Before the mid-1990s, graffiti, as it is currently practised, was relatively uncommon in Perth, Western Australia. In recent years, however, graffiti art^[4] has become an increasingly popular activity, as it has in so many other places throughout the world. Along with the racist slogans and vernacular scribble that have always existed, the city now exhibits the sophisticated wild-style tags, elaborate wall pieces, paste-ups and stencils that characterise the creative diversity of twenty-first century graffiti as urban art. This increased diversity, coupled with the undeniable artistic ability, imagination and wit evident in much contemporary graffiti, has played a strong role in generating public interest and in urging many people to overlook the illegality of the action to ask ‘How can something so good be so wrong?’

Courtesy Cartography ANU.

While the public acceptance of graffiti art has grown with it, there remains strong opinion about who has the right to mark our streets. This question of authority lies at the heart of debates about the production, policing and removal of graffiti. There have been progressive attempts within some sectors of Australian government to commission murals, establish legal graffiti sites and even promote and protect street art as cultural heritage.^[5] Still, most local and state governments within Australia continue to define graffiti as antisocial behaviour and legislate against its practice. The WA Government and Perth city councils have developed a particularly tough stance by Australian standards and maintain strict anti-graffiti policies and penalties.^[6] Despite the implementation of police task forces, the threat of legal prosecution and even jail time, graffiti art continues to flourish in Western Australia.

Even as the artistic merit of graffiti receives renewed validation from art quarters around the globe, the legitimacy of graffiti as an art practice remains tightly bound to its standing as a criminal act. The challenge of what is right and what is wrong is a consistent theme in contemporary graffiti art practice. Some graffiti artists draw inspiration from this prohibitive status and the risks they take, often reiterating the roles of rebels, outlaws and revolutionaries in the work they produce. UK graffiti artist Banksy is renowned internationally for his play on the legal rights (or lack thereof) of graffiti producers. In Australia, such commentary is manifest in similar ways (Figure 10.3), but occasionally with the inclusion of local legends, such as the Victorian bushranger Ned Kelly. Perhaps in partial protest against their own lack of rights to public display, graffiti artists also have long been critical of other legal communication strategies such as corporate branding, mass media and advertising. Clearly, graffiti artists state their case in this debate through their continuing defiance of the law and in their choice of content and form.

What are missing in much of the public discussion and state-centred concerns about legal authority are vital issues of cultural legitimacy, ownership and property. As Rob Cover^[7] points out, the majority argument against graffiti really concerns a contest about ‘ownership’, which for Cover includes the fabric of the public sphere in which graffiti commonly operates, but it also incorporates the right to speak and the ownership of fixed signification.^[8] Indeed, much of the power within contemporary graffiti resides in the slippages in signification that occur through the remixing of popular or iconic imagery. Graffiti artists are well aware of this power and regularly utilise remixing as a form of play and as a tactic for voicing their opinions.

Often the graffiti that plays with words and existing imagery to create new meanings is directed at corporations and governments as a form of culture jamming. It has, however, also become something of a convention and means of conversation within the graffiti community. The prevalence of image remixing as a device of contemporary graffiti, while related to other arts of sampling, signals a significant development in its practice. Concerted graffiti artists now achieve notoriety through stylistic innovation and by outwitting one another with clever image play rather than merely by tagging. While the appropriation of images is an acceptable method in making graffiti, originality in the selection and application of those images is important. In short, few graffiti artists want to see another Che Guevara stencil unless it is treated in a particularly unique way. This is not because the image is derived from another person’s photograph (Alberto Korda’s) but because the image itself is overexposed to the point of cliché. Although it is ostensibly anonymous, a graffiti design or a tag, in its particularity, can act like an artist’s brand,^[9] linking their mark to their identity—albeit codified. Graffiti as a kind of autographical writing^[10] offers some explanation for why graffiti artists seek to stamp their individuality and why ripping off another’s image might be perceived as weak. In these respects, graffiti art offers insights into more nuanced notions of ‘copying’, authenticity, originality and creative imagination. This leads us to our interest in graffiti as an act of remixing the past for the present. If the challenge is to find something that is recognisable without being passé, where do graffiti artists find the images they appropriate?

Photograph courtesy of Katie Hayne and Ursula Frederick, 2007.