The City of Santa Ana has launched a PR propaganda campaign encouraging parents to suspect their children of graffiti.
According to the City of Santa Ana:
“Tagging is not an art form or about expressing oneself. It is vandalism and the destruction of private and public property. Tagging is any unauthorized marking, etching, scratching, drawing, painting or defacing of any surface of public, private, real or personal property.”
Thanks, Wooster Collective!
Check out my Graffiti, Stencils and Public Murals set on Flickr.
If I knew where you live i’d come and spray paint shit all over your yard and house.
Censor me if you want, but you’re wrong on this one if you support vandalism.
If I knew where you live i’d come and spray paint shit all over your yard and house.
Censor me if you want, but you’re wrong on this one if you support vandalism.
Anonymous, I don’t censor people on my blog.
99.9% of graffiti isn’t done on people’s homes though. Mostly it’s done by train tracks, on underpasses or freeways, in alleys, on commercial trucks, on train cars, etc.
Most of the places that I see it at tend to be somewhat urban and blighted already and more often than not I think it makes the place look more beautiful and interesting.
To me, a big industrial warehouse next to the train tracks covered in art is prettier than a big blank empty gray wall.
I think human expression is a wonderful thing.
I take the St. Louis MetroLink 35 minutes to work every morning rather than deal with traffic and it seems every week, the art landscape changes, making my day a little more interesting. Rather than look at run down warehouses, storage sheds, and steal junkyard fencing (the Link goes through some real ‘nice’ parts of town); I get to look at just about every kind of art I could imagine.
When street art is used as expression it can be an amazing inspiration, a motivator to an entire neighborhood, or an individual’s fingerprint on their urban landscape. Territorial gang tags might not have the best intentions, but hauling someone in on vandalism charges isn’t about to fix any city’s gang problems.
Hey Thomas…
I wouldn’t actually spraypaint your house 🙂 just proving a point.
I agree with what you said “To me, a big industrial warehouse next to the train tracks covered in art is prettier than a big blank empty gray wall.”
But why have a double standard? Tagging public/private property is illegal is it not? If your going to go create some art on a warehouse, do it legally… otherwise, if it’s not your property, what right does anyone have to do anything to it?
Nothing disgusts me more than gang (or little kid’s… is there a difference?)tags all over public transit, public parks, public or private buildings. I would be pretty pissed off if someone painted my car, why should I be any less pissed off when they paint the ride I payed $4.50 for?
David
To me, a big industrial warehouse next to the train tracks covered in art is prettier than a big blank empty gray wall.
My business operates out of a ‘plain’ building in one of those neighboorhoods full of ‘big industrial warehouse-looking buildings’; we are a small IT Consulting firm who has professional clients, and its not okay to have this ‘artwork’ on the side of our building.
We specifically invested into this area to leader and to help provide worthwhile business activity in a nearly blighted part of town.
So its NOT okay when I have to spend anywhere from $500 to $5000 a month to clean this stuff off my building (At times certain paints ruin our windows, which cost $2000 a piece to be replaced.)
As an avid reader of your blog, and an photographer myself i have no doubts that graffiti is indeed artwork. But just because something is art, doesn’t me its okay to tramp all over my rights as a property owner.
Somehow I just can’t believe you’d be okay with a beautiful rendition of male genitalia on the side of your car, or home. Sure, its a great piece of art, but is it OKAY being THERE?
Nobody has a problem when someone else’s rights are disregarded, as long as they weren’t your own.
Nice post!