Задание №50065 ЕГЭ Английскому языку

16. What does New York city councillor Peter Vallone say about graffiti?

1) Graffiti can be good for cities as long as it is tasteful and conveys positive messages.

2) Graffiti can be beautiful if it is done by a skilled artist.

3) Graffiti is harmful for societal morale.

4) Graffiti is a crime if the artist does not have permission.

A brief history of graffiti

The first drawings on walls appeared in caves thousands of years ago. Later the Ancient Romans and Greeks wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. Modern graffiti seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and by the late sixties it had reached New York. The new art form really took off in the 1970s, when people began writing their names, or ‘tags’, on buildings all over the city. In the mid seventies it was sometimes hard to see out of a subway car window, because the trains were completely covered in spray paintings known as ‘masterpieces’.

In the early days, the ‘taggers’ were part of street gangs who were concerned with marking their territory. They worked in groups called ‘crews’, and called what they did ‘writing’ – the term ‘graffiti’ was first used by The New York Times and the novelist Norman Mailer. The article was about a young street artist from New York under the nickname Taki183. He worked as a courier, so he spent a lot of time on the subway. There, at every station he visited, he left a mark with his name. Over time, there were so many of them that not only passers-by, but also local journalists paid attention to them. The artist became the first replacement in the history of graffiti and is considered one of its founders.

Art galleries in New York began buying graffiti in the early seventies. But at the same time that it began to be regarded as an art form, John Lindsay, the mayor of New York, declared the first war on graffiti. By the 1980s it became much harder to write on subway trains without being caught, and instead many of the more established graffiti artists began using roofs of buildings or canvases. Artists earned additional respect for tags in hard-to-reach locations, such as at high altitudes or in protected areas. Then the priority was not given to the visual side, but popularity was measured in the number of marks throughout the city.

The debate over whether graffiti is art or vandalism is still going on. Peter Vallone, a New York city councillor, thinks that graffiti done with permission can be art, but if it is on someone else’s property it becomes a crime. ‘I have a message for the graffiti vandals out there,’ he said recently. ‘Your freedom of expression ends where my property begins.’ On the other hand, Felix, a member of the Berlin-based group Reclaim Your City, says that artists are reclaiming cities for the public from advertisers, and that graffiti represents freedom and makes cities more vibrant.

For decades graffiti has been a springboard to international fame for a few. Jean-Michel Basquiat began spraying on the street in the 1970s before becoming a respected artist in the ’80s. The Frenchman Blek le Rat and the British artist Banksy have achieved international fame by producing complex works with stencils, often making political or humorous points. Works by Banksy have been sold for over £100,000. Commerce has become a characteristic feature of modern graffiti culture. As large companies realized the popularity of street artists' drawings, artists became increasingly involved in advertising campaigns, and manifestations of graffiti in popular culture can be found everywhere — from advertising and films to video games.