Has the perception–and reception–of public street art changed since 1989?
I think it’s like anything: it happens really organically. Art is seen as a positive way that a neighborhood starts to transform. If it’s run down, artists come and want to have studios, musicians want to have band practice spaces, and then a cafe opens and then a hipster boutique–it used to be the record store, which is gone now. And then the property gets too valuable and everybody gets worried about, “Will the artists bring the graffiti element?” And then it turns into something else. It really is fascinating, the different forces at work. I couldn’t say whether I think there’s a greater or lesser appreciation for the role that art plays in communities. I know that in New York, especially in the ’80s and early ’90s, when the city was closer to bankruptcy, the tolerance of graffiti was mostly a function of it being a low police priority. There were so many other problems to deal with. But then Giuliani had the broken windows theory, where an environment that is tolerant of all these
