Recently, the mayor of our city allowed one wall of a downtown overpass to be designated an "official public graffiti" wall...a canvas one city block long. Many artists took it seriously and produced a constantly evolving piece of public art. It was actually pretty remarkable to witness. Of course, since it was a public forum, any nimrod with a can of Krylon could scrawl on it.
Apparently nearby businesses started to complain that the indiscriminate tagging made the site look trashy. I don't know...maybe they were afraid that it encouraged gang activity or something. Anyway, the project was decommissioned 6 months early and painted over.
Was it art? Sure.
Did the fact that some people couldn't operate within the parameters of the project diminish its impact? Not really.
In fact it drew attention to a form of artistic expression that is still largely criminalized or at the very least considered lowbrow.
I think I was trying to make a point about the subjective nature of "Art" as opposed to "art" but I'm afraid my train of thought got derailed somewhere down the line.
Here are some pictures from the project:
http://www.ourartsite.com/graf_wall.php