Princess Hijabs Graffiti - Essay Example

Reading Response In accordance with the most common definitions, art is described as something which is created with skill and imagination and which expresses emotions and ideas. In other words, the criteria for something to be considered as art are as follows: it should be creative, unique, done with creative fantasy; it should show that the one who made it has skills; it should both express ideas and emotions and cause them to arise in the audience. Almost all these criteria may be said to apply to Princess Hijab’s works.

Frist of all, her works are creative and one of a kind. Secondly, and more importantly, they do express emotions and ideas and trigger ambivalent ideas and attitudes towards the works themselves. In addition to this, Princess Hijab’s works are “open to conflicting […] interpretations” and may be considered as “symbolic act of resistance”, which also means they may be perceived as art (Aburawa). As pointed out in the most general definitions, graffiti is considered as drawings or writings scratched, sprayed, scribble, painted on a flat surface, such as walls of buildings, mostly of public possession, billboards, jail cells, walls of garages etc.

In addition to this, graffiti are believed to express the desire of recognition and appropriation of a specific private or public place for group purposes. Consequently, the criteria for something to be considered as graffiti is as follows: it should be painted, sprayed etc. to be easily observed by the public; it expresses some sort of resistance, for example, to societal norms. In fact, Princess Hijab’s work meets the criteria of graffiti as well. Firstly, her works are painted in public places, such as streets and public transport, on billboards with various advertising campaigns.

Secondly, as it has been mentioned above, they are created to attract attention to a particular problem in the society and express some sort of resistance. Graffiti may be regarded as an art form based mostly on an aesthetic criteria. In particular, unlike simple tags on walls on inside the public transport, more complex paintings require imagination and planning and comprise such artistic elements as composition, color, line, shape, form etc. In addition to this, complex graffiti are painted using technique and skills possessed by artists only.

Also, graffiti may be considered as an art form due to the fact that the society has recognized it for today, some works, for example, by such artists as Banksy, are shown in different galleries and even are purchased for great sums of money. At the same time, graffiti may be also considered as vandalism. The main argument is, in fact, comes from the definition of graffiti itself. More specifically, by definition, graffiti is a drawing painted without permission on the property of other people or public property.

In this case, graffiti appears not as art. On the contrary, it can be regarded as vandalism due to the fact that damage of private or public property takes place. Work Cited Aburawa, A. "Veiled Threat: The Guerilla Graffiti of Princess Hijab." Bitch Magazine. 2009: n. page. Print.