This week on I Heart Street Art, I talk to Steve Rotman and Chris Brennan, two actual authorities on street art and graffiti in San Francisco. The crux of our talk was the following:
A few years ago, I could’ve pointed out things that were well over 10 years old. And they hadn’t been painted on. They hadn’t even been tagged on because there’s a respect level that it gets to. So one of the interesting things that buffing — especially on a regular basis like daily or weekly — does is ensure that only the worst stuff is up.
So that’s why graffiti’s been in the news lately. Newsom was going to be running for governor, so he wanted to clean up the city. They started buffing every day, all the good stuff disappeared, and we’re left with ugly stuff. So people notice it more, call it in more, etc. Vicious.
thank you, Allan, for putting this out to your readers.
i hope this helps illuminate “the other side” to those who fear and misunderstand Our City’s amazing and progressive art culture.
Yeah just convinces me more that graffit vandals should be stopeed.
For all you heart-ers of street art:
is spontaneity critical to the form? does it have to be done in the dead of night in a naughty place (ie on someone else’s property without permission)?
what if there were, say, 10 pre-arranged spots in the hood (big ones…big white walls), where street artists were welcomed and organized? and they could have their work up, say, for a month or 2, and then the next person could come, paint it over, and put their work up. in a curated fashion? with documentation & celebration?
i know we have valencia art wall, and i know that there’s an “in the moment” aspect to the form.
and i’m not talking about this as a “cure” for graffiti / street art…nor am i talking about this as a “caging” of the form.
not INSTEAD of the usual execution…but ALONG SIDE it.
i think it could be a way for the “good stuff” to stay up longer, and for the general citizens – “those who fear and misunderstand Our City’s amazing and progressive art culture”- to get to know some of the artists at work in the hood, the form in general, etc.
possible? i already have a list of spots.
or is that notion of organization and curation flying in the face of the form itself?
bringing back spots such as Psycho City and Warm Water Cover (Tire/Toxic Beach) would certainly be a good start.
Plug1, do you have a sense of what the odds might be of that ever actually happening? Like, are there permanent statutes in place now preventing it, or is it as easy as a little petition? Like, maybe we could get Chicken John to mobilize his troops?
The alongside part is the key, for sure. Because yeah, the sport aspect, the thrill-of-the-chase part — I understand that’s critical to the form for a lot of practitioners.
yeah. along side for sure.
i love the idea, but i know it’s a little pedestrian.
also, i guess in many cases, “organized” means either “sold out” or “getting caught by the cops”.
orfn, for example, probably couldn’t participate, and wouldn’t want to.
graffiti playoff bracket, with online voting:
http://missionmission.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/stop-look-up-and-listen/#comment-7502
The creme brulee cart can chase taggers with his little blowtorch to keep it real.
Yeah, a playoff system just might fulfill the sport aspect for some people.
so:
side of ali baba
side of beauty bar
side of farina
front wall of my house
side of building that has duc loi (i think)
GIANT walls in bruno’s parking lot
San Carlos walls of the PGE barn that has the “vamos gigantes” mural
Side of the Lexington
the side of that art deco 99 cent store at 18th & mission
this is just shit i walk by every day.
@Allan: From the way the conversation was going at the Anti-Graffiti Super Huddle, it doesnt sound like Mohammed Neru (Graf Czar), Officer Christopher Putz (SFPD Graffiti Unit), Edward Reiskin (Director of Public Works ), Edwin Lee (City Administrator) or Paul Henderson (DA’s Office) are open to anything other than “Zero Graffiti” in San Francisco.
I am very interested in seeing how the post-Newsom Mayor’s office will prioritize this issue, if at all.
I call shenanigans. I’ve lived in the city for 20 years. The argument/line of reasoning is specious. Balmy Ally, famous for its murals, was tagged with garbage, tagged right over quality art in 1990. There was no respect then as there is none now. The problem of bad art and vandalism are as pervasive now as then. The notion of unintended consequences is a powerful one and shows up all the time, for instance in rent control, but it’s being misapplied here. My anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite of your anecdotal evidence.
Well not to stoop to the lingo of my opponents or anything, but graffiti sucks. Sometimes one must eschew all the reasoning in this argument and get to the lowly heart of it. Pulling the gavinator argument just doesn’t cut it, as the gavnator wasn’t the cruel author of the local law that forced people to remove all graffiti regardless of its cultural significance (which by the way is no greater then my dog’s pee-mail.
prediction: the intersection and surrounding area of 18th & Harrison is going to get crushed, and soon.
next.
There’s certainly something to your point there. While I agree with Allan & Co. on their general sentiment regarding graffiti, it’s pretty clear the other side thinks a crime is a crime is a crime, and that the relative aesthetic value of each individual crime is completely beside the point.
In Montreal there are commissioned walls all over the city. They even go so far as to clear coat them (yearly, I believe). I grew up right outside of New York City and the most beautiful work I’ve ever seen is there, mostly tucked under something or in a tunnel (the tunnel going into Penn Station is great). I used to think Warm Water Cove had great graffiti. I was appalled that some “community members” would organize a “clean up warm water cove” barbeque and paint over everything. There was that Uzi Suicide piece- Uzi Suicide broke up. They aren’t a band any more, and that piece is gone. It is sad and it sucks and Warm Water Cove is ugly as sin now. What asshole picked forest green paint? They could have at least made it mocha colored, or peach, or mint or something.
The Shepard Fairey paste-up at Larkin & O’Farrell was tagged over after a few months. Clarion Alley is increasingly tagged. The “level of respect” is getting lower and lower. Kids these days!