Ryan McGoverne, our very own Mr Angry,  rails against the increasing commercialisation of street art, and in the process, outs The Leither as the venal lawbreaker it truly is. Thanks for that Ryan…

Ryan is the author of 6 articles including 'Long Live Graffiti' from June's Leither

Zoom In

The chat in Leith’s more notable watering holes centred around one subject last month, graffiti. More precisely, graffiti on the cover of The Leither! The ‘noble bugle of positivity’s’ front page showcasing vandalism, on the very page usually reserved for photos of Leith’s hottest barmaids! “What is the world coming to?” the cry went up, “when will we have our Leith lovelies back on the front page?” We can partially look towards broadsheet sweetheart Banksy – the de rigueur graffiti artist of incisive social commentary fame – for this infiltration of the mainstream. Personally, although I hold him responsible for every numbskull student stencilling protests about McDonalds being bad across their student union building, I find his work is undoubtedly that of an inspired mind, with a wicked sense of humour and a lot to say about what is wrong with our society. So, can he be held responsible for what follows?

Debenhams at Ocean Terminal recently had a 25% off everything sale. You may already know this if you wander around Edinburgh gazing at your feet. Part of their promotion, you see, was to spray faux graffiti stencilled adverts across paving slabs around Princes Street. A strange tactic, when you think about it, seeing as the Debenhams clientele demographic is more likely to tut disapprovingly at any form of ‘vandalism,’ before hopping into their Mondeo and reacquainting themselves with safe old Marks & Sparks, a trusty chain unlikely to sully the streets with messy conceptual advertising. Eagle eyed footy fans (we’re talking Premiership here by the way) will also have noticed that during the opening credits of Match of the Day, accompanying the glorious fanfare, the show’s logo is stencilled onto the wall of a football changing room. Another national institution advocating vandalism? Do these mega-rich footballing scamps not have enough opportunity to get into mischief without being encouraged to bring aerosol paint cans along to training sessions? I can just picture Rooney teaching excitable bright eyed puppy Ronaldo how to inhale the fumes correctly…

So should graffiti become mainstream? Accepted, and therefore acceptable? We all know about graffiti at it’s lowest – the wretched racist scrawlings that have recently been spewed around Leith – but graffiti is a valid art-form, see our last cover as testament to that. Graffiti also works as a voice of dissent, of protest, a public voice for the demonised youth. Our young are lambasted from every direction as knife wielding thugs intent on thoughtless violence. “Fear the young!” shout the majority of the rags which shape our society. “No! Listen to us!” retort aforementioned pissed off young. Is it any wonder then, that in such a climate, intelligent, frustrated kids use street art to communicate their viewpoints? The one constant underlying message in all graffiti is ‘I am here.’ It can be thought provoking, educational, challenging, humorous and inspiring. Graffiti satellites the main art world with occasional forays into it (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring) but largely exists within its own set of aesthetic and socially critical functions. As a site specific form of art, graffiti makes sense on the street, in the immediate view of those it is trying to speak to. Which is to say communities, not gallery curators or advertising executives.

Hats off then to The Leither, for taking the bold and not uncontroversial step of commissioning an original piece of graffiti art for the cover image. Let us not forget graffiti is, for the most part, illegal (and if this particular piece of graffiti were to be spotted by our omnipresent local constabulary, it wouldn’t take a genius to trace it back to The Leither HQ). The fact that the cover was a politicised image is indicative of how perceptions of what graffiti can be have changed in recent years. The above churlish dig at Edinburgh students aside, I for one enjoy seeing graffiti on our walls, when it is well executed and thought provoking. There is room for debate here as to what graffiti is. Many see billboard advertising as a form of cultural vandalism and you can see their point. Our towns, cities and even parts of the countryside are littered with one-way discourses informing us what to do, and what to buy. How to think and how to live. This has led to a sub-genre of graffiti known as ‘culture-jamming’ – the satirical inverting of advertisements by altering their message, forcing the viewer to reconsider the imagery we are bombarded with. Leith Walk and Easter Road have both seen examples of this in recent times. It begs the question, is there a way of placing imagery in the public sphere without consent but also without objection? It seems the answer is yes to saturation advertising, but no to graffiti art. Perversely, the outlaws in these scenarios are the ones with the social conscience, those intent on reclaiming public space from visual pollutants.

So where does graffiti go next? New York hip hop and sloganeering punks, made it boom in the Seventies and Eighties, Banksy’s ‘invective stencils’ became a phenomenon this decade. But the Debenhams stencil appears to show how the ever watchful advertising agencies have double-bluffed the ad-jammers. What with Gary Lineker sanctioned graffiti on our screens, the emasculated stencil appears as dangerous as a bag of crisps. Leith is currently home to some emerging names in youth culture. Unicorn Kid is destined for big things on the music scene, and that Rudolph Nureyev of mountain bike trickery, Danny MacAskill, can be seen elegantly defying serious injury around our streets. So maybe it’s not too much to hope that, even as I write, the future of graffiti art is shaking his (or her) spray can in a tenement somewhere in Leith… Watch these streets.