#Graffiti n full#

Since the piece is framed within the context of a Spaceworks installation, “it contained within a ‘glass cage’ of sorts,” drawing attention to the ideological as well as physical terrain graffiti covers. “My project within these windowfronts was to explore that concept and get people to question whether what they were viewing was indeed a work of art,” he says.

#Graffiti n full#

Stoll plumbs the contradictory nature of contemporary graffiti in a new work at the Woolworth Windows – a soaring aerosol mural that he executed in full view of the public. “Throughout my career as a graffiti artist I’ve met and worked with people on both sides of the debate…I’ve found that oftentimes some of the best graffiti art blurs the lines between what some people would consider vandalism and what some would consider art.” Stoll points to the legally sanctioned Broadway “graffiti garages” in downtown Tacoma as a prime example of the paradox. Tacoma artist Kenji Stoll, who was not yet old enough to hold a spraypaint can when Keith Haring began haunting the New York City subways, is no stranger to the controversy surrounding graffiti: “ its way into galleries, museums, books, media marketing, pop culture and people’s conscience – though the debate continues as to whether it is art or vandalism,” he says. Graffiti is an art that has morphed brazenly, impudently and also furtively since the 1980s, leaving in its aerosol wake furious masterpieces of street art and social commentary, and creating a pantheon of superstars including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy and Shepard Fairey.