W 31st Street's Remains

 

W 31st Street's Remains

By Ana Mikelis

    On the corner of W 31st and 10th Ave lies a little corner of Chelsea that has not been picked apart for its flaws.  Among the sky-scraping buildings there is a billboard in the lower plain.  The board, once meant for advertising, carries a new life of graffiti.  The graffiti I pictured is split into two plains.  The top piece starts with a light blue base color and a bare black tree with sprawling limbs.  The limbs merge into the darker side reaching towards the red full moon.  Hues of the darker side have shades of blues, black, and a murky gray haze.  The bottom plain has a royal blue base-color.  The exuberance of the full moon comes from its bright white luminescence.  To the right of the moon follows a light blue hued colored box.  In the smaller right box is a navy-blue figure that's feature are outlined by darker shades of blue and black.  The figure appears to be a woman with longer locks of hair and large breasts.  The expression on the woman is unamused as her eyes are scrunched and her mouth in a straight line.  There is no clarity on the exact message the artist is trying to convey, but there is a general aura the art emotes.  There is something eerie about the bareness of the tree and the style in which the woman is drawn.  The artist depicts the two life forms of the tree and the style in which the woman is drawn.  The artist depicts the two life forms of the tree and the woman as decrepit.  The tree has no leaves and the woman's bones or wrinkles are outlined over her chest.  The only light is from the distant moon in each plain.  Art is capable of distinctly making the viewers feel a common emotion without knowing how to describe it; the intention of the piece is irrelevant to how it makes the consumer of that art feel.  

    Gentrification, a reinvestment of money into an area, arguably has taken away liveliness of New York City.  I would argue that the reinvestment of these areas makes them less interesting.  Not pictured is the end of the High Line in Chelsea where I took this photo from.  Most people who view this art are onlookers from the High Line who walk past and presumably overlook.  The high line is a main tourist attraction that has beautiful gardens and views of luxury living and offices.  The end of this pathway is not kept up with the area's idealistic beauty.  The graffiti is painted over a billboard in the fenced-in space next to the unkept, abandoned apartment building.  Chelsea feels too highly curated for there to be this inconsistency.  In Tim Creswell's argumentative essay "The Crucial 'Where' of Graffiti..." he pieces together reactions of New York City graffiti in the 1970s.  He find a paternal link that involves the community to the graffiti.  Creswell cites relevant media outlets and city officials that consistently used the term 'dirt' or 'dirty' to describe graffiti.  Dirt referring to a mess where there should not be; graffiti referring to the disorder that creates mess in these communities.  His argument stands that art being on the streets gives people the impression of a disorderly community.  (Creswell) Because of the art's curated environment, I respect the piece even more.  The art brings color and life to a rather un-lively, forgettable spot.  In my opinion, the High Line reads how the city put money into an area to make up for the disorderliness or 'dirt' of the community that may have been there years ago.  Maggie Dickinson expands upon this theory of disorder and graffiti as it pertains to racism.  She claims how "the culture of poverty argument has shaped the war on graffiti and attacks on poor, urban communities," which I believe connects to gentrification.  (Dickinson, p. 42)  Our community in the Bronx is a prime example of a poor, urban populated area that has not been reinvested into.  Graffiti being openly accepted and celebrated in places like Boone Avenue are glared at from a criminalization standpoint.  Dickinson takes on how racism and interest in black youth goes hand in hand with that criminalization.  Most areas of the city besides the Bronx and parts of Harlem have been left behind in this movement.  This little corner of Chelsea represents more than just an unkempt area, but the movement to change these areas to get rid of the 'dirt'.  A seemingly forgotten, neglected spot by the collective creates a world of its own that only those who will stop are able to see.

    The environment impacts how I interpret the art because the space matches it's aura which is refreshing compared to the stale and cold luxury that surrounds the space.  Contrary to popular opinion, I think the luxury buildings are vandalism of the community.  The art pictured is the city in it's true form, unhindered of creative expression.  Graffiti art tends to be found in abandoned and neglected areas.  I believe that the art makes this space unforgettable, but others may land in opposition for the same reason.  Julie van Camp, professor at California State University, opposes graffiti's importance of creative expression.  In Camp's essay"'Yes, But Is It Vandalism?' Graffiti, Conceptual Criminals, Artists, and Free Speech," she argues that graffiti is not just an art style, but there is a rebellious element that makes the person want to commit the crime.  Her argument follows the hypothesis that what makes graffiti a statement is the vandalism itself that draws legal attention to it rather than the artist's creative expression.  (Camp)  Coming from a legal perspective, graffiti is not respected art style.  I, however, truly believe it is because it originated from and is prominent in black communities.  There is a lot of graffiti in the city but not as much in areas that are gentrified.  Dickinson would argue that Camp may be contributing to racist stereotypes and popular opinion that graffiti is not real art.  This art was not plastered on a luxury apartment complex but, rather, an old piece of property that looks like it has been there for years before the surrounding ares were built up.  Others simply walk by because they are taught to not look and pay attention.  Those who do this art are "criminals" rather than artists full of expression.  Graffiti will draw attention naturally, but it is those who view longer than two seconds that see and feel expression in the most forgotten places.  

Work Cited    

Creswell, Tim. "The crucial 'where' of graffiti: A geographical analysis of reactions to graffiti in New York." Environment and planning D: society and space 10.3 (1992): 329-344.

Dickinson, Maggie. "Race and place: Social space in the production of human kinds." Philosophy & Geography 6.1 (2003): 83-95.

Van Camp, Julie. "'Yes, But Is It Vandalism?" Graffiti, Conceptual Criminals, Artists, and Free Speech." Aesthetic Pathways 1.2 (2011): 108-117.