Wandering around the city this week, I took a few pictures of some graffiti. Now to me, I don’t like tagging, but a good bit of street art in graffiti style murals will make me pause and enjoy. It can be a political statement, a decoration, or just a bit of abstract art – and viola – it simply adds a bit of “alt-culture” to the area – and to me, enriches the entire experience of city life. Basically, it breaks up the grey concrete that is urbanity and replaces it with… COLOR!
The thing is that street art – proper street art – while created with the basics of a design and spray paint – is actually proper art. It takes practice, it takes vision, and it takes a certain amount of balls to go to a business owner and ask hey, do you mind if… (or even more so if you’re doing an entire mural in the dark of night). Note that I don’t agree with illegal activity – nor with vandalism in general. That leads me to the quesiton – is art vandalism… well. That’s not for me to decide. I suppose in this case, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. (Or is it in the case the “bolder?”)
My advice to those that are in cities – be bold, work with the community, and put up more street art. 🙂
Generally speaking, I dislike the people who go around and vandalize everything here in Germany. It seems to be an epidemic – and unlike some places in the world – who promptly cover it up with paint (or repair work) and punish the people placing their mark out there — Germany seems to be more leniant (either not bothering to prosecute or if they do, it’s a fine and that’s it). Thus, there seems to be a large amount of interesting and somehow “art”-like graffiti that flows out of the creative minds of the local vandals – everywhere. And so, those that are doing this type of stuff are now (in my book at least) divided into two categories – the Taggers / Vandals – who just set out to put their horrible ugly mark on everything…. and the Graffiti artists.
Humor me if you will – the following is tagging/vandalism that I hate (this green WR of someone’s initials or handle or whatever) because it is just nothing – it’s ugly, it’s just there and has no visual quality that you can see other than just to annoy and cause me to want to go back and repaint / repair the windows, doors, tables, chairs, or whatever else that it has been put on:
However – the following is a short sample of some amazing graffiti art – that I’ve found all over Berlin (with labels), mostly in/around abandoned places – by unknown “artists” that seem to come back and/or have hours to spend spray painting – with out the worry of being BUSTED (where do they find the time to do this?):
“running spray can” at Weissensee Childrens Hospital The Sweeper & His Broom (notice how the broom is actually incorporated) at Weissensee Childrens Hospital 5 figures at Barenquell Abandoned Brewery
Anyhow, the thing is that over time, you realize that some of the work you’re seeing is “marked” somehow and/or all by the same graffiti artist. The style is the same, and the interesting thing is that believe it or not – some of them have actually gained a following. For example, one guy XooooX here in Germany is rather well known (photos below), and another “Banksy” in the UK has been here as well. To top it off once relatively known by their handle, you can find books where these more “famous” graffiti artworks are even MAPPED OUT for people to go and see. (Personally, I like just stumbling across it…)
“XooooX Paris”
Barstool Girl by XooooX
Striped Sweater / Shorts Girl by XooooX
Because of a sort of sick sense of pleasure and enjoyment in the discovery – over 4 years, I’ve become kind of aware of the pattern of some of the more consistent “artists” – and when I see it, I make sure to take a picture and add it to the set. Why? Well, because it could be covered up sometime – any time. And if you talk to the people putting it up there – that’s half the fun… creating a work of “art” that people see before it’s gone.
You can see my full graffiti art set (ever growing, in fact) by viewing the slideshow below:
