Trojan Horse

From a transcript of a lecture at Wooster College in Wooster, Ohio by an anonymous graffiti artist. The speaker wore a black bag over their head for the duration of the lecture.

I want to thank you all, first, for asking me here today. I don’t get to do many of these. So, anyway, let’s get started.

Graffiti is more important than Monet.

It’s true. And I’m not telling you this like some bullshit academe or professor who memorized every book in the library.

I’m credible.

I’m not a sidewalk chalker or a bathroom stall scratcher, though some of the most insightful things I’ve ever read have been scrawled on the walls over urinals. But seriously, graffiti is more important than Monet. And Kandinsky. And Degas. And da Vinci.

You know why? Urgency.

All those other guys don’t get arrested for their art, and if they do there’s a whole fuck-ton of artsy bleeding hearts writing poems about the first amendment outside their cell. When I debut a new work I’m usually running in the other direction and people write letters to their city council about it and they paint over it like they’re afraid it might get worse.

And you know why? Urgency.

We’re showing people something too close to the truth. We’re talking about what’s bothering us right now and it scares the shit out of everybody.

Did you guys get that slide that I brought? Could you bring it up? Great.

Now this is something I did with two other guys in…well, I’m not gonna say where we did it. It’d be like telling the cops where you hid the money, you know what I mean? Anyway, we did this in about fifteen minutes across the street from a Citibank. We didn’t plan it out. We just agreed that we didn’t like the idea of an organization that on the outside is so friendly, but that ultimately runs by collecting and stockpiling money.

Then we just got to it. I was thinking about it like a Trojan horse. The other guy was trying to show the guts of it, the nasty, jagged machinery that motivates this kind of stuff. The third guy was just filling in our gaps. We all saw what it was becoming and sort of aimed it in the final direction.

It felt like jazz sounds.

Anyway, I know my time’s almost up. Short spot. Just remember the urgency. That’s probably the most important part of what I do. Thanks a lot.