classic lines

"The urge to buy terrorizes you" was on a wall near East Broadway and Fraser in Vancouver for a long, long time, perhaps because it spoke so much truth. But that was another era.

I enjoyed it very much!

I loved the graffiti's... (most of them)

that MLK quote was very interesting, because it seemed like someone had written something earlier, and it was wiped out with paint... the fact that it was re-graffiti'ed over was similar to the message that you cannot take out dark with dark (the MLK quote)... Graffiti is a cause of other things which should be examined, and people, or "the system" shouldn't simply bear the attitude that by taking the complaint out you can take away the problem (the reasons for the graffiti's).

Also, Alan S. makes a good point... should a business owners decide to keep it it should be his choice!

I'm all for street art and

I'm all for street art and "impromptu self exression" in public space (with caveats), but the poseur slogans and predictable faux-anarchist bromides in the selection of photos linked to this article are lacking in cleverness, originality and most of all irony (I'm knocking the quality of the graffitti itself, not the photographer or the article). If anonymous 'artists' want to lecture or berate passers-by, they'd better do it with a twist, otherwise they're just garden variety pedants. This kind of thing has to be done right, or else it deserves to be painted over...

http://www.woostercollective.com/

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm

http://www.streetsy.com/

http://ixovoxi.com/

Not on my wall, thank you!

Yeah, you love "street-art" as long as it happen to other peoples property!

If an "artist" decides to make your vehicle better looking by using a spraycan of paint, you will feel differently.

We are back to the question of respecting the right and property of other citizens.

alive - that's actually what

alive - that's actually what I meant by caveats. I didn't think I needed to enlarge on the point. I'm talking about alleyways and billboards. Of course I don't support graffitti on houses, cars, cemeteries, places of worship, etc. There's definitely a line. There's a big difference between graffitti under a bridge and graffitti on someone's house or car. I think most people recognize the difference. In any case, I think there's an effective way to make these kinds of statements, and I don't think the samples shown really demonstrate that.

let them paint their own walls

Graffiti on anything but your own property is vandalism. What are these louts thinking when they target public and private property for something that can hardly be classified as art. It is nothing but an eyesore and a blight on the urban landscape. Perpetrators should be sentenced to a life-long chain gang where their only function in life is to clean the disgraceful mess from buildings, walls, billboards, etc.

Uncle Jimmy's ugly corporate

Uncle Jimmy's ugly corporate billboards are a hell of lot more eyesoars than the 95% of graffitti with some real msgs for the people! I believe the establishment/system are afraid of the truth in these kinds graffitti as the msm has non-news.
Media what a laff, CanWest The Vancouver Province rag. Tuesday July 31, 07 full picture front page Dog Found BS. I guess SPP's, TILMA, BC Rail scandal, Basi Verk scandal, giving our rivers away, Hydro going, going gone, etc given away to foreign Corporations, huge tax breaks to corporate welfare bums

Grafitti is Vandalism

Wow. I can't believe all you people advocate garbage written on someones private property. Grafitti is a crime and looks like crap and makes the city look like a slum.

Have you not heard of the broken windows theory? Start cleaning up the city and recucing crime by getting rid of Grafitti ASAP and sweating the small stuff. Worked in New York!

What about the environmental cost of all the paint???? Cans in the landfill???

I think there are scenarios

I think there are scenarios which demand a transgressive response. Dead urban space all but demands coloration. If they surround us in plain concrete, why not put up some art? There are other contexts where it’s acceptable, like urinal advertising….When someone has the temerity to rent the wall space three inches in front of your nose while you’ve got your penis in your hand expressly to make you feel inadequate unless you buy their shitty product….then maybe a little subversive potty humour is in order. Politicized billboards are all but asking for it too (although I deplore the organized vandalism that takes place during campaign season). The blocks surrounding an unmarked women’s clinic in downtown Ottawa are totally saturated with plexiglass-protected posters reading “abortion stops a beating heart”….It didn’t take long for an astonishing diversity of colourful commentary to manifest itself. Both sides got to have their say. So I think there are contexts where illicit self-expression allows the disempowered to interrupt the regular programming and assert a little ownership over their living space.

But yes, vandalism that exacts a cost on the individual owners of private property (from car-owners to bearers of fur coats) should not be asked to bear the costs of someone else’s decision to self-express.

And the illicit nature of graffiti does not exempt it from ascetic standards. If it’s not beautiful, it had better at least be smart or funny.

Have you not heard of the broken windows theory?

Yep, and it's been discounted, disproved and rejected - pretty much as Americans are now rejecting its primary apostle and advocate - Rudi Guiliani

You need to update your reading about urban recovery and neighbourhood remediation.

I suggest you start with the latest research from the University of Chicago.

I've posted the links more than once here already so you'll just have to hunt them up yourself if you're interested.

Broken Windows Theory Works

Even from a common sense perspective. Think about it. If even small crimes are punished/rectified then scumbags commiting them will just move away to a jurisdiction where they can get away with it. These days it is East Van and Surrey.

Of course, Broken Window Implementations must be accompanied with real jail time, rather than slap on the wrist sentencing judges give these days.

NO it doesn't

Flattax,

You need to stop assuming that because certain ideas 'seem' attractive and meet your definition of what amounts to 'common' sense that they have any real utility.

Sometimes the pudding survives the eating - in the case of 'broken windows theory' of urban renewal it didn’t.

Treating symptoms almost never cures a disease and driving crime and vandalism from one area into another may satisfy someone who lives in West Vancouver behind walls.

That's about all it does.

Eventually, unless the people, who think they can avoid paying for the things their ideas, attitudes and lifestyles have created (either directly or indirectly), step up and take responsibility for the situation, even those economic walls won't protect them.

And that's a good thing, in my view.

Should've got pictures

I had to slow down on seeing a string of graffiti-covered, rail boxcars. The drab rust-red containers had been turned into things of beauty.

While some will see the haste to cover or remove graffiti as a make-work project, others will see its major purpose as muzzling opinion.

While such things as "shock and awe" bombing is in progress a graffiti message, for instance such as, NO MORE BLOOD FOR OIL, at a site where it may be viewed by thousands, would be too powerful a message for some to bear.

Of great pertinence today would be, SUPPORT THE TROOPS - BRING THEM HOME

I believe such messages to be the major concern - less the tags and F-words.

Cock 'n' balls

So the giant cock and balls spray-painted on the business wall out my office window, and the "Phuck da poleez" slogans in the alley across the street are someone's artistic expressions and what right do I have to make any kind of value judgement blah blah blah.
Graffiti, since Roman soldiers carved their initials in Egyptian monuments, has always been a vulgar and destructive way for someone to prove they existed, a pathetic attempt to not be forgotten.
There are other positive, better and more permanent ways to make your presence known.
And there is a difference between murals and graffiti.

Like the graffiti, it disappeared.

Strange. Posted a message. Nothing extreme, defamatory - no F-(or similar) words. The message dissappeared.

The location of the graffiti is, of course, of major importance. The "artist" isn't going to apply it if he/she doesn't want it seen.

I suspect many of those seeking the graffiti removal may be more offended by the political content, in many cases, than its being an alleged "eyesore".

Personal graffiti

Maybe the micro fascists should have city crews armed with lasers, stalking the tatooed and removing the body graffiti.

Scumbags? Really?

I deplore the over-the-top reference to "scumbags", by flattax.

Has the graffiti artist, in adorning a hoarding with the following message, become a scumbag by the act?:

Try ALL war criminals

Who knows whether the artist's attempts to have that sentiment expressed in the various print media were futile - with the letters ending in the round file?

Some, even, may see a need for more politically inspired graffiti.