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Graffiti or Art?

Ion Castro asks “Is there a difference”

Graffitti or public art or outdoor art, murals - call it what you will has been in the local news recently with Banksy’s sandcastle sprayed on the back of some beach steps in St.Leonards, and then Moose’s moths that made their sudden appearance in alleyways around the borough – presumably the artists’ unpaid contribution to brightening up our townscape and then there’s Ben Eine, who recently hit the headlines when David Cameron gave one his paintings to Barack Obama. Locally his painting on a house-end in London Road depicting a pixellated Price Charles cheers up one of the last bomb sites in St Leonards. The painting given to Obama was in the style of the ‘building-block’ letters that Eine graces otherwise boring roller shutters in our town. They were all done with permission so they must be art but what about the controversial repaint of the Tubman in Cambridge Road is that art? – it’s certainly more thought provoking than the previous décor and generally accepted as an improvement to the area. What about the ‘America Ground Mural’ in Robertson Street is it graffiti or, because it was officially sanctioned does it become art? – the street’s certainly better off for its presence.

In a neglected alleyway in Hastings I came across a veritable treasure trove of outdoor art (or is it graffiti because it was painted without ‘permission’), I won’t say where it is because there are those that might seek to spoil it. Like the best art, it needs no explanation and certainly provokes thought, more than that, it’s alive, I revisited over several days to find many additions, revisions and alterations some imagery had been extended and some replaced, but all to the same high standard. I don’t know who the painters are but I found their work inspirational.

This article first appeared in "Hastings Town" vol 35 (November 2010)

Early in May 2011 Ben Eine's 'mural' appeared on the hoardings hiding a gap site at the bottom of haigh Street in Hastings' Old Town - he even signed it on the wall of the shop on the left.