Letter to the Voice 12.1.98

In November '98, Richard Goldstein, the editor of the Village Voice, wrote a great, long overdue article about graffiti legend CASE 2. I was so pleased to see Goldstein still championing the movement that I wrote the following letter. In it I praised his commitment, while reminding people that after three decades, the picture at ground zero is still distorted.

For 25 years, Richard Goldstein has forced us to take a deeper look at graffiti with articles such as "New York (Old) School" [November 17], in which graffitist Case 2 explores the work of Jackson Pollock.

Goldstein is one of the most important supporters our controversial movement has ever had. Since subway and street graffiti first appeared in 1970, the city has engaged in a war against this "plague." Graffiti has been used by public officials as both scapegoat and smoke screen, with varying degrees of success. After 28 years and millions of dollars spent combating graffiti, the city has never attempted any dialogue with graffitists. Are we inaccessible? Hardly, if Case 2 spoke to the Voice. Maybe it's our "feeble minds," as a New York Times editorial once put it, that deters the city from communicating with us.

Graffitists are not dangerous criminals; they're disenfranchised kids and, more importantly, developing artists. Graffiti is a youth movement: art designed by young people for young people. If it doesn't speak to you, that's because it's not trying to.

Art critics look at Pollock, and not Case, because he and other such artists are part of a "reality" that is politically fabricated and media-fed. Those of us who are willing to see with our own eyes-not those of The New York Times-know there's a lot more to the picture.

‹Zephyr