GRAFFITI: THE NOBLEST ART
by Charlie Finch



The New York Daily News, an otherwise liberal newspaper, offered the following lead editorial on Easter Sunday, entitled "Shameful Display," reading in part, "They're having wine and cheese parties surrounded by framed images of urban blight at Los Angeles' Geffen Contemporary Museum," and then, referring to the graffiti show's move to the Brooklyn Museum next March, "We'll make a deal with Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman. He can welcome this exhibit next year and promote the hell out of it. But he also has to let graffiti 'artists' (sic) have a go at the museum's bright white walls and its landmark facade and its beautiful, expensive new entrance pavilion. And he must not dare clean the painters' 'free expression'. Deal?"

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