from the backstreets to the high street

No "The Observer" que recentemente elegeu Banksy como artista do ano 2005, encontrei este artigo muito interessante: "How graffiti artists are cleaning up. Mindless vandals or creative geniuses? " escrito por Anushka Asthana Sunday

'They bring us up on James Bond and then want us to sit in and watch television,' says Jake. 'We need excitement and graffiti gives us that. It's a fix.' Jake is a 34-year-old graffiti artist who says he started painting more than 30 years ago. He has signed his 'tag' - his identifying mark - all over London and has spent hours in the city's 'halls of fame', the walls around basketball courts and children's playgrounds that are used as blank canvasses by street artists and which are generally ignored by police. Jake has painted on bridges and in tunnels, and once abseiled with a friend down a building. 'It is like a game, and a game is no fun without risk,' he says. 'I have no problem with police officers doing their job: if they didn't it would be less fun.' But graffiti today is more than an illegal sub-culture - it has become big business.

Catapulted by 'art-terrorist' Banksy and others, corporations are cashing in. Red Bull, Adidas, Puma, 55DSL and Lee Jeans have all incorporated graffiti into their marketing campaigns, so it is hard to walk down a major shopping street without seeing spray-can art decorating shops. And the art world is following suit.

The Urbis in Manchester is one of many museums currently holding an exhibition showcasing the work of 10 graffiti artists from across the world with murals being sprayed in the museum itself. Next month the Art Fund, the UK's leading arts charity, is hosting an 'Art Happens' debate, about whether graffiti taggers are selling out in an increasingly commercialised art world. It is good news for Jake, whose reputation means he can now make a living from his love."

Artigo completo em: observer.guardian.co.uk/ focus/story/0,6903,1283441,00.html