Department of Public Works defines what is and isn’t art

Art is a tricky thing to define. As we all know. Or maybe we don’t. I find it a lot easier to recognize what is art than what isn’t. Today I got into a debate with a Twitter account for DPW’s Zero Graffiti program. What strikes me the most about Zero Graffiti SF‘s argument here is the implication that acknowledging that something is art is to condone it or qualify it in a positive way. I understand that the city doesn’t want people tagging where they’re not supposed to (pretty much everywhere), but I wonder why they won’t call it art. Or rather, why they specifically decide to say that it’s not.