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“Art” as a Form of Resistance

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“Art” as a Form of Resistance
“Art” as a Form of Resistance
W.E.B. Du Bois discussed how blacks struggled to deal with “the problem of the color line”. The idea of the color-line is brought up in essence to the role of racism in our society and American history. Many people of color used art as a tool to fight back and try using different forms of art as resistance, but it does not always work. Using “street art”: graffiti, tagging or murals, is one of the ways how people tried to push back against oppression. Graffiti art is thought of to be vandalism and disturbance of the public, but it is just a form of self-expression. Artists use graffiti as a way to show their talent and opinions to the public. Street art is a tool that is used to resist against racial discrimination, but it does not always work out as planned. Art lets people think they are resisting, but no changes are made.
Art is anything creatively self-expressed by an artist, it is a tool used to express ones feelings or emotions. Art can be the following: literature, theater, music, dance, paintings, sculptures and other or even everyday life things. Every work of art has a message or meaning behind it. A piece of art work has meaning to the viewer; the viewer feels emotions toward the work of art. Art is usually something that is appealing to the eye, but it does not always have to be. Street art is a form of art. There are many forms of street art, but the most well-known ones are murals and graffiti, along with tagging. Tagging is something called when an artist signs his name or nickname under their work of art. Graffiti artists tried to create new styles for themselves. Murals are created in honor or celebration of someone or something. Whereas graffiti has a different meaning, its’ meaning is “to write” a message on any flat surface (Ganz 10).
Modern graffiti first began appearing on the city walls of New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s ant the early 1970s. Tagging and street art spread along with the Hip-hop



Cited: Anderson, Laurel, et al. "Street Art, Sweet Art? Reclaiming The "Public" In Public Place." Journal Of Consumer Research 37.3 (2010): 511-529

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