OBEY's mural didn't last too long on Melrose in 2010. Sooner than later, some punk wrote over it, and all too soon, anyone else participated in burying it. But OBEY played the street game his whole life, and the wall on Melrose near Fairfax is unlikely to end up painted over by the city of LA in one of its ugly shades of graffiti maintenance paint. That wall is prime tagger wall, and will continue to transform and do what a graf wall does. It will tell a story and continue to have a life of its own.
But murals like the ones on our LA freeways are getting tagged by graffiti writers. And those aren't territorial graffiti walls. Those walls aren't the kind that will continue to change as graf appears over in layers of identilty and public stunts. Those are respected by real artists and by the city. But they are too expensive to maintain by the city now, so they get painted gray.
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| Pasadena Child Development Associate's building on Lake Ave. PCDA is a non-profit organization for children. |
In 2010, I came very close to working on a mural for this building (left photo) in Pasadena. The Board of Directors finally decided against it because they were too afraid that a mural would invite graffiti. Why would a mural invite graffiti? Murals become little neighborhood landmarks. They brand neighborhoods and communities are proud to have them.I wanted to argue that murals beautify neighborhoods and activate public spaces.
Graffiti is different. Graf writers use an element of danger to earn street cred. Their art is part artistic talent and part stunt. The bigger and balsier it takes to throw up a tag, the more credability you get. Try tagging the Police Station and see how famous you get as a tagger.
But tagging over murals sounds like something that has become popular in LA. In October 14ths LA Weekly, in a column in the beginning of the issue called Muralgeddon, writer Mark Cromer says that "according to Pat Gomez, who's with L.A.'s Department of Cultural Affairs, a recent survey of 400 murals that were either funded by the city or located on city property revealed that 90 are completely gone and another 197 have been marred by graffiti."
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| Mural on La Wacko/La Luz De Jesus - Private business (top) in Hollywood. Mural on Hollywood High - Public school (right) in Hollywood. |
Even if you dislike a city mural, you should have a little pride in it. You should at least have a little respect for it. If neither, you should be smart enough to know what will happen to your tag and that mural - it's going to get painted over by city maintenance. You won't win, the artists won't win, and we'll all be stuck looking at an ugly blue-gray square.
The thought of being able to comoflauge against a mural while throwing up a tag is so chicken. Being able to return to that piece and add on to it because its easier to tag there is so weak. There is no risk, no stunt. And the worst part is you're destroying something another artist created.
To get a good idea of what this cover-up paint looks like, visit LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) on Hollywood Blvd, near Cahuenga. There is a current exhibit called Painted Over/Under by Kim Schoenstadt that adds this aspect of graffiti maintenance paint for a different idea. But I think its a perfect example of what LA walls will look like because of weaker taggers.
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| Wall on Fairfax Ave (top) between Melrose and Beverly changes regularly with hot throw ups. Wall at Union Station (right) not accessable to any future "vandals." |
People of LA who care about graf as much as murals want both in their city. But these art forms are different, and it will be very funny when a group of artists who have struggled all their lives for credability begin to paint over graffiti. People who get to paint murals made an entirely different effort to earn that. Just like a tagger who claims a wall will get respect from other taggers, because he earned it. He or she earned it because tagging still requires a stunt - you break the law, you don't break artists' hearts.
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