GRAFFITI: URBAN SCRAWL OR ARTISTIC FREEDOM?

INFORUM
GRAFFITI: URBAN SCRAWL OR ARTISTIC FREEDOM? | AUGUST 16 - SF

APEX, Street Artist
BEN MORGAN, Director, Quality of Life (Graffiti Film)
JOHN DOFFING, Founder, START SOMA + START MOBILE Art Galleries
MOHAMMED NURU, Chair, San Francisco's Graffiti Advisory Board
Anti-Graffiti Community Activist – TBA
Moderator - Jonathon Keats

From its contemporary origins in the late 1960s, graffiti has spread globally, from the city and boroughs of New York to walls around the world. Some see the proliferation of graffiti as a veritable modern plague, an urban blight that clearly diminishes quality of life. Others would argue that today's graffiti is a historically significant art form, providing a unique means of creative _expression to the disenfranchised and marginalized. Are the words of the prophets truly written on subway walls and tenement halls, or is graffiti nothing more than mindless vandalism that is directly linked to a host of societal ills? You be the judge.

The evening's discussion opens with a slide show presentation by Jim Prigoff, an internationally known historian and documenter of murals, spraycan art and popular street culture. His co-authored the book "Spraycan Art" with Henry Chalfant is considered a seminal work and has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. He has lectured in Museums, Universities and other venues around the world. Jim's personally photographed documentation is considered the largest of its kind and it is said that he has seen more street art than any other individual. His other co-authored books cover the murals of California and the History of African American Murals in the U.S. The show from this book opened at the Smithsonian, Anacostia on July 11th of this year.