La Jornada – Graffiti is booming in New York during a pandemic

New York. Graffiti, which has been a part of New York history for more than 50 years, is booming during the coronavirus pandemic – a sign of decline for some, and of vitality for others.

As night falls, graffiti artist Saynosleep takes a look around, then goes to work on the facade of a luxury store, which has been closed since it was looted in June during protests over George Floyd’s death.

“If you’re not painting right now, I don’t know what you’re doing,” says the 40-year-old. “There has never been a time like this.”

The facades of the hundreds of stores that have closed due to the pandemic are “an invitation” to artists, says Marie Flageul, curator of the Museum of Urban Art in New York, MoSA.

The walls, bridges, sidewalks and subway cars – 34 have been painted since the beginning of the month – become canvases.

“It’s a big boom, a graffiti revival,” says Saynosleep enthusiastically, using a different pseudonym for his legal artwork.

Graffiti was first accepted into the art world in the 1980s, when it moved into galleries.

Street art then captured the imagination of the general public in the 2000s, when it went from being in illegal to legal spaces.

But since March, it’s the kind of crude and forbidden graffiti that has spread across the streets.

“Everyone wants to express themselves,” says Saynosleep, who claims to have seen a 60-year-old woman drawing graffiti. “People are bored. They need something to do.”

The growth of the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter following Floyd’s murder by a Minnesota police officer in May has accelerated the trend, with protesters scrawling slogans and demands for racial justice in buildings.

“Vandalism”

In a year where socializing has practically frozen and the streets are no longer busy, graffiti is the way artists say “it seems like New York is dead and you don’t see us, but we’re still here,” he says. Flageul.

However, creative impulses are not to everyone’s taste. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said the graffiti was “another sign of deterioration,” along with the increase in murders and shootings in New York City.

He indirectly blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for allegedly having a lax attitude on the issue.

Those who question these illustrations have also been upset after the city government, due to budget restrictions, suspended its graffiti removal program, which had cleaned up almost 15,000 spots in 2019.

“I think it’s horrible,” said Darcy Weber, who recently settled in New York. “Some say it’s art, but did they get permission to do it? No, so it’s vandalism.”

For some, the graffiti brings back memories of the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s, when New York was bankrupt and ravaged by crime.

“Since the beginning of the confinement, the police have seen me several times and I continued painting” without being arrested, Saynosleep says.

A spokesman for the New York Police Department told AFP that the force is “fully aware of the importance of tackling crimes related to graffiti”, noting that incidents decreased 17% from last year.

Flageul, who is also a spokesman for the 5Pointz graffiti collective, says it’s “a bit cliché” to say that more graffiti means New York is backing down.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who wants to become mayor of New York next year, says graffiti on public and private property “is rapidly destroying the landscape of our borough.”

“It costs home and business owners hundreds of thousands of dollars and enormous efforts to erase it,” he added, making a distinction between “vandalism” and “incredible street murals.”

Ken Lovett, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), said cleaning graffiti on trains is depleting resources as the MTA faces “the worst financial crisis” in its history.

New Jersey resident Emile Fu says it doesn’t bother him too much. “There are other things to worry about,” he told AFP.

Bryce Graham, who lives in the Chelsea neighborhood, said he would be shocked to see graffiti somewhere like Ottawa, “where everything is super clean.”

“But here in New York, it’s a great mix of what is clean and what is dirty,” he said.

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