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uring the late 1990s, several graffiti artists were fatally shot by police and black and Latino graffiti artists were constantly harassed and physically attacked by police. But none of these incidents drew a response like the murder of Stewart did.
Big Juss, a New York graffiti and hip-hop artist, used to throw his name up all over Manhattan and spend all night riding and tagging the trains. Today, he sticks to New Jersey suburbs because of the draconian laws that slap illegal graffiti and political artists in New York with thousands of dollars in fines and jail time. The only "graffiti" in Manhattan which bears his name—actually that of his hip hop group, Company Flow, is a graffiti-style ad done by his former record label without his knowledge. "I’m not sure how I feel about that," he said, wincing slightly. Much of Manhattan’s public art of the old grassroots political forms—murals, posters, graffiti—is in fact advertising for fashion, music, alcohol, software, food. The murals and stencils of political figures and issues done in the 80’s are largely absent.
While protest art remains, the current political art scenes in the major US cities revolve largely around small, close-knit, often male-dominated networks and a limited number of high-profile individual causes, with Mumia Abu-Jamal’s being the trendiest. In New York, the once-raging Tompkins Square Park scene and various other political collectives have largely dropped out of sight, due mostly to quickening gentrification and a spate of stifling "quality of life" laws.
Robert Lederman is one of the city’s most visible political public artists. Lederman is a career artist who was politicized by former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s attacks on street artists and who quickly became one of the mayor’s harshest and untiring critics. The unflattering cardboard caricatures of "Ghouliani" 
, which he carries and passes out at demos have riled Rudy so much that he had Lederman arrested on disorderly conduct charges more than 40 times and even tried to outlaw removing cardboard from dumpsters. Lederman laps up the Mayor’s hatred proudly and points to Giuliani’s persecution of him as a sign of the lack of other political public art going on.
Susan Green, a 20-year fixture in the San Francisco art scene, says she feels "pretty alienated" today in San Francisco because of the lack of a strong political art scene.
"The ripping down [of] posters and painting over things definitely has a dampening effect on people," she said. "There still is a lot of postering going on, but there was a point where it was a much more vibrant form of communication and people were putting up posters not only to advertise events but to express ideas. I haven’t really seen that happening in years, [not] since the neighborhoods started gentrifying."
"There are still quite a few walls being painted, but they’re not as political," added Miranda Richardson, another San Francisco artist who has been working in the Mission community for 25 years and who went to Nicaragua and the West Bank with Green. "Most of it is spray art, which isn’t as issue-based. I wish it was. Part of the reason is that there isn’t an overt movement. There has to be something for it to bounce off of."
Like Richardson and Green, many of the artists of the ‘80s continue doing politically-engaged public art. But a majority of the notable groups have folded, dwindled, lost their oppositional edge and/or become more concentrated in the gallery world than the public sphere. Participation in Guerrilla Girls events dropped drastically through the early ‘90s and became more and more insular. Gran Fury and ACT-UP drifted toward more introspective, less angry works as the nature of the AIDS crisis and public attitudes evolved. Group Material became more gallery-oriented, perhaps a victim of its own success, and most of its members drifted away. The Women’s Action Coalition dissolved from internal struggles and exhaustion. Many individual artists tended toward galleries or books as they grew tired and frustrated with the activist scene, looked for more stability, or started families. The bottom line, as Richardson said, is that the state of the political movement was no longer sustaining the art.
"It has to do with the demise of the left in America," said Greg Sholette, an art teacher and founder of Repo History, a radical New York public art group which continues to put out political public works. "Academia has taken over some of that—people who would have been political leaders have become professors. They’ve taken away the idea of using public space for oppositional messages."
Art Appropriation,
Graffiti & the Protection of Capital
ntil the activist resurgence of the past two years, and the obvious potential it has to seize the popular imagination, graffiti, with its greater threat to property values and its exaggerated ties to "gangs" and "crime" struck considerably more fear into the hearts of landlords and politicians.
In 1995, Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell announced that "One of the worst problems facing this city is graffiti," while unveiling a new zero-tolerance anti-graffiti campaign. "While it can’t kill or maim, graffiti is a more insidious problem. It can kill morale." An article by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union notes that Philly spends $3 million a year fighting graffiti and that graffiti artists can end up with $10,000 fines and up to five years in jail. The laws also hold parents responsible for their kids’ graffiti and fine property owners who don’t clean up graffiti on their property.
Bus stop bench advertisements in Oakland say "NO: Drugs, Driving Drunk, Graffiti," equating painting with potentially deadly drug use and drunk driving.
Costly anti-graffiti programs are ironic considering that at the same time cities are spending millions to fight graffiti, they’re pouring money into after-school art programs that serve essentially the same purpose as graffiti—giving "at risk" kids a wholesome creative outlet.
The Debatable Politics of Graffiti
ifteen or 20 years ago graffiti might have appeared to be the obvious inheritor of the political street art tradition, a new grassroots form produced by the most disenfranchised and oppressed of the country’s youth.
But Tobocman and many other political artists of his generation are skeptical about the artistic and political growth and potential of graffiti. Many say they respect it for what it is and see it as a potential springboard, but they label the current scene as more about ego and trendiness than power or politics.
"As an instructor and youth organizer I see it as something that can be very useful and lead to other things," said Chicago art teacher and political muralist Robert Valadez. "But 90% of it is very uninspired and derivative, mainly about competition and getting your tag up. Ideally, it’s the beginning of a belief system and a part of one phase of their lives that they’ll branch out from."
Casper, a long-time Chicago graffiti artist who, like the political artists has now gravitated to the gallery scene, doesn’t think graffiti artists make any claims to be political, and doesn’t think they should be expected to.
"It’s two completely different realms, it’s a non-issue," he said. "Some artists might be political but their graffiti isn’t about politics. It’s not about changing the world, it’s about being a superstar. This is their way to be a star. I think even for political art you would find that. Though the person might be political, their art is about being a star. Diego Rivera was obviously a political person, he was involved in assassination attempts, but I think his art was his show-off aspect."
Robert Muniz, a teen-age graffiti artist in San Antonio, agrees. He can make a good case for graffiti being political in that it takes back public space from the system, but he readily he admits he does graffiti mainly for the fun and glory. "I do it for myself. I just love it. Someone sees my name over and over, I’ll walk through the mall with my crew and everyone knows who we are."
A survey of the many glossy graffiti magazines shows scant mention of political issues or works among the tales of the street, disses of other artists and misogynistic attitudes.
But there are graffiti artists doing overtly political work, and some of the most visually striking and visible political art in the country, at that. "Eskae" and "Twist" are two Bay Area (California) artists who regularly attack capitalism, the military-industrial complex, corporate advertising and the US government. Twist, aka Barry McGee’s work commonly features bloated, evil-oozing capitalist pigs with dollar signs floating around. One of his pieces shows a flaccid, cowardly boss in a business suit forcing a blindfolded worker to carry him on his back.
"I create graffiti as a political act against the whole idea of property ownership," Eskae is quoted as saying in Michael Walsh’s book Graffito. "Graffiti is a kick in the face to the gallery/museum system, where the artist is pimped like a whore for the capitalist system, made into another commodity for people to buy."
Ephraim, a graffiti artist who painted in Santa Cruz under the name Ripe (as in "the time is ripe") argues that graffiti is intensely political regardless of the message.
"The very act of an individual projecting their identification into the public realm is very political," he said. "It’s about retaining individuality in a society that neither condones nor accepts it, that tries to replace it with a mass corporate identity."
