Life of Riley

Graffiti of the Left

My train route into the city is dressed in graffiti. Each time I travel still more paint seems to be spreading weed-like along this gallery. Each week the scene changes as anonymous artisans on night-shift coat walls, filling rare vacancies with their own special monograms. Is this art? Is this the work of aliens? What are they trying to tell us? If I were to reproduce a kilometre of this graffiti in these pages you wouldn't bother with it. The language is just too cryptic, the sprawl too messy. When I look out the train window, I hanker for a good slogan. This yearning may make me a old fuddy duddy, but I am of the school that demands meaning from my vandalism. If you are going to stay up nights and put yourself at risk from the constabulary, as well as the elements, then at least make your efforts worthwhile. Give me words and the best part of a sentence. I realise that at night with a pressure pack in hand it is not so easy to compose poetically with one eye over your shoulder. But, it is not as though you have nothing to tell us. Even something like "Amnesty for Graffiti Artists!" is a beginning. I'm sure a journal such as this one is a rich source of possibilities. Green Left could lead the charge toward a graffiti of relevance. Why don't all you would-be photojournalists out there send us those snaps of particularly smart compositions that you've come across? Now and then we could run a special slogan of the week competition with the winning piece being sprayed up all over town. Prizes will include a set of Dulux cans in all the primary colours. Now we're talking. I don't mean to be disparaging of the social significance of the current graffiti fashion, unfortunately it doesn't do much for me. While I realise space may be at a premium along the thoroughfares of Australia I'm sure the sloganising left and current practitioners of the genre can come to an amicable arrangement. At least we should respect each others' work. I also recognise that the tradition that predates modern pressure-pack technology needs to be maintained. While political posters never received a grant from the Arts Council (except for coffee table editions), they remain the major artistic face we radicals present to the outside world. Once you could slap up the paste and brush down a good-sized advertisement for a demonstration, rally or meeting. Today, the space is owned by some company keen to defend its investment. Walls that we once treated as public are now privately owned — some even with a special covering of wire — and even bus shelters which once campaigned to end war or stop uranium mining are now flogging underwear or beer. There is a conspiracy under way, the privatising of public space as lefties are being ushered off the streets. Since there is no where else for us to go — not to the papers of Murdoch or Packer, nor to the airwaves similarly owned — we have no alternative but to take our vandalism seriously! Dave Riley