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LAS VEGAS, May 5, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The Las Vegas mayor who said he wanted to amputate the thumbs of taggers, has been challenged by a hip-hop clothing designer who says "graf" is real art.
Marc Ecko -- whose clothing company's gross revenues were more than $1 billion last year -- challenged Mayor Oscar Goodman to join him in painting a public art project, but Goodman declined.
Goodman concedes some graffiti could be art, but the graffiti around Las Vegas doesn't fit his description, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
"Let me put it this way, I haven't seen a Michelangelo out there," Goodman said.
Thomas Holder, chairman of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Arts Department, said two former grad students at University of Nevada got their start doing street graffiti.
"Graffiti evolved out of gang activity, as a way to claim territory," Holder said. "Like all things, some graffiti artists made a name for themselves, got attention and went on and made serious art."
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
