Brooklyn Got 'Tagged' More in '08
With tighter city budgets, quality of life issues are bound to get worse. Case in point: Graffiti complaints in North Brooklyn were up 20 percent last year; arrests were up 24 percent. “It’s bringing property values down,” complained one Bushwick resident whose building is frequently tagged. In parts of South Brooklyn like Sunset Park and…
With tighter city budgets, quality of life issues are bound to get worse. Case in point: Graffiti complaints in North Brooklyn were up 20 percent last year; arrests were up 24 percent. “It’s bringing property values down,” complained one Bushwick resident whose building is frequently tagged. In parts of South Brooklyn like Sunset Park and Coney Island, complaints were up but arrests were down.
Here’s a news story on that same Baksy piece: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7188387.stm
This house in London tried to sell an original Banksy tag, as well as the wall it was attached to, on ebay for one million pounds:
http://www.switchedonset.com/2008/01/own-an-original.html
don’t know how that worked out in the end.
well, just to start off the morning right- BRG was neither condoning illegal graffiti, nor excusing. But like any artistic person, she draws things out of the visual experience you might not. Graffiti is an intense visual and artistic experience- I find much of it fascinating, some of it brilliant. It’s an urban and politco-social phenomenon with a long, even venerable history. Even the Romans dealt with it. I’ve got my theories on why young urban kids risk their lives to tag a building but that said,the real question is why benson couldn’t just disagree with BRG’s opinion, but instead had to make a full blown, uncalled for attack. Which he continued on the open thread and still continues here.
He very obviously has issues with differing opinions, but the insults and innuendos (done maliciously, not in fun) are over the top, uncalled for and puts him on the same level of maturity as the young graffiti painters he so despises.
Late to the game, but ….
I have to agree with Benson. You want to tag a building? Buy it and do what ever you want to it. Go to town. Otherwise, hands off. Same for public property.
Bored teenager/20-something? Get a job, go to school or volunteer. Being bored is a lame excuse for illegal behavior.
As for Haring, I remember his chalk drawings on the 51st Street station on the 6 back in the early 80’s. Just don’t lean on them!
Although there were SOME pieces that might be considered worthy of praise, the overwhelming majority is simply crap. Trying to act as if a few nice pieces should excuse the majority of garbage doesn’t work.
I have a glowing baby on an old spiral notebook cover he did with a marker when he spoke at my high school, its gotta be worth something, but i’m not sure i could part with it..
I saw them in the Soho train station. Loved them- they were so serendipitous. boy, Legion. had you been able to peel off that picture you would be rich. Don’t they periodically restore that mural?
I was always amazed at how quickly those drawings captured the imagination of everyone. They were so mysterious and humorous and iconic at the same time.
In the early eighties I had a temp job somewhere on west 57th street. I think it was a Board of Ed. Office. I got to input information on some sort of ancient computer with green letters against a black screen. Think Omega Race.
Anyway, I used to get off at the 50th Street station on the A line, or perhaps the C local.
I started noticing these cool drawings done in white chalk on the black construction paper they put up prior to plastering over an advertisement.
I particularly liked the drawings that featured a large television box with legs and a square shaped barking dog.
These would show up routinely along the stations I’d pass by
that whole summer.
At one point I decided to try and peel one off for my bedroom, I got to about a quarter of the panel before the black construction paper started to thin out and shred. I figured at the time, it was well enough, the artist probably had it in their mind to keep these works as an ephemeral notion to be looked at for a short while until they were plastered over by an ad for pepto bismol.
The rest is history as they say,
Keith Haring will always be part of New York in that way that the city has of producing ground breaking cultural contributions out of thin air or sometimes a piece of chalk.
At least his “crack is wack” mural is still up there in East Harlem.
Denton;
I am well familiar with those buildings and that area. I ride my bike over the bridge often during the summer. I was born in a cold-water flat in Red Hook. I know tenements well.
I maintain my points, both about the graffitti, and BRG. If you check out the open thread, you can see that she is back to her usual intellectual pursuits.
By the way, BRG: Denton’s comments were about the buildings, not the graffitti. Please re-read his post.
The images from the roofs relate to a term in art history… ‘palimpsest’ like the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, France, images drawn over old images, relating to the importance of the new, and the oldness and less importance old. I’m starting to sound older than I am, a common malady on this site..thanks, Stella (the beer, not a woman)