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Reverse Graffiti
glawrie writes "UK Graffiti artist 'Moose' thought he had come up with a perfect socially friendly approach to his art - to trade paints for cleaning fluid. An article in the UK's Independent Newspaper describes how he has created graffiti by taking '... any dirty inner-city wall or pavement, place a template over it, and scrub the concrete clean, revealing an image as sharp as any spray paint which fades with time.' Moose was commissioned by a subsidiary of drinks manufacturer Diageo to create some 'clean' graffiti in Leeds to promote their vodka brand Smirnoff to local students. However, this work was subsequently condemned by Gerry Harper, a Leeds councillor, as 'sheer vandalism'. With wonderful irony, the council demanded that the artist 'clean-up' the graffiti that appeared in one of the city's gloomiest underpasses. Maybe all those senseless vandals out there will now think twice in future before scrawling 'Clean Me' on the back of vehicles overdue for a wash... But perhaps the state is now going too far - surely it is only a matter of time before rainfall is similarly targetted by the good guys."
People really shouldn't be doing that anyway because it's very possible to scratch the finish on the car and do actual damage. Sure, it's not as bad as keying it, but it's still uncalled for.
I was having a look around to see if there were any photos of this and found instead references to them doing this back in Oct 2003.
e ting-examples.shtml#oct2003
http://www.bizhelp24.com/marketing/guerrilla-mark
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*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
calling his artwork "pure vandalism" when it is in fact done by the process of CLEANING DIRTY @#@$% WALLS IN THE FIRST PLACE ... thats just lame.
I once applied the metallic foiled I had just peeled off a discarded cigarette pack to an outside wall at college.
One of the security guards came and started giving me the vandalism speech about how I would have to pay a fine and clean up the walls. I camly peeled it off (it was barely sticking to the dirty wall) and offered it to her, then seeing the horrified attitude that generated, I threw it away in the trashcan.
She tried giving me the "its still vandalism, you'll have to pay the fine!" speech, so I asked her to show me the part of the school proprety I had damaged or defaced... she "let me off" with a warning.
There's no logic with these people, you know.
You take one piece of trash, reshape it, and place it a few feet from where you found it, and its "vandalism" to them, even when they looked as you removed it and placed it in the trashcan!
Clearly they have WAY too much time and power, and they're trying to pass one by abusing the other.
P.S. I was studying fine art at the time, and I was actually making an artistic statement about garbage and the way people treat their environment (I applied it right over a trash can after having mediculously peeled it off intact from a discarded empty cigarette pack that was abandoned on a table. I placed it very nice and straight, all shiny on a dull, dirty gray exterior wall), but calm logic was a more efficient way of getting rid of that power-mad bitch than explaning my motives and the validity of my art to her (though I did try, but she wasn't smart enough to understand any of it), then a string of equally dense bureaucrats. I was pretty disapointed to be forced to censor my art though.
You can't take the sky from me...
There are two kinds of graffiti. I'll call the first one 'artcrime' since I'm not sure what other people call it. The second is tagging.
Artcrime is where someone makes an effort to do something that is interesting or beautiful, or at least puts some love into the work. It may or may not be a tag. If it isn't a tag, then the artist would be fine with using a designated wall like this.
Taggers, on the other hand, just like to put their name on shit for whatever reason - territory marking or some sort of rush that comes from vandalizing things. These folks are not going to bother with a designated wall because using one of those entirely defeats the purpose of the graffiti for them.
So I guess it's not a big problem if the only folks that bother you are the artists. Me, I'm the other way around - I normally don't mind graffiti that's had some love put into it because there was love put into it, whereas tagging is the equivalent of making it known you were somewhere by ejaculating all over the place.
Darl C Mcbride
(801) 424-2006
1799 Vintage Oak Ln
Salt Lake City
UT 84121
If you RTFA
1. The council requires a permit and presumably a fee for Advertising on their stuff eg a bridge or tunnel
2. Once this was pointed out to Smirnoff, they did clean it all off (voluntarily?).
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I was hoping you were talking about the "Surrender Dorothy" graffiti that used to be on a bridge over 495 as it looked out on the "Emerald City".
pooptruck
we have something of the same here in toronto.
there are places which are known for their grafitti,
and i've seen the artists work right on the 'designated'
(if i can say that) buildings, frame and square it up nice
and leave the buildings beside them alone (like apartments).
there's a place that runs up behind queen street
which we call 'grafitti alley' -- it always gets the best work,
and there's a grafitti convention every summer, where the
best artists come and do their stuff. when the pope came
to visit, one of the people commisioned some of the
youngsters to do their garage door -- and they did
a nice job of guys playing basketball; another fellow
did an incredible memorial to martin luther king and
gandhi -- i see people going down there with cameras
taking pictures, some of them are so good, and they're
always changing. quite a number of the local restaurants
have commissioned local grafitti artists to do the signs
for their stores - hand painting, allows them to practice
their craft -- a lot of the grafitti artists are quite good,
if you give them a chance and a place to paint, why not
help them be their best? when they're supported by the
local community, these artists can also make a positive
contribution to the urban landscape.
best regards,
j
People that seek out art are not my audience, I want to shove art into the faces of those who would not or does not have the time to look at art. Putting my ideas into canvas and hanging them on walls just doesnt do what graffing does. It doesnt show anyone something they arnt expecting.
sig? its spelled syg.
No. (IANAL)
You can read about it
Overview
PREMISES WHERE DRUGS USED UNLAWFULLY (closing 'em & stuff)
HOUSING (Noise I guess)
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES ( Truancy (parents can get taken to court for letting kids play truant)
DISPERSAL OF GROUPS ETC. (This sounds "evil", but walking to work with a gang of 20 10yrs chucking stuff at you is not fun. You can't retailate else you will be in the dock).
FIREARMS (Illegal in the UK anyway, I think it aso covers fakes)
THE ENVIRONMENT (Noise, graffiti, fly-posting, Waste and litter)
PUBLIC ORDER AND TRESPASS
HIGH HEDGES (again sounds evil, but a cause of a number of neighberly wars)
This is normal done with ASBOs (Anti-social behaviour orders), if you are a twat X number of times, you have an ASBO stapped on you (spray paint loads or something), then if you break the ASBO (they can be farily "open ended", such as going into the area your last victem lived, owning spray paint), you break that you get taken to court.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
You're absolutely right that there are two types of graffiti. I live in Barcelona, Spain, a city that is know for it's graffiti.
Here the two types of graffiti are distinctly marked. I love the stuff that you're calling "artcrime" - some of the artists here are superb. And they are nearly always respectful - here it is very common to build temporary walls around building sites, and it is often these that the better artists use to create some create thier work.
Then there are the taggers. These anti-social little bastards spray on everything, usually just scrawling their tags and often just spraying to vandalise. There are lots of beautiful old buildings, fountains and statues here and there is a big effort at the moment to clean the city up. It makes me really mad when an old building has been carefully (and expensively) restored and some little antisocial w*nkers have sprayed their tags all over it.
One good thing - the cleanup teams here carry digital cameras and take photos of all the tags, so when they do finally catch the tossers they have enough evidence for a very serious penalty.
Take Banksy
"Banksy" poored tins of coloured paint all over statues outside a lovely building near where I live here in Barcelona. The council have had to spend tens of thousands of tax payers (my!) euros to clean it up.
Inspired execution? Genius artistic vision? Give me a break. The guy is an antisocial wanker.
Nice if you like radioactive tea. The French have a few hundred nukes, you know.
they can come to my house instead, if they'd like. well, half of them can.
the pretty ones or the young ones? or the ones that look like Orlando Bloom in LotR?
If you think any or all of those groups make up even close to half of people who use nude beaches you are in for a nasty surprise.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
The guy who inspired the first graffiti writers was Taki 183, back in 69 or 70. He was just a tagger. The first writers were taggers.
It took people like Phase 2 and Dondi to move it to what was indisputably art, and the creation of [master]pieces. But almost all the early wrtiers were taggers as well; I don't know how true that is today.
Check out the "Style Wars" DVD for the full background, if you want to understand how and why it started. It will also clue you a little bit in on why BBoying (which some people call "Breakdancing") is so important to hip hop culture, and why most artists claiming to do hip hop today are really just rapping.
Rant over.
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
The Fundamentalist Christian Fanatics being referred to are the 'Christian Reconstructivists', look them up on Google. These are 'Old Testament' loving folks that would bring 'Biblical Law' to a scary Taliban in the US level.
...the Bill of Rights? ...the Declaration of Independence? Oh that's right, neither is mentioned, just some stuff about a creator, which could be any religion that believes in a higher power.
These Christian Reconstructionists do preach a Christian 'Take-over' of the world. They believe that they are at war with everyone that isn't with them. They believe that until they can build the Kingdom of God on Earth that there will be no second coming. They believe this, they preach this and they will do everything they can to obtain this.
As for this country being based on Bliblical Christianity, where is the Christian Bible and where is Jesus mentioned in the Constitution?
Even being unable to locate all of that, what about the part stating that a religious test is NEVER to be applied for someone seeking or winning a public office? If this nation was truly a 'Christian based' or 'Bible based' society, then anyone and everyone seeking or holding public office would have to pass a religious test of some sort.
The 'Old Testament' does advocate that, in just about every portion referring to a war being waged. Have you ever read the 'Old Testament'? You should, it is a very scary book. It is filled with some of those most racist and scary nationalistic beliefs that you can possibly imagine. It has been used as justification for acts the world has seen far to many times.
"Love your neighbor as yourself"? Well, isn't that easier if your neighbor is exactly like you? Can't that be read as your neighbor must be just like you, since you love yourself enough to let Jesus into your heart, your neighbor better love themselves just as much, or else! That isn't 'Old Testament' and that isn't so much of a problem.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
They didn't have to clean it up at all
s m/ vandalism.jpg
No? Here's a picture of part of the vandalism, from Banksy's own web site:
http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/images/vandali
They didn't have to clear it up, you say? You think it looks good, do you? Something the people of the city of Barcelona should be proud of?
I fail to see how they can justify spending that kind of money on it.
Did you see it? It was the whole of the facade of a listed building - not just all the statues and stonework but the woodwork of the door as well.
Give me a couple of hundred euros for a job well done and everyone's happy.
You have no idea, do you? If you think it is a job that could be done by one person in a couple of days then you're a fool.
speaking from the point of view of a writer (graf artist) graffiti is only graffiti if it is illegal. legal walls can be pretty, and some of the multicolor peices are pretty for you to look at, but quite simply, graffiti is for other writers. that is why often you cannot read it. that is why tagging is just as important as piecing. granted, much of the graffiti you have seen is done by toys who thought it would be fun, but anything worth looking at is well placed and done by good writers.