Who can create art in the spaces that the city owns? Only those granted formal permission by the city and its chosen members.

As a NYC native and an advocate for the occupy-what-ever-space-you’d-like-because-that’s-what-this-society-has-taught-us movement, I do not completely approve of a group of people deciding what can be considered art (nonetheless, good art) in the city of Ithaca (or in any city for that matter).

Who are the artists? What social groups do they belong to? Are they all men, majority men…are they all white, majority white?…are they all heterosexual, majority heterosexual? What political, religious, ideological beliefs do these artists have? And are they representative of the multitude of cultures, experiences, languages, etc that comprise of it’s surround?

In NYC, anything that is done by a person of color is considered vandalism. But when Bansky does it, it is revolutionary; art.

I question what this society considers art and what it considers vandalism, and the fine line an artist must dance on to find the balance of expression.

How can we, as a society catalyzed by a dominant (white, male, heterosexual, able, etc) culture, learn to accept that all forms of art (whether legal or illegal) are forms of art?