ART VERSUS THE LAW
Street Art and Graffiti are NOT the same thing, and other things we learned today at Aarhus Street Art Festival (EN)
Arhus Festival has turned Rådhusparken into an art city this week with local and international artists developing murals on giant Graffiti wall installations. Elderly visitors and school students alike fill the scene that hosts live conceptualisation and execution of Street Art and Graffiti that would ordinarily be illegal, earning artists heavy fines or even a night in jail, one artist William, or Swet tells us. “They treat us worse than drug dealers” he explains, “as a Graffiti artist you have to work in the grey zones of a city”.
William from Denmark, who has spent his whole life as a Graffiti artist works professionally on public houses, walls and areas that he gains permission to work on by the owners of each space. William also builds walls in Denmark, Sweden and Norway for young artists to express their creativity in public spaces. “Young people need a place to go, they won’t ask for permission, they’ll just go next to a train and the police will catch them”.
But he is quick to explain to us the difference between Street Art and Graffiti, as well as Urban Art which is what the festival primarily represents. “Street Art is something that relates to the space where it’s done. You react to something in the street. Then there is Urban Art which is mostly what’s being done here”. William, who is one of the only Graffiti artist at the festival clearly has a different style going on. “I try to make my Graffiti more simple so it’s more the foundation of Graffiti, which is letters”.
Founded in New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s and early 1970’s, graffiti is the movement of ‘tagging’ or making yourself present in a public space with your individual signature. “As a kid it was fun to put my name there, to put a mark on the city so I was part of it, not just standing by”.
Like most creative movements that gain momentum through expression-seeking youth, Street Art and Graffiti attract a lot of negative attention. We learned however that it doesn’t take long to change people’s opinions when they see artists like William behind a mural. “We don’t have this ‘we have to destroy the system’ ideology, we just want to paint something nice. People have this negativity toward graffiti and suddenly they see an older dude with the fire in his eyes who’s caught up with it, and loves it, and they think ‘oh shit man, graffiti is more than what we thought it was!’”
You can visit all artists working away at their murals until midnight each day at Rådhusparken. Guided tours begin at kl. 14, 17 and 19.
Photography and words by Elke Numeyer-Windshuttle
