The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Graffiti

Abstract

Emotions play an essential role in aesthetic and art experience. Graffiti is an example of urban visual communication, and it can also be understood as a form of art. Like other works of art, graffiti can evoke different aesthetic emotions in its audiences, such as pleasure, wonder, interest and pride but also disinterest, disappointment or embarrassment, and even anger and disgust—further impacting, for example, how they value this art form. However, few studies have explored what kinds of emotions people feel when they appraise graffiti. This chapter discusses emotions in graffiti using examples from participant interviews in the Purkutaide study. Interview quotes are assessed against theories regarding aesthetic emotions and art appreciation. There are several challenges associated with studying emotions inspired by graffiti. For instance, explicating emotions verbally is difficult, and the same graffiti work can be interpreted as beautiful or ugly, or good or bad, depending on multiple factors. Appraising graffiti is an interactive and iterative process that depends on both the perceived visual and non-perceivable symbolic features of the work. The sociocultural and physical context, viewing time, subjective motives, the work’s relation to the self, the level of learned graffiti-related expertise and other aspects may also influence what kinds of emotions graffiti evokes, and how it is judged in terms of good/bad or beautiful/ugly.