Saturday, December 02, 2006

A for Effort, V for Vandelism

If you're traveling out of downtown Nashville and head south on I-65 just before the Wedgewood exit, take a look at this:



I like art, but doesn't acrylics on canvas suffice? Defacing public property or "tagging" private property is just simply selfish. The art of vandelism. I was dismayed to see tagging done on a building's glass block facade.

Apparently there is a whole conversation on The Culture and Politics of Graffiti Art

Wrap these quotes around your head:

"Graffiti writing breaks the hegemonic hold of corporate/governmental style over the urban environment and the situations of daily life. As a form of aesthetic sabotage, it interrupts the pleasant, efficient uniformity of "planned" urban space and predictable urban living. For the writers, graffiti disrupts the lived experience of mass culture, the passivity of mediated consumption." - Jeff Ferrell, Crimes of Style

"People with money can put up signs ... if you don't have money you're marginalized...you're not allowed to express yourself or to put up words or messages that you think other people should see. Camel (cigarettes), they're up all over the country and look at the message Camel is sending...they're just trying to keep the masses paralyzed so they can go about their business with little resistance." -- Eskae

2 comments:

Jamie said...

Dangit! You beat me to it. I drive past this every morning and have been meaning to take a picture of it.

Your commentary on it, though, is a lot more thought out than mine would have been. I was just going to comment on 'how the hell do they get that done?'. It must take a while to paint that whole thing, but when could somebody get up there without being noticed/busted?

Kerry Woo said...

Jag, I'm wondering how they do it myself without falling to the ground or dropping milk crates full of spray paint cans to the ground. Unbelievable!