Blog Dis
Guerilla graffiti
2025-01-07
An age old battle rages. My beloved city, Ottawa, is no different than other beloved cities - each would much rather that graffiti didn't exist, never had, never should - just why already? Councilors in Ottawa in years past had voted in favor of throwing a great deal of dollars to stop graffiti vandalism, to the tune of $2 million. Yet, the reality is that artists who cut their teeth on graffiti will not be deterred.
I get it. Business owners and city dwellers are dog-tired of having to clean spray paint off their pretty walls. And every time they do so, by painting over the wall to cover up the sprayed paint, they are in effect elevating the status of the wall, to encourage more graffiti artists to return to the same wall to flex their artistic muscle. I've seen it, time and again. Whenever money, and then more money, is shelled out in an attempt to stop an illegal practice, you can guarantee that the opposite will occur. In a sense, city officials and law enforcement have unwittingly created an atmosphere of warfare which has transformed the act of spray-painting art into all-out guerilla graffiti. Law enforcement has the law on their side vs the graffiti artist that doesn't have the law on their side, but plenty of gumption and late night-hours to continue to wreak havoc on clean walls. But when the volume is turned up on anything, particularly w/ the purpose of prevention, it conversely entices artists to encourage up and coming graffiti artists to take up the spray can.
I love graffiti art. To me, it brightens up a city, bringing them to a vibrant level as opposed to stale and red brick. Many have argued with me that graffiti art isn't art at all, to which I counter, "of course graffiti art is art... it all depends on your perspective. Graffiti has origins dating back to Roman times when the plebs would voice their discontent by painting slogans of hate in red on Roman walls and these in turn would be turned into drawings. The force of human nature to express itself in all its vulgarity can't be thwarted for any permanent length of time. If I owned a particular building in the City, such as a restaurant, I'd purposely choose one side of the building, to have it painted completely in white, specifically to entice artists to come along and leave an original work of art, that is to say graffiti. It'd be a fabulously cool way to showcase work. A month or two later, the wall could be painted over with a new series of graffiti work.
It's easy for me to think this way because I don't own a building, nor am I likely to in the future. And the City wouldn't be inclined to agree with my way of thinking bcus again they want to curtail all forms of graffiti. But this isn't realistic. I've traveled into European cities that actively promote graffiti art by encouraging artists to spray their canal walls; the best example would be Vienna. I stayed in this marvelous city (voted for several years running as the best city to live in) for just under two weeks, to work on one of my novels in a new setting, an environment that wasn't like my own. While in Vienna, I discovered Schwedenplatz district where graphic artists are expected upon completion of their degrees to throw up a piece of graffiti to celebrate their achievement. How cool is this!!!! Not only have their government officials embraced graffiti but they are in effect co-opting the participation of graffiti artists. The canal walls were covered with awesome art and the city didn't crumble. The city became a more interesting location to experience, one that embraces the artistic yearnings of the young, rather than to clamp down on the practice.
Similarly, when my friend and I had traveled into Israel, we chose the Florentin neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and the locals refers to it as Little India, for its dodgy, dirty, rough, noisy and lively environment. Graffiti was everywhere! Every day, on our walk to the beach, I tested the patience of my good friend by constantly stopping to take another photo of graffiti. We loved the neighborhood bcus it had personality, rather than other parts of the city that I would best describe as sterile and boring. Our hotel manager warned us that if we return to the Florentin district in ten years time, it will by then be cleaned up to resemble the rest of the city, and the prices for everything will quadruple. Tel Aviv is an expensive city. But while in the Florentin district, the food street vendors, the graffiti, the bars with patios, the restaurants were all clustered in this one district, and it was busy each night for a reason - it had everything to offer, including a vibrant graffiti scene.
Legal walls for graffiti are the answer. Walls that have been purposely erected for graffiti artists in different parts of the city would help to curtail city buildings from being sprayed. We have such a wall in Ottawa, and it's called Tech Wall, known by locals, who attend Ottawa technical high school. I cycle by this wall frequently in summer, and I'm amazed by how graffiti artists respect each other's work. A new piece will be given a wide birth of a month minimum before another artist will create a new piece, spraying over top the previous piece. There are no battles or police conflict, or citizens complaining to councilors on how graffiti art is destroying their lives. Most graffiti is sprayed on bridges or underpasses, on walls that are hidden from the public to ensure the artist won't be seen by police, when they're flexing their artistic muscle in the early hours of the morning, while it's still dark. However, and when it comes to tagging hydro boxes, garbage dumpsters, mail boxes, or telephone poles, this is more about artists declaring their territory to other rival artists. I don't consider this art, any more than I regard 'throw-ups' as art, where an artist will spray out the outline of large lettering, to denote their initials. These pieces are an eyesore and rarely take time and special care to be created.
Stickers too are quite an enterprise, and artists will go to great lengths to place them in strategic locations, often using extension poles to place them high up.
I'm willing to go out on a ledge to suspect that one of my all-time fav artists, Picasso, would probably have thrown his hat in the lot with me, to support graffiti artists. Picasso lived and breathed the free-wheeling nature of art; its ability to transmute any conventional mode of thinking. He painted the walls of apartments when he lived in the Gothic quarter in Barcelona, a series of long-winding cobblestone streets with very tall, skinny apartments. It was illegal of course to paint on apartment walls but that never stopped him. His art flowed out of his being like warm milk being pumped out of a dairy cow. That's what art is all about, not pigeon-holding or curtailing free-flowing nature. Graffiti art is no different.
Banksy is the best example in modern times; an artist whose work commands hundreds of thousands of dollars, and whose identity is a secret, to the best of my knowledge. Banksy isn't just a street artist but a political activist. For me, this closes the loop on graffiti dating back to Roman times, when even strumpets for hire would advertise their rates on ancient walls, and then to come to our present day menaces to society who just want to flex their talent and leave art behind.
[Photo: graffiti in Florentin district, Tel Aviv]
I get it. Business owners and city dwellers are dog-tired of having to clean spray paint off their pretty walls. And every time they do so, by painting over the wall to cover up the sprayed paint, they are in effect elevating the status of the wall, to encourage more graffiti artists to return to the same wall to flex their artistic muscle. I've seen it, time and again. Whenever money, and then more money, is shelled out in an attempt to stop an illegal practice, you can guarantee that the opposite will occur. In a sense, city officials and law enforcement have unwittingly created an atmosphere of warfare which has transformed the act of spray-painting art into all-out guerilla graffiti. Law enforcement has the law on their side vs the graffiti artist that doesn't have the law on their side, but plenty of gumption and late night-hours to continue to wreak havoc on clean walls. But when the volume is turned up on anything, particularly w/ the purpose of prevention, it conversely entices artists to encourage up and coming graffiti artists to take up the spray can.
I love graffiti art. To me, it brightens up a city, bringing them to a vibrant level as opposed to stale and red brick. Many have argued with me that graffiti art isn't art at all, to which I counter, "of course graffiti art is art... it all depends on your perspective. Graffiti has origins dating back to Roman times when the plebs would voice their discontent by painting slogans of hate in red on Roman walls and these in turn would be turned into drawings. The force of human nature to express itself in all its vulgarity can't be thwarted for any permanent length of time. If I owned a particular building in the City, such as a restaurant, I'd purposely choose one side of the building, to have it painted completely in white, specifically to entice artists to come along and leave an original work of art, that is to say graffiti. It'd be a fabulously cool way to showcase work. A month or two later, the wall could be painted over with a new series of graffiti work.
It's easy for me to think this way because I don't own a building, nor am I likely to in the future. And the City wouldn't be inclined to agree with my way of thinking bcus again they want to curtail all forms of graffiti. But this isn't realistic. I've traveled into European cities that actively promote graffiti art by encouraging artists to spray their canal walls; the best example would be Vienna. I stayed in this marvelous city (voted for several years running as the best city to live in) for just under two weeks, to work on one of my novels in a new setting, an environment that wasn't like my own. While in Vienna, I discovered Schwedenplatz district where graphic artists are expected upon completion of their degrees to throw up a piece of graffiti to celebrate their achievement. How cool is this!!!! Not only have their government officials embraced graffiti but they are in effect co-opting the participation of graffiti artists. The canal walls were covered with awesome art and the city didn't crumble. The city became a more interesting location to experience, one that embraces the artistic yearnings of the young, rather than to clamp down on the practice.
Similarly, when my friend and I had traveled into Israel, we chose the Florentin neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and the locals refers to it as Little India, for its dodgy, dirty, rough, noisy and lively environment. Graffiti was everywhere! Every day, on our walk to the beach, I tested the patience of my good friend by constantly stopping to take another photo of graffiti. We loved the neighborhood bcus it had personality, rather than other parts of the city that I would best describe as sterile and boring. Our hotel manager warned us that if we return to the Florentin district in ten years time, it will by then be cleaned up to resemble the rest of the city, and the prices for everything will quadruple. Tel Aviv is an expensive city. But while in the Florentin district, the food street vendors, the graffiti, the bars with patios, the restaurants were all clustered in this one district, and it was busy each night for a reason - it had everything to offer, including a vibrant graffiti scene.
Legal walls for graffiti are the answer. Walls that have been purposely erected for graffiti artists in different parts of the city would help to curtail city buildings from being sprayed. We have such a wall in Ottawa, and it's called Tech Wall, known by locals, who attend Ottawa technical high school. I cycle by this wall frequently in summer, and I'm amazed by how graffiti artists respect each other's work. A new piece will be given a wide birth of a month minimum before another artist will create a new piece, spraying over top the previous piece. There are no battles or police conflict, or citizens complaining to councilors on how graffiti art is destroying their lives. Most graffiti is sprayed on bridges or underpasses, on walls that are hidden from the public to ensure the artist won't be seen by police, when they're flexing their artistic muscle in the early hours of the morning, while it's still dark. However, and when it comes to tagging hydro boxes, garbage dumpsters, mail boxes, or telephone poles, this is more about artists declaring their territory to other rival artists. I don't consider this art, any more than I regard 'throw-ups' as art, where an artist will spray out the outline of large lettering, to denote their initials. These pieces are an eyesore and rarely take time and special care to be created.
Stickers too are quite an enterprise, and artists will go to great lengths to place them in strategic locations, often using extension poles to place them high up.
I'm willing to go out on a ledge to suspect that one of my all-time fav artists, Picasso, would probably have thrown his hat in the lot with me, to support graffiti artists. Picasso lived and breathed the free-wheeling nature of art; its ability to transmute any conventional mode of thinking. He painted the walls of apartments when he lived in the Gothic quarter in Barcelona, a series of long-winding cobblestone streets with very tall, skinny apartments. It was illegal of course to paint on apartment walls but that never stopped him. His art flowed out of his being like warm milk being pumped out of a dairy cow. That's what art is all about, not pigeon-holding or curtailing free-flowing nature. Graffiti art is no different.
Banksy is the best example in modern times; an artist whose work commands hundreds of thousands of dollars, and whose identity is a secret, to the best of my knowledge. Banksy isn't just a street artist but a political activist. For me, this closes the loop on graffiti dating back to Roman times, when even strumpets for hire would advertise their rates on ancient walls, and then to come to our present day menaces to society who just want to flex their talent and leave art behind.
[Photo: graffiti in Florentin district, Tel Aviv]
