KRYLON AND ON … A SUPERHERO FOR OUR TIMES
By Theo Douglas
Presented for your consideration: a graffiti mural of a superhero. I don’t know who painted it, or when, but I can’t think of a better time to drag it out into the light than right now.
If you like graffiti murals—murals, not tags; taggers can barely write their names—then Long Beach and Signal Hill are pretty great places to live right now.
The minute the real estate market slowed, you could just hear taggers and muralists zipping up backpacks full of Krylon to spraybomb the vacant houses, abandoned factories and rolled-up newspaper buildings that the foreclosure crisis left to dry like tidepools when the money evaporated.
This piece is invisible from the street; it’s on public property, so off-limits it’s behind two Cyclone fences. I found it by accident the better part of five years ago, and I like the idea that some guy with his paint on his back sketched up a plan; showed up here unannounced to shoot it—probably at night—and then just left.
That reflects a certain level of commitment, staying up all night and dodging cops to get your shit done.
It’s dangerous, in the way that some of the best art always is, and most people don’t understand it, which is kinda cool.
12 Comments
Sorry, Theo, we’ll have to disagree on this one. There’s nothing “cool” about vandalism, whatever form it may take.
If you’re “dodging cops to get your shit done” then another term for your “shit” is most likely “crime.”
There’s nothing “cool” about crime either.
Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right, and vice-versa. I happen to find most of the billboards that hang over so much of our city, promoting all manner of products and causes, much more repulsive and inherently more criminal than a piece of art like this, which is painted in a place so out of the way that nobody with the power to erase it has found it for years. What are your feelings about Ice Age cave drawings, John? Have a problem with whoever carved the word “Croatan” on that post at the Los Colony of Roanoke? What about all the “Kilroy Was Here” scrawlings left everywhere by servicemen during World War II? Criminals all?
i think the folly of letting the police decide what is art and what isnt is clear.
Graffitti art is “cool” when it’s not your property being used as the medium and the “art” can’t be seen from your living room window or from the edge of your front yard while standing on your tippy-toes.
http://www.google.com/images?q=graffiti+arts&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=nF75TPaWNonGsAOLtN2kAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQsAQwAA&biw=1920&bih=952
Looks like art to me!
Hi Mr. W: A crime has a specific definition in the context in which I used the term and I’m sure you know this very well. Is it your assertion that the statutory crime of vandalism (594PC) is wrong and, so, should be ignored by whomever happens to agree with you?
I have a problem with anyone who commits a crime (in the legal sense of the word) and find nothing “cool” whatsoever in instances where people vandalize (in the legal sense of that word) the property of others, whether they do it with paint, markers, etching pens, or baseball bats.
If a person wants to create a piece of whatever they consider to be art on someone else’s wall then he or she should secure permission from the owner to do so. Why deligitimize one’s own artisitc work by commiting a crime to create it?
I tend to agree with you concerning many of the billboards in and around Long Beach. However, while those may indeed be crimes in the cultural sense, they are not crimes in the legal sense and so really have nothing to do with the comments I was offering.
Likewise with cave drawings or post writings or kilroy scrawls in nations and in eras that, for all I know, had no statutory laws against vandlaism at the time they were drawn.
Theo is an excellent writer. Of this there can be no dispute. So when he leaves the reader with the impression that vandalism can sometimes be considered “cool” or acceptable or chic, I feel certain that was precisely his intention.
But as I said, I find nothing cool or acceptable or chic about vandalism or about crime in general, so I hope you’ll understand why I made the comments to Theo that I chose to make.
Hi Mr x: The police didn’t enact the California law forbidding vandalism. The State legislature did that. The police have no authority regarding art. They have authority to enforce the law. If you or others desire that vandalism no longer be a crime, perhaps you should convince our State legislators to abolish that law.
Hi Jeanine: Graffiti is an artisitc style. Not all graffiti is vandalism. I actually really like a lot of the graffiti art I’ve seen in the course of my lifetime. However no matter how artisitc some of it may be, if it is created through vandalism, it loses all appeal for me.
typical, the lifelong authoritarian can only see that a crime was committed.
To adopt Mr. x’s unfortunately dismissive and unsulting tone for just a moment:
“typcal, Mr. x, and others, seem more than willing to dismiss criminal activity our of some misguided sense that its result is somehow to be considered “cool” or chic or “dangerous” or that it “reflects a certain level of commitment, staying up all night and dodging cops to get your shit done.”
I suspect that those so enamored in this case would not be had it been their own wall that had been painted upon without their permission or their own property that had been vandalized despite their having attempted to secure it from unlawful intrusion “behind two cyclone fences.”
As I mentioned to Jeanine, I actually really like a lot of the graffiti art I’ve seen in the course of my lifetime. However no matter how artisitc some of it may be, if it is created through vandalism, it loses all appeal for me.
Still looks like art to me!
…and still vandalism…still criminal…and rightly so : )