Add a dash more color to the capital's gray streets

New York-based graffiti artist Chris Ellis - who goes by the street name Daze - has a graffiti exhibition in Beijing, as local media have reported.

The event tries to highlight graffiti's urban roots, and includes a work of graffiti on an outside wall, as well as its acceptance in the last few decades as a legitimate art form that attracts attention from museums and has well-heeled buyers snapping up graffiti works done on canvas.

Although Ellis, who recently made his first trip to Beijing, reportedly attracted autograph-seeking fans in the capital, several online commentators have said the city's graffiti scene is quite poor, if it can be said to exist at all.