The 416 Graffiti Expo resurfaced here in Toronto for the seventh time this year, occupying the parking lots and alleyways of Queen Street West and Portland street this past weekend.
With graffiti being a major component of the hip-hop movement, the usual social suspects were there: DJs, breakdancers and hundreds of curious passersbys. Graf writers present included 45 Lies, Skam and Ren, representing the crews KOP5, UNC, DOH and SYNDICATE (to name but a few).
With a long and illustrious career of making faceless kids famous through their “tags,” scrawls or murals, graffiti has become a commodity among scholars, pop culture aficionados and politicians.
One advantage of graffiti is its unique ability to neutralize racial/gender stereotypes, since achieving notoriety is based purely on the style/design of the piece and on its location. A graffiti writer’s work only exists for a short period of time. The writer is known only by his name or his tag, and no other details of his background are available to the audience.
Current Toronto legislation has put a ban on graffiti, claiming that it’s an eyesore, tought to clean up and is costly to the taxpayer. But how effective will this legislation be and how will it be enforced? Graffiti has thrived since the late sixties, when it served as an outlet for restless voices in politically volatile situations.
Perhaps Toronto can look to Montreal for inspiration. The municipal government of Montreal has acknowledged the popularity of graffiti and has now commissioned walls for graf art. The city now gains a profit, instead of a taxpayer loss, by providing a legal space for what is often conceived as vandalism.
Does this rob graffiti of its rebel cachet? Maybe. But if hundreds of Torontonians of all different ages, races and cultural backgrounds can be rounded up for this event, then perhaps the “problem” of graffiti is not as disastrous as Mr. Lastman thinks.
Photograph by Rhonda Chung
