident
Anyway, “To say that because there are tags everywhere, we are falling back into the ghetto years, it’s a bit of a cliché», Retorts Marie Flageul, also spokesperson for the 5Pointz graffiti collective. Because, it seems, onlookers are not as shocked as the authorities claim. “I don’t care much», Relativizes a passer-by looking at a storefront covered in graffiti. “It would have shocked me in another city, like Ottawa in Canada where everything is very cleanSays Bryce Graham, who lives in the Chelsea neighborhood. “But here in New York, it’s a hell of a mix of clean and dirty.», He slices. Which also seems to be part of the soul of the city.
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