Half Assed Graffiti on the Warner
I don't think I really need to say anything about how much the above pisses me off. Had to share, vent, etc... Click to embiggen.
Labels: development, graffiti, planning, Warner Grand Theatre
life on the edge
daily musings about the oddities of san pedro, california.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I don't think I really need to say anything about how much the above pisses me off. Had to share, vent, etc... Click to embiggen.
19 Comments:
I, for one, am really angry at the way those graffiti vandals defaced the Warner's beautiful paint job...oh, wait, there isn't one.
Well, we do have those lovely seats that nobody must ever dance near.
Graffiti garbage in S.P. has really worsened over the past few years. Hope they clean this trash off the building soon and catch the riff raff who did this.
way to go, imbg. support your local vandals.
Yeah, IMBG's a righteous dude. I mean, shit, San Pedro's crappy looking anyway, so why not let the dumb fux like INK kick in their 2 cents worth of defacement? It's only fair.
Congratulations to both of you on your superb point-missing skills.
This INK kid is brazen. I see his name on what seems like every fifth major billboard, street sign, or any noticeable object around the South Bay.
Frankly, I want to understand what the hell drives American kids to want to deface things in public. You just don't see this in Asian, European, and first world countries.
Are our kids a bunch of wannabe artists who can't find a better canvas?
Well snakes, this is what happens when you are turning into a third world country, or city like L.A. is
Snakes On A Plane wrote:
Frankly, I want to understand what the hell drives American kids to want to deface things in public. You just don't see this in Asian, European, and first world countries.
You don't get out much, I guess.
Youth In Asia crew, Taiwan
Various pieces in Germany
Various artists, Switzerland
Banksy from the UK
Very in Osaka, Japan
And I could go on, and on, and on...
Snakes & Anon - Graffiti is a phenomenon that primarily occurs in 1st world countries.
I just spent a week and a half in Thailand and I saw maybe one wall with serious graffiti in Bangkok, and some light weight sticker stuff at the Art University. When I was in Paris, every flat wall that wasn't distinctly historic or in some super-posh neighborhood had end-to-end pieces on it.
oh pleaase, don't miss the point, graffiti or "end to end piece" crap is just one example of the third world-ization of this area.
Um, except that this style of graffiti started in the first world and has mostly stayed there. It's everywhere you look in Europe, and it's made significant inroads in affluent Asian countries. There's absolutely nothing "third world" about it.
Sorry if this screws up whatever theory you're trying to come up with, but that's just the truth.
I hate to agree with IMBG on anything, or to be redundant, but he's right on this one. Graffiti is a problem/symptom/phenomenon that accompanies affluence, not poverty.
I'm not sure what you're getting at with the "third world-zation" claim, either. I just got back from the "third world". The only place I saw any graffiti was in wealthy downtown Bangkok.
Calamari wrote:
Graffiti is a problem/symptom/phenomenon that accompanies affluence, not poverty.
Pretty much, although we must be careful not to confuse correlation with causation. Because this kind of graffiti requires a minimal amount of literacy along with access to aerosol spray paint and permanent markers, it's much more likely to be seen in countries that have things like compulsory education and hardware stores. Thus, you see a lot of it in New York City and very little in Darfur.
But it didn't come from affluent areas of the first world, or from affluent people; it came from disenfranchised people in large American cities. Without these people, who were poor enough to feel the need to announce their existence with graffiti but who could read and write and lived close to hardware stores to steal paint and markers from them, there would be no "pieces" on walls anywhere.
So, while graffiti always accompanies affluence just like you say (it could hardly be otherwise, as people who live in thatched huts can't go and boost cans of Krylon from the local Tru Valu), it also owes its existence to poverty. This is true even though many practitioners today are far from poor.
Affluence PLUS poverty = graffiti. QED.
"people who live in thatched huts can't go and boost cans of Krylon from the local Tru Valu"
- actually, I think most of the third world has easy access to spray paint, and other methods of graffiti. I'd argue that the reason that you don't see much graffiti in the third world is because one's immediate community (and thus community property and buildings) is seen as an extension of the family group, and people in that kind of society have too many connections and dependencies on one another to go around defacing property.
Affluence PLUS poverty = graffiti
I'd amend that to Affluence + Relative Poverty = Gang graffiti
&
Suburban Alienation + Influence of Gang Graffiti = "Street Art"
The poorest, most down and out American has far more wealth and options than 90% of the human beings living outside America. Most of the graffiti artists I've worked with came from middle class or upper middle class backgrounds. They've never "racked paint" in their lives. I'd be willing to bet that the crew that hit the Warner have led relatively calm suburban lives. Tagging and gang graffiti are another issue - those guys are the guys in "relative poverty".
Graffiti's roots may be in the kind of territorial issues that are relevant to gangs in poverty stricken urban areas, but it's mutated and been adopted by a whole generation of suburban kids. So in a way, there's now two graffitis one, rooted in gang territorialism, and another rooted in middle class alienation. There's almost zero connection between the two at this point, and it's really easy to confuse one with the other, or simply to be ignorant of the issue on that level.
I'm not making this distinction to justify or defend anyone's behavior, but to give some kind of background on how complex the social issues that give rise to tagging and graffiti are in the first place.
I've got a few ideas. How about public floggings of the homeboys who "feel the need to announce their existence". Gee...or maybe the "affluent" should just shower the taggers with their money to eliminate the gap between affluence and poverty. What a bunch of horse shit. They do it because they are low-lifes who don't respect a damn thing and it is a tool of communication between their stupid ass gangs. Hell, allot of them have money anyhow from their drug pushing and other crimes, and they still find it important to make their piss mark on the wall. And the suburban whiteboys who do it are just trying to fit into the "gangster" lifestyle that the media has made so hip.
Oh sorry. I'm just ignorant. I don't understand the complex social issues...I take it all back. Hug your local tagger.
I can't agree with any of you. Don't you all think it's pretentiouse for any of us to think we know everything (or anything) about the things in life we probably really don't understand?
Wait... what????
If you start asking me what my face looked like before my father was born, I swear I am going to have a tantrum right here in front of everybody.
What did your face look like before your father was born?
Ha ha! Syke! I wasn't really going to have a public tantrum.
I do have this weird urge to cleanse my mind of the distracting, deceiving thoughts that keep me in an illusory world of false boundaries, though. Well, it's probably because of this chest cold that's been going around.
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