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December 04, 2005
There is a difference between graffiti as street art and the ugly tag graffiti done by the alienated street kids
Gabriella Coslovich has a feature in The Age on stencil graffiti as street art in Melbourne. She says:
When it comes to graffiti, it seems the world is divided into those who see it as a menace to society, a sure trigger of escalating crime and falling property values, and those who view it as a vital element of a city's urban fabric and consider the best examples of it as an exciting part of contemporary art practice.
Melbourne City Council, like other capital city councils in Australia, has adopted the menance position as has the Brack's State Labor Government. They want a squeaky clean Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games .Their get tough on graffiti sees street art as an illegal activity. They just do not appreciate inner city cool as they have adoped a zero tolerance approach.
The latter position is that of the designers and visual artists Jake Smallman and Carl Nyman, of Stencil Graffiti Capital: Melbourne:
 celebrates the thought provoking, visually rich stencil graffiti scene. They see this street art as art as an expression of the city's witty, creative and socially aware visual art community, and acknowledge the innovative work of street artists such as Ha-Ha, Psalm, Meggs, DLux, Meek, Vexta, Civilian.
They see the city's walls and spaces as meeting places for visual ideas that propel the art form forward as artists outdo each other with bigger, bolder, madder or simply strange and beautiful stencils.
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