Before!
This week!
It seems as if more and more of the untidy little spaces that give the neighborhood a little remaining grit are being scrubbed clean... such as the Verizon building last week.
So, before it all goes away, let's appreciate some of what remains...
11 comments:
the diner should put a mural on that side wall. the whitewash is so sterile.
What the f_ck is wrong with you people? Graffiti is NOT pretty, it is ugly and it is blighting people's properties and neighbourhoods. I just don't get how you can find anything good about it.
Uh oh. Where will the bass-playing models in twee hats go to pose?
I agree with the anonymous comment above. I'm all for well-crafted art in the medium of spray-paint on wall, as in the example of the welding service above. But I refuse to glorify random tags which have the same purpose and artistic merit as dog urine on a light pole.
I agree with the anonymous comment above. I'm all for well-crafted art in the medium of spray-paint on wall, as in the example of the welding service above. But I refuse to glorify random tags which have the same purpose and artistic merit as dog urine on a light pole.
graf, please save us now...
Yea - those "tags" (if you can even call them that while keeping a straight face) are pretty week. We could all do without them.
I love all the graffiti art on things-that's why I am always photographing it--cause it may be gone but not forgotten.
Whitewashing is NOT pretty, it is ugly and it is blighting people's properties and neighborhoods. I just don't get how you can find anything good about it.
Urban graffiti and street art have for decades represented neighborhood (and wider-scale) creative, personal, and individuals-as-community expression. It exists and persists throughout the world, from NYC to London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Istanbul, Delhi, Tokyo, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, etc etc ETC.
Graffiti and street art have been here long before you (or I for that matter) moved here, and will remain long after. Hell, connections can be made going back to hieroglyphics and ancient cave drawings, if we want to get academic about it.
IMHO, anti-graffiti folks are myopic (not to mention often bland, uptight, or conformist, but don't want to get too personal!). In an admittedly forced analogy, calling an individual tag "ugly" or "blight" is like calling one small corner of an Impressionist painting a smudge or messy, or a Seurat painting just dots. It's more than about a single scrawled tag. It's about the collective expression of said tags, graffiti, drawings, murals, etc, and what that represents (which can be discussed ad nauseum). Not to mention the artistic merit of a specific piece up on a street wall.
To me, graffiti/street art is a beautiful and important thing. As a EV resident, I'd rather see graffiti/street art than sterile blankness (or worse corporate advertising). I'd rather see things messy and interesting, than clean and boring.
Expression not repression.
Whether graffiti is ugly or pretty is subjective and ultimately irrelevant. The only objective factor is the law. If I want my wall to be whitewashed, no one has the right to destroy it.
@l.e.s.ter said...
Ha!!
Yeah, saw that one (not that I don't see about 4 other ones per week)
but; Good one!
As for the graffiti argument in general... It's just like everything else in this world.
95% of it is pure shit. The rest is great.
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