Illegal graffiti is art. In your Sept. 10 Artys 2009 issue, City Weekly praised art genres such as “best artistic hair design,” “best beer and wine pairing” and “best high fashion junk.”
I appreciate all forms of art and creativity. However, when reading this year’s winners, I couldn’t help but feel that some of Salt Lake City’s most innovative, daring and committed artists were being left out. As offended as some people may be by the Salt Lake “graff” scene, it is growing here just as the art form has been growing around the world for the past 40 years.
Every major city is slowly but surely changing its colors. Graffiti is more than a genre but rather a true art renaissance. Considering the number of artists involved (thousands), the geographic scope and the many cultural implications it has helped create, I find the word “renaissance” almost too small.
For many, it is a way of life. Groundbreaking Salt Lake City pioneers like Guts, Snipe, Kuhr, Kiar, Aster, Endur and dozens of others have blazed trails for a new generation of writers. Often risking their freedom, and even their lives, newer artists like Animal, Extol, Duke, Oxen, Le Coup, Phuze, Scrol, Newbie, Poise and many more are busy fighting the good fight on their own terms.
This hasn’t gone without real sacrifice. Many artists are up against increasingly draconian prosecution, facing felony charges. Convictions in Salt Lake City now can lead not just to jail, but prison. The state clearly recognizes the power of this art to change the world and is showing more willingness to use tactics of repression.
Led by the gang task force, Salt Lake City’s police are conducting surveillance on MySpace and Facebook, harassing businesses that have given permission for artists to paint, arresting artists at legal permission walls, and in a recent case, holding a suspect on a $5 million bail while an accused child murderer was held on only $2 million in the same jail at the same time.
In my opinion, the essence of graffiti is artists taking back the world that has been stolen from them one neighborhood or train at a time. Personally, I find billboards that lure young people into the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, encourage unsustainable consumption and prop-up corporate-bought politicians much more “offensive” then the art that is said to deface them.
It’s time for Salt Lake City to embrace this renaissance that it is powerless to stop. Communities that have done this like in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, London, etc., are enjoying a higher quality of art. If you see work you don’t like, then do something better. After all, this is supposed to be a free country.
If only those voices that are preapproved and paid for can be heard then, collectively, we could be in serious trouble. A few tips for artists on the way to fame: avoid painting people’s houses, cars, churches, etc. If we stick to only targeting city and corporate property, we’ll win more allies in the long run. If you’re arrested, politely ask for a lawyer. Talking to police could ruin your life.
Keep it up, you brave souls—we’re winning! Free Gore and Solv now!
Name Withheld Upon Request
as someone who IS pushing this art thru a positive light in the community(arts fest, new years, etc) i have to say, nearly ALL marketing these days is graffiti related or done by graffiti artists that have moved to digital art.. its one thing to not like the crap sprayed by some kids, its another to denounce the culture as an art.. graffiti is a worldwide art for that was made in America by American youth, there isnt too many art forms out there that can be said comes from youth.. people spent a lot of money to learn what these kids teach themselves through graffiti.. im not defending either side of this, but most of you need take a look around your house & i GUARANTEE there is some kind art, be it on your Red Bull cans or whatever.. think about that before you go on your rants about graffiti.. if you have a real problem, come to Uprok & try to make your point valid..
I have personally seen the art that he speaks of, it is amazing. It is not these little punks that run around and paint dicks on your fence or offensive anything. The Graffiti art is done by professional's. Most of the art you will see is the art done by little kids themselvels ranging from 12-17 years old. That is not art just crap!!! A real artist knows what, when and where they should be doing it, and be repressing this art for our state will only lead to complete havic. I have actually done the research un-like most of you writing your comment's, and i can tell you it's not going to be pretty if we keep repressing this art form. Why waste millions of dollars trying to stop self expression? That is just crazy to me when we could be giving it to the schools or failing family business's that wal-mart has destroyed. Our state has not been making wise choices for a long time and it's about time that someone realizes and corrects it before we turn into Harlem if you know what I mean. Do you know that Salt Lake City is the number one state in the world for the petifile's? Now that is something we should be more focused on. Which would you rather have some paint on a building or your child being groped, sexual abused by a stranger right underneath your nose? It happens everyday and no one say's anything just think about the bigger hands at large then just a little paint!!! With that being said i hope to do big things for this state of correcting the fault and holding the sick ones at large for their crimes that are far worse than just a little paint.
"Brave souls," my ass. "We're winning!" Bullshit. Let me see one of you, (please, please, please, I'm begging you!) spraying your ugliness on someone else's property. It's a life's ambition to have 5 mintues alone with you in a dimly lit back lot or alley where you are adding to the visual pollution of our environment.
You fucking coward. How dare you waste that many words sounding like a sociopathic thug with an overactive, narcissistic imagination...or deep psychosis?
There's a reason you signed your letter "Name Withheld..." Otherwise, someone would show up at your door with a fucking baseball bat! Swing for the fence!
That's what awaits you and your juvenille delinquent losers courtsey the other 99.99% of the local citizens who are angry and just waiting for a chance to catch one of you.
I've been to The Louvre in Paris and all the Smithsonian museums and galleries in D.C. and for you to call this short-hand, retarded vandalism some form of "art" is something that would embarass your parents, if you had any.
The argument the letter writer makes is ridiculous and insulting. Like Haduke said, the vast, vast majority of the graffiti in town is ugly, crude tags that aren't artistic in the least. There is a distinction between public and private property, but honestly I don't think it's as important as you make it out to be. I have a bunch of city property in front of and to the side of my house. I suppose I'm not as pissed when that gets tagged as if someone were to tag my front door, but I'm still pretty pissed. It's vandalism that often takes a long time to get cleaned up and in the mean time it makes the whole neighborhood look like shit. The reason the cops are throwing the book at the people they catch doing this is because we as a community are fed up with it. Doing more than $1,000 in damages is a felony, and it's not hard to do that much damage with a can of spray paint, especially if you're tagging vehicles or other things that cost a lot to fix. There are a lot of other more important things wrong with the world, but you idiots runing around with markers and spray paint are definitely part of the problem, not the solution. Take your creative expression and shove it up your ass.
Sorry, but I call bullshit on your letter. Running around in the middle of the night and spraying your little moniker all over everything is not art. Any dip shit with a marker can do that and, lately, it seems the dip shits are out in full force. I’ve seen many of the monikers you mention here sprayed on private property, including fences, brick walls, windows, cars and more. There is nothing artful about it – it boils down to coverage. The more you spray your stupid moniker all over town, regardless of what private property you ruin in the process, the more street cred you earn among your peers. This is not done to artfully enhance the community in any way; it is done for the sole satisfaction of the sprayer. Now, I’ve seen what Guts, among others you’ve mentioned, can really do - we’ll not name real names here, but he’s fucking fantastic. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure I saw his art on 337’s public wall just yesterday. Yes, he worked his moniker into his piece, but he did it artistically. What he does, with a few others, is pleasing to look at. What most others do, because they have no fucking talent, is nothing more that juvenile bullshit.
My neighborhood is hit more and more by many of the little kiddie wanna-be’s you mentioned in your letter. They’re constantly painting several small, privately owned restaurants, for starters, and much more. And I can think of several walls, all owned privately, some of which are residences, that are constantly hit. I’ve never, not once in my neighborhood, seen anything remotely resembling art. For these little dickheads, it is nothing more than a dog pissing on a bush.
90% of the so-called graff artists here are nothing. They prove this over and over by painting shit anybody could paint on private property and then stealing away into the night to let the owner deal with it in the morning.
Just yesterday, while complaining about the talentless shit being sprayed all over town, I told my wife that it seems the kiddies have forgotten the rules pertaining to graff art, the primary one being YOU DO NOT HIT PRIVATE PROPERTY. My own fence has been hit a couple times. I built this fence myself of the best cedar I could find in hopes of building something nice. I spent over $3,500 on the project; money that my wife and I worked hard to earn and after the first time I was hit, I vowed revenge if ever I catch the kiddie doing it.
If this is the kind of “art” you approve of and enjoy, may I suggest you leave your address here and I’ll treat you to some of it.