defacement

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Defacement, commemorating the 1983 police killing of a man allegedly writing graffiti in the New York subway, found renewed relevance during the Black Lives Matter movement.

If pressed, some argue the indignation over the defacement itself betrays how little our culture values the planet when compared to inanimate works of canvas and pigment.

For them, graffiti is a synonym for defacement and vandalism — and gangs marking out turf and messaging their enemies with menacing scribbles.

The other bill, Senate Bill 5917, amends the state hate crime law to include criminal penalties for bias-motivated defacement of public property.

The ruling Georgian Dream party condemned the defacement of the icon but has not commented on the national debate about the role of Stalin.