Is graffiti art or a social nuisance?

A mural by the graffiti artist Banksy was painted over last week in North London. Meanwhile, a show of Banksy’s work closed in Bristol, having drawn some 300,000 visitors. Last June, a graffiti show in New York was devoted to images by people who, a decade or two ago, were spraying tags on subway trains.

Was removing that Bansky mural an act of vandalism or good urban housekeeping? Curiously, it may have been both.

Hackney Council, the responsible local authority, wasn’t going to be drawn into aesthetics. Alan Laing, a spokesman, told the Guardian newspaper that “Hackney council does not make a judgment call on whether graffiti is art or not, our task is to keep Hackney’s streets clean.”

That was a sensible line to take. It would be hard to argue that the Banksy picture was not art. After all, other works of his change hands for hundreds of thousands of pounds and are collected -- among others -- by Damien Hirst. The Banksy in question was on the wall of a block of flats, where it had been for eight years.

As a general proposition, there’s no argument about it: Graffiti is part of art history. It has been around since the era of ancient Greece and Rome. In the 20th century, graffiti was an important source of inspiration for artists such as Miro, Dubuffet and Cy Twombly.

New York Wave

The first wave of New York graffiti artists, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in particular, long ago joined the roster of major modern painters. It’s beyond discussion: Graffiti can be good art.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Banksy himself is a good artist. One of the odd things about him is that his work isn’t derived from the crude yet lively tradition of graffiti. Stylistically, he comes out of photo-based commercial art.

I think, nonetheless, that Hackney Council would have to concede the point. He is a recognized and widely exhibited artist. Destroying his piece on that wall in Stoke Newington was vandalism. On the other hand, the graffiti erasers have a strong case too.

There’s little doubt, on the evidence, that graffiti -- at any rate, in abundance -- is a symptom of social breakdown and an encouragement to crime. The transformation of the New York subway in the 1980s into a massive mobile graffiti studio was an outward sign of civic anarchy. As Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book, “The Tipping Point,” sponging it off -- which was done assiduously from 1984 to 1990 -- was vital to reducing crime on the subway (and beyond).

Graffiti as Symptom

Gladwell quotes David Gunn, the subway director at the time, as saying, “The graffiti was a symptom of the collapse of the system. When you looked at the process of rebuilding the organization and morale, you had to win the battle against graffiti.” The evidence that he was right is that the policy eventually worked.

This is a conclusion as unwelcome to those who love the subversive energy of spray-painted tags as my former one -- that graffiti can be art -- is to the people who loathe the stuff.

So what’s the answer? Perhaps, boringly, it lies in striking a balance. A Banksy here and there will do no harm and may raise the spirits and charm the eye -- of some people at least. But if graffiti starts taking over the environment, we’re in trouble.