OnPoint: Children come first, except when walls come first
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I noticed around the corner from my place last night, that some zany marketing agency for Telecom have put cheeky little stencil arts of that new Okta branding (the swanky avatar/paper-cutout people things) amongst work from Component etc.
Clearly we need to amend the Telecom separation legislation to include anti-tagging provisions.(Unless some cad put it up with a deeper anti-establishment message that I entirely missed)
Now that just really pisses me off, I am glad I am not in Auckland to see it.
I can't remember the magazine, but ages ago I saw a spread in a NZ magazine of some graffiti artists "bombing" a large billboard for Coke somewhere in central Auckland. On the one hand, it is good to see talented people having the time and funds to execute something on a large scale where everyone can see it (gainfully employed and all that). On the other hand, it is a shame that it has to be for Coke. I guess I have adbuster tenancies because I love a good culture jam. That doesn't mean that I am some hipster who only appreciates "proper graffiti" a la banksy and separates off tagging into an entirely separate category; I don't think this is actually possible.I think it is more of artistic interest than merit. I like it because it's disruptive. It's like natures way of saying somethings wrong.
That is absolutely my opinion too, in fact NZ had a graffiti magazine called "Disrupt" (now defunct) which was really good.
I'm also fond of the accidental art caused by buffs (that's the name for when the council man paints over graffiti).
Me too, I have collection of photos from places I have travelled. I can see that from the perspective of the small business owner who spends his or her hard earned dosh removing tagging there is nothing beautiful about the mismatched paint and the stubborn traces of smudged marker pen but I would never want to live in a city completely devoid of tagging.
My local dairy owner has spent a lot of money painting over tagging in the last month, he no doubt does not share my "industrial aesthetic". Tagging is antisocial and disruptive which is why a different kind of societal attention should be paid to it. Knee-jerk reactions such as banning spray cans are just never going to eliminate angry/disruptive/antisocial/artistic/anti-corporate/whimsical/fame-whoring/ugly/beautiful/accidentally beautiful/juvenile/ironic/territorial/playful/drunken public markings. -
Coke advert vs. Tagging: In terms of cultural vandalism I know which one wins.
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On the other hand, it is a shame that it has to be for Coke.
Fact of life. Every now and then, Coca-Cola Inc. adopts a campaign embracing "edgy" creative. I'd take the money too.
Red Bull is dreadful sugared caffeine water, but I also don't blame the kids who let themselves be flown around the world to Red Bull's apparently brilliant music/DJ workshops.
When we did Planet magazine, we also relied on our edgy saleability to global brands, including a certain trouser company. The staff were suburban (but very nice people), we provided the street. I have a funny story about that ...
Oh, alright, I'll tell it, although some people might have heard it before. The trouser company took us out to dinner after we'd completed an edgy instore mag for them.
The food took forever, and they let me, on my working-for-the-dole income, order the wine. I pleased my palate so generously that my tongue became a little loose.
So I began telling them about our friend [REDACTED], who would come up to our office on K Road. He had genital piercings, plural. And one day, he came charging up the stairs, sweating profusely, and ran for the toilets.
For the next however long, we were treated to the sound of him moaning, as if in mortal pain ...
At this point in the story, I looked up to see the trouser folk, ashen-faced, jaws agape ...
I had been talking with my buddy beforehand about exactly where the lines of conversation might be drawn. I had just run right over one.
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There is a big blue wall just down the street a little from our place and it has always attracted tagging, it has been cleaned so often that the graffiti guard has started to peel. Normally the tagging is removed within days but since the "News" about taggers hit the headlines things seem to have changed. Last night I noticed a guy, wearing overalls and rubber gloves came along and started taking photos of the tags. as he was doing this the "offenders" turned up (yes, I knew who they were) and started posing for the camera. Like duh!. The graffiti is still there, it looks like it says "MAFTAX" (although I doubt if is was the Min. of Agg. and Fish demanding a new tax) a little further along the wall are the letters DTR and Need Cash? Easy... but I think that may have something to do with the firm that has the corner shop.
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(Or is this your subtle lawyerly way of exacting revenge for his Werewolf algorithm?)
Umm, yeah David - that was it totally!!
And what the hell is a LARKER????
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Okay.
My bad. Again.
I meant Larper.... I don't know what that is either.
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Duly enlightened- thanks Kyle.
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I think Annette King has said in Parliament that for something to be proper art it had to have permission and be respectful (? I'm not sure about the last one - this was inspired by someone else later and they may have been adding-to rather than summarising).
I feel like I'm being radicalised.
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Okay, 'respectful' was Flavell talking about something else entirely. I'll stop now.
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Okay folks, if you've got an hour to spare (and if you haven't, I recommend finding the time) here is the Style Wars documentary that was filmed 25 years ago about the NYC graffiti scene.
I've just finished watching it again and it has so many amazing threads running thru it I'm not even going to bother saying anything more. Just watch and enjoy!
(NB: some of you may need to eat your words regarding 'but is it art?')
(PS: I was going to put it on the video page but that is for kiwi videos. If RB thinks this qualifies [it was for kiwi kids the equivalent of Moses coming down from the mountain with 2 stone tablets] then he can repost) -
The whole background two this sucks.
It started because a middle-aged white male killed a kid. Now, shouldn't we be doing something to get the not insubstantial number of middle-aged white psychopaths (someone who considers that killing is an appropriate response to petty vandalism is, in my book, a psychopath) off the streets and into appropriate institutions?
No, we should ensure that these nutters aren't provoked by a bit of tagging. Maybe ban spray cans altogether - so that a whole genre of legitimate art is eliminated, not to mention all the other artistic and decorative uses of spray paint.
If you have an issue with "your" property being tagged, then get some graffiti artists to bomb it for you. It's fairly proven that a lot fewer taggers spray over other peoples pieces than a blank wall.
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I guess future nanotechnology could allow for graffiti that moves.
Further, if painted over, it could remove the upper paint layer and restore itself.
If erasure was persistenly attempted, it could proceed to eat the wall and turn it into Grey Gloop.
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Oh what a glorious focus on the effect - shuffling off the blame for the cause onto the poor puzzled youth of today.
Many taggers are far too young to buy an Evo and thus are deprived of the opportunity of using the car accelerator as a means of self expression concerning their grief at the abject failure of their parents to live up to their own myths. Parents who are the pitiful spare ribs of the noble hopes of all men and women who fought two horrible wars (or was it three, four of maybe five) and endured a depression in the hope that we would be a free and self-sufficient people?
So these children watch as their parents are unable to even get out of their recliners to unseat the liars and unscrupulous law-makers (liberty takers) in the big house. No wonder they decide to express their angst in a way that expresses their individuality and their disrespect for the empty authority we have created.
And now another law - the issue remains - and while we their parents remain powerless to remove the cause of the frustration and fear of the lost generation we have bred we have no right to expect any better of them than we can give our selves.
Until we conspicuously and comprehensively regain the moral high ground how can we expect our children to behave as we would like?
The cleanout must start at the top - with clearing away the darkness of Paintergate, Drivergate, liargate, liargate liargate - and work its way down into our bowels until the purge is complete and we stand again a clean, vigorous and proud people.
Then such laws will be redundant.
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I LOVE tagging. I LOVE to see the artwork of a group in our society who tend to be forgotten and invisible except perhaps in the Courts.
But I love it for its artisitic merit too. Sure some of it is crap, but there's alot of other images out there that are worse crap. For example, billboards advertising alco-pops to get young people wasted.
What a boring bloody city we would live in if there was no tagging. And, they do it for FREE.
Come on everyone stop being so SQUARE.
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I LOVE tagging. I LOVE to see the artwork of a group in our society who tend to be forgotten and invisible except perhaps in the Courts.
But I love it for its artisitic merit too. Sure some of it is crap, but there's alot of other images out there that are worse crap. For example, billboards advertising alco-pops to get young people wasted.
What a boring bloody city we would live in if there was no tagging. And, they do it for FREE.
Come on everyone stop being so SQUARE.
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Hillary - are you drawing a distinction between tagging and graffiti art?
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Permalink, I'm talking about tagging in the sense of the 'youth branding' thing for example, along the rail corridor. Is that what you mean by graffiti art? There seems to be less of other types of graffiti art around these days.
Sometimes where the artist has managed to tag is part of its appeal - how did they get away with that? Or, the colourful signatures, that have been so carefully crafted. The thought of this other world happening while most of us are at home asleep is very energising.
And its an example of youth doing what they have always done: upset 'grown-ups'. And boy doesn't it!!
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Law makers / Councils do draw a distinction between Graffiti Art & Tagging.
I'm sure anyone can see some art in graffiti of somesort. Say Sir Eds pic on the santioned sit cnr of Riccarton Rd & the Railway track in Christchurch.
This space was set aside for graffiti art to reduce/stop tagging.
As for my neighbours whose fences were tagged it wasn't flash. A note the "red neck/conservatives" of Christchurch took a photo of the tagger. The hip Aucklander did what?
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Hey Shep, could you expand? I am kind of following you but not sure what you mean.
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Steven - God yes love it!
Kowhai - Graffiti as art even if it's not to your taste can be art. Those who may dismiss it I'm sure would see some value in the subject at least, being Sir Ed Hillary. This is at the top of Riccarton Rd on a wall of a cafe facing the railway line north.
The council here have allowed it to have a mural of graffiti art which is better than seeing tags and to some degree respected by taggers.
Tagging/graffiti art at the skate park also seem a good spot for it.There was a kid who ran around Fendalton tagging fences and garage doors. If homes in Fedalton weren't such fortesses then there would be no tagging on their fences but thats another post for another day. He was followed and photographed by locals who shopped him to the cops. Not sure what happened from there but the tagging has been removed, as best it can.
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I believe Youth Crime is a serious issue today. I don’t believe it’s all the youth’s faults, yes, they take action to commit crime but wouldn’t you have to say that a lot of what they do is how they have been raised and what has been taught to them by their parents or older siblings? I believe more and more parents are letting their children get away with too much or that they are too busy for the children because their job takes up too much of their daily lives… as for the argument for the tagging, I personally don’t think tagging is a huge problem, only if it is for art, and that the taggers have had permission from the owner of the wall they wish to tag on. I do agree that there is not a lot of permission being given and that the contents of the tagging are not respectable and therefore those abusing it should be punished in some form. Why spend $6 Million dollars? Why not spend $6 Million on starving children? Homeless young people? Disrespectful tagging is an issue but I think the government could spend less money on those taggers and more on the more important issues which would also achieve something whereas are those taggers actually listening? Are they going to stop? Or is it a waste on $6 Million Dollars?
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Why not spend $6 Million on starving children?
I could starve children for much less than that. Where do I apply for the tender form?
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