Current Affairs Prague exhibition highlights artistic merits of graffiti

At the opening of the exhibition on Prague's Wenceslas Square, hip-hop music blares in the background as a young sprayer shakes his can and writes his name or "tag" across a canvas in bright red paint. It's the sort of work that can be seen all over the streets of the city, and which makes many of its residents' blood boil.

But this young artist's creation is actually part of a special project involving graffiti artists from all over Europe, whose work will be sold to raise funds for a community centre in a suburb of Prague.

One of the people behind the event, Lada Rokos works for an organisation that arranges activities and events for disaffected youths.

He says the graffiti that is often done by such people need not necessarily be seen as a destructive influence:

"We want to show that graffiti is not just something that can be seen on the street, and that it isn't just something that destroys, but that it can produce something nice."

But there are many who would see graffiti or "street art" as one of the more negative aspects of modern urban life. Critics of graffiti say that there is nothing artistic about it, and that the widespread practise of "tagging" amounts to nothing more than immature people defacing property by writing their names on walls and buildings.

Lada Rokos believes the situation is a little bit more complex:

"It's the most controversial thing in graffiti. Graffiti without tags is like music without guitars. It's impossible to do, because they're linked to each other. Of course, I absolutely agree that when I see tags in Prague's Old Town, I am just as angry as people who are forty years older than me. But on the other hand I was living for 22 years in a suburb with 86,000 people where everything is grey. All the buildings there are the same, so why not have tags [instead of this uniformity]. Why not have graffiti?"

Despite this somewhat idealistic viewpoint, Mr Rokos is well aware of the destructive nature of much graffiti, which can often be seen defacing Prague's old monuments and historical buildings.

Nevertheless, this exhibition will highlight the creative nature of some street art. In certain European cities such as Berlin, there are so-called "legal walls" where people can daub graffiti with impunity. Supporters of this idea argue that these designated sites actually enhance the appearance of what would otherwise be drab urban landscapes and also ensure a reduction in graffiti in historical areas where its presence is inappropriate.

Mr Rokos is hopeful that the exhibition will help promote similar initiatives in Prague and draw attention to the potential artistic merit of some graffiti when it's placed in the right context:

"Graffiti will always be fifty-percent destroying something. I heard some guy who said 'OK, I'm doing [graffiti] because I see big advertisements and billboards and nobody has asked me if I want to look at these billboards. So, I do some graffiti beside it. This graffiti says a different thing but does it in the same way... Of course [graffiti] will always be punished, it will never be accepted but on the other hand we have to work with it, because we have to live with graffiti. It's the same as everything else."

Anyone interested in the graffiti exhibition and the organisation behind it can contact Ladislav Rokos at rokos@proximasociale.cz