Tagging Party in Wynwood

Following up my previous post on Graffiti Art in Wynwood,  during our stop in Wynwood Jackie and stumbled across a tagging party.   Two guys were doing the tagging, with some others hanging out by the cars, in the rear with the bear.  The kids were very cool and let themselves be photographed.

I don't know if they had the owner's permission.  Graffiti abounds in Wynwood.  Not all of it can be "illegal".  The work is beautiful. Surely some of it, maybe most of it, is done under commission by the building owners.  Still, I didn't photograph their faces, just to be careful.

Graffiti is fraught with such controversy given its origins in the streets, its association with African American and Hispanic culture and wholly unfair association with gang life. Many people don't consider it an art at all but merely a form of vandalism.   The vandalism aspect of this is almost beside the point, actually.  It confuses the act of graffiti with permission to create the art in the first place.  I suppose if Micheal Angelo had painted the Sistine Chapel without the Pope's permission it would technically be considered graffiti vandalism, but it would still be his masterpiece on the Sistine Chapel.  The art deserves to be measured on its own value regardless of whether the artist had permission in the first place.  As art, much of it is beautiful.  This beauty abounds in Wynwood.
 
Click here to read a great article on Graffiti.

Click here to view the rest of the gallery in my Flickr feed.