I chose this image because last class we spent a fair amount of time talking about graffiti in Alfred, Harder Hall and even within the bathroom stalls of Harder. This image was appropriate on this topic, because I think that this is probably how the janitors, or whoever is hired to repaint the bathroom stalls-or over any graffiti for that matter- probably feel. I know that this is how I would feel if I had to keep doing the same job over and over again. The bathroom walls don't stay clean for more than a day before more graffiti is added over the freshly painted stalls. This image is playing off of that, in the way that the architect did such a great job with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, just to have somebody cover it up and become more famous than him, who did the real work. Who should be praised in this case, the architect who created the ceiling, or Michelangelo, who painted over something that was already existing but got all credit for it? Who should be praised in the case of graffiti in the bathroom stalls in Alfred, the janitor that repeatedly paints over each stall, or the student who repeatedly draws or writes nonsense in them? And is the graffiti considered art like the paintings of Michelangelo are?
That’s a very intriguing question n you have posed. It’s funny to think of it from the opposite perspective, but would bathroom graffiti artists have a place to write if all the stalls were completely covered in writing. There would be no room for new voice. In the case of the plaster artist that created the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel should feel great to have created such a canvas for a piece of art that has lasted throughout the ages. It could become repetitive but if I were a janitor I would be more then delighted to ‘wash the sidewalk of its chalk’ just to see what gets drawn next.
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