Lesson 7 - Lecture

An example of graffiti art

In this video, Professor Peck takes us through the streets of two different neighborhoods in the city of Chicago: Pilsen and Wicker Park. It is in these areas that he shows us the different graffiti and mural art portrayed on walls, metal beams that hold up the train tracks, and even trucks whether they are abandoned or not. Throughout the video he distinguishes the difference between mural and graffiti art. "A mural is a piece of public art that's been sanctioned, been given permission, and that basically changes a few of the rules about how it can be made and how it will be made. One thing is the artist definitely has a lot more time to finish it." People who also do mural art are known because they aren't doing anything illegal, whereas graffiti artists are vandalizing property because they don't have legal permission to portray their art, which is why you would only know their art by the same tags or stencils that they use in each piece of work.

An example of mural art

What I really like about this video is how Professor Peck took us through the city and distinguished each type of art that he passed or found interesting. It gave a better sense of reality and gives us a brief background of the art that we literally see everyday no matter where we go.

What I found interesting was how each artist uses their own tag or stencil to differentiate their art from others. Because they can't be known by name it puts more of a focus on the art rather than the artist. For example, if an art investor were to buy a new painting, say there was a painting by Andy Warhol and the exact same painting by someone not as well known, the investor would go with the one painted by Warhol because of his background of success, even if the other artist might be a little better. Now with graffiti artists, we can just simply admire the work and not focus on who did the work.

I really like the idea of mural art because I think of it as being a legal rebel. Rather than using a canvas as the norm, the artist can really use whatever he/she likes in the outside world and
make it look fascinating. It's almost like hidden treasures for the public view because you never know which wall will have it.