We don’t have many fountains in Los Angeles, and our biggest one is not at all ostentatious, but it is an art deco gem. Riding back from Hollywood last night, I went to sit there for a few moments in the soft drizzle, and to my disgust discovered that the pavement surrounding it had been covered with many large graffiti tags, surrounding about 1/3 of the fountain.
I don’t know what is involved in removing this stuff off of brick and concrete, but I hope it is done soon, and the guilty scum are caught and jailed for despoiling one of the nicest things in Los Angeles. We just spent a ton of money refurbishing it and upgrading it, and now it looks like shit.
I’ve always appreciated accurate thread titles. Which this one didn’t have. I stand by my statement – it the tagger tagged all around the fountain, but didn’t touch the fountain, the tagger showed some degree of respect to it.
No, that’s brutality. They should simply be “tagged” themselves with full body tatoos indicating that they are criminal loser morons. Like, tatooing those three words directly onto their foreheads and covering the rest of their body with poorly drawn tatoos of penises.
Oh, come on. There are taggers, and there are graffiti artists. Taggers are just attention whores who want to put their tag everywhere, but graffiti artists (who might also be attention whores, but not necessarily) are providing commentary, wit, and whatever else it is that art is supposed to provide. Think “Kilroy” here.
The light rail trains in Denver now have advertising on them, and it looks like utter crap. I’d much rather see an honest work of art on the train.
Boyo Jim, here is a picture of the fountain. I haven’t seen the graffiti in question, but from Stan Shmenge’s description, I’m assuming that the concrete rim seen on the bottom of the photo was the surface tagged. While not the “water jet” portion of the fountain, it nonetheless forms the rim of the water pool. It is certainly part of the fountain, part of the architecture, and part of the art.
Regarding graffiti as art: while it is true that Graffiti Art is quite different than Tags; I take issue with any artwork permanently applied to any surface that belongs to someone else.
I think the thread title is plenty accurate enough. A sidewalk tag is so much more visible here than it would be on the actual fountain, especially since most of the fountain is involved in spewing water. I think the sidewalk was tagged not out of deference towards the fountain, but the visibility of the sidewalk.
Those advertisements are paying for the trains that I find convenient every day of my life. Graffiti garbage that just wants to be legitimate oh-so-much is of no benefit to anyone and just looks like shit to 99% of the population.
I don’t know what the fuck it is but a top annoyance for me is the “marking up people’s property is art” idea that some people hold. It’s just fucking stupid.
I have on that matter (concerning “grafitti artists”) some small project : defacing their long, elaborate work by painting random streaks of paint on it (in the form of X crosses or whatever). Take the fuckers at their own game .
It’s selfish is what it is. Not you, the so-called artists are selfish. If they want to do art somewhere, do it. But don’t destroy other people’s property.
No. One is something you don’t like and the other is defacing walls. The former is done with permission, the latter is just destruction.
No, it is the surrounding walkway, not shown in your linked photo. But the walkway and landscaping and benches surrounding it form an integral part of the architecture.
