Now that local graffiti artists been deterred from Beech Hill, I’ve been looking elsewhere for signs of spray-can artistry. With a couple cans of spray paint being infinitely cheaper than a professional paint job, creative types can assure they’ll always be able to find their vehicle in a large parking lot.
Keene’s earthy-crunchy enough to sport not one but two spray-painted vehicles, wheels that presumably express the nonconformist urges of their owners. I’ve already suggested that you can tell something about a place by the kind of cars parked on its streets, so perhaps the relative popularity of spray-painted vehicles tells you something about Keene. Even if you don’t understand the urge to decorate a vehicle with several shades of spray paint, you have to admit that painting your own car is self-expression, not vandalism. Where things get murky, though, is when creative types take their paint cans beyond their own driveway.
After posting various pictures of graffiti “tags” in public spaces, I’ve finally captured a local spray-painter in-the-act. In search of summer shade, yesterday Gary and I hiked the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway to the Eliza Adams Gorge, where we found this youngster expressing his creative urges on the dam there. (Although I have a shot in which said painter is looking straight into my camera, I chose to post this privacy-protecting pose instead.) Using red and white spray-paint, this fellow inscribed a tapering tag on one of the dam’s vertical walls and a similar emblem on the “floor” below, a complete design that was visible (but not easily photographed) from above.
When I think “graffiti vandal,” the stereotypical image that comes to mind is that of a punk who quickly sprays or carves his and/or his girl’s initials on a tree or wall and then flees for cover. (Yes, my stereotypical tagger is male.) This fellow, though, wasn’t at all bashful about his work, neither stopping nor hiding when he saw Gary and me snapping photos from across the gorge. Instead, Tagger worked slowly and methodically, occasionally stepping back to consider his handiwork. In short, he didn’t look like a vandal much less a criminal: he looked like an artist pausing and squinting before an easel, someone who had a definite idea in mind and was stopping to check what he had painted against what he had envisioned.
So, is this tag vandalism or is it art? Before you accuse Tagger of defacing a natural scene, keep in mind that the dam upon which he painted is a manmade phenomenon as is the gorge to which Gary and I were hiking (and the wooden bridge we used to cross it). Is adding a manmade touch of color to an already artificial edifice an act of “defacement”? Does a red-and-white tag in the middle of a spring-green forest detract from the idyllic beauty of the scene? Before you, the jury, decide whether or not this tagger’s handiwork is criminal, perhaps you should consider how large a space it occupies in the larger landscape:
So, you tell me: is this Vandalism, the act of a destructive mind, or creative expression, another unstoppering of Art from a Can?
Jun 5, 2005 at 9:01 pm
That picture of that van screams “Look! The Mystery Machine got a makeover.”
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Jun 6, 2005 at 4:38 am
A pile of turds can be a “creative expression” too, but that doesn’t mean it’s art, and it definitely doesn’t mean it’s not vandalism when it’s defacing public or private property.
Given that vandalism is a legal concept, and given that this guy’s actions definitely fall within the statutory definition of the crime, I can’t imagine how he could be found not guilty.
It’s of course immaterial that the tag also happens to be ugly.
Next case! š
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Jun 6, 2005 at 8:58 am
ugly punkish labels and/or tags I agree are acts of vandalism, however the works of art I see displayed around my own home city I could never consider ‘vandalism’ these are expressions of the mood of the city and it youth. In Melbourne we also have certain graffiti protected for its historical importance, the few cases in general relating to political movements of certain periods. š
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Jun 6, 2005 at 8:59 am
once again, what wonderful photos. How cool are those cars? Very creative! the question of art/vandalism is so intriguing, i’ll be interested to read other people’s comments on what they think. As you point out, because it was on a manmade – let’s face it, pretty ugly – dam, I don’t think it can be classed as vandalism. Also, because he was so open about it, it shows that he wasn’t too scared to be caught in the act. To me vandalism seems to be something that just appears, anonymously…art takes time and effort.
anyway, I hope he carries on!
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Jun 6, 2005 at 12:31 pm
We just returned from the former East Germany, and graffiti is everywhere. We were dismayed, outraged, confused, but were told that paint was so rare under communist rule and everything was so gray that the “art” is tolerated the taggers are simply celebrating their new freedom. That expressly does not apply as a rationale in Keene, NH, however.
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Jun 6, 2005 at 9:34 pm
Oh I love it! A tagger caught in the act. I’ve never seen one – figuring, just as you said, that they spray and run. But this guy’s an artist. I guess if he were defacing beautiful property I’d feel differently, or contributing to the blighted feeling of some run-down neighborhood. I like the idea of giving those kids an opportunity to learn a bit about art and create a mural that expresses their feelings a bit more creatively.
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Jun 7, 2005 at 11:47 am
I think whether this is art or vandalism it is to do with intention. And environmental sensitivity.
As I haven’t invited it to be there and neither has any consensus, and as I’d find it intrusive because it was nothing to do with the environment and all to do with one person’s experience, I’d go for making them wash it off! And throw in some environmental awareness. The countryside is a precious and vulnerable place which one should leave as little mark on as possible.
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Jun 7, 2005 at 3:08 pm
I think there’s a strong artistic element to graffiti like this, but all it’s really saying is “I’m here, look at me!” (Though come to think of it a fair proportion of “real” artists and writers might be susceptible to the same charge.)
I almost always appreciate the presence of graffiti on boring industrial spaces, though, and would probably give a very hard time to anyone I encountered trying to clean it off (“What’s the matter? Not ugly enough for you?”). Graffiti-cleaners are the same kind of people who want to neaten up their woodlots by removing all the snags and fallen branches and pruning out the underbrush, the same kind of people who think they’re doing nature a favor by picking up trash from alongside highways – the one place where trash arguably *belongs*. (In my view, highway median strips near densely populated areas should be designed as landfills from the outset – in order to supplement mandatory backyard landfills, of course. People should be forced to confront the by-products of their consumer lifestyles on a daily basis, instead of sending it all out here to massive landfills in rural Pennsylvania, for example.) I will never understand the mentality that says that drab monotony is preferable to “visual distractions” (which is how highway builders regard everythig EXCEPT massive billboards) – with all due respect to commenters here who simply prefer a more natural outdoor experience. I agree, but as Lorianne says, ain’t nothing natural about an ugly concrete dam. I think if I’d have been there, i would’ve hassled the guy a bit – seen if i could goad him into painting something more interesting than his g–d— name.
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Jun 7, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Well, I don’t know anything about graffiti…I think this is ugly actually, but then the dam is pretty bad too.
To change the topic to *natural* graffiti, is anyone familiar with Andy Goldsworthy’s art?
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Jun 8, 2005 at 10:05 pm
Although I happen to like a lot of grafitti, I do take the side that it’s a (minor) punishable criminal offense. Good pics of an interesting site with mysterious, urban, and also natural elements.
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Jun 9, 2005 at 9:45 pm
Artistic or not, I still view it as vandalism. I’m all for artistic expression, and I’m even a fan of bending the rules a bit (okay, more than just a bit). Somehow, though, tagging seems to be about claiming a space as your own, and (ugly as it is), this space is not intended for single ownership.
Besides, it ticks me off that my eye is drawn to the (what I deem ugly) graffiti, rather than to the falling water … I’m a huge fan of moving water, and I’d prefer not to be distracted.
does this mean my answer might have been different if we were talking about a concrete wall in a broken-down factory? Probably not. I’d just be a bit less annoyed with the distraction.
there’s my two cents … now get out of my way and let me get back to painting!
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