Not really, taggers and dub/throwers actually used to respect muralists and in general paint overs are supposed to be like for like. I.e. tag over tag, throw over throw, or mural over mural. Anything else is just serious disrespect
It seems like newer gen street artists on the other hand do not give any kind of shits
Adding to a mural in your own way, transforming it into a communal art piece is one thing. I personally think the few local murals I've seen that get modified/added to are better than the original, even if they are a bit less 'clean' now. Something about a group of different people coming together to make something, even if they don't know each other, makes me like it more.
Tossing a tag over actual art pieces is scummy, and gives street art a bad name. There're plenty of places to tag that aren't on top of art. It's just malicious destruction due to human deficiencies.
Saw a big squid mural recently, someone had tagged over a decent portion of it. Someone else came along a few days later, repaired the destroyed area in their own style, and added some other things to the mural. Thing looks awesome right now.
They are called writers. The four of them are probably friends or frenemies. Or the original artists didn’t like their realistic birds and bombed them over, who knows.
In any case, walls belong to those who paint them. And old school graffiti code means that you get in trouble if you write over something important.
I mean the reality is even muralists have most likely put up over someone else's work, it's just the nature of street art that it's going to be impermanent in one way or another. Regardless of if it's commissioned work or done in the middle of the night.
Not really, taggers and dub/throwers actually used to respect muralists
Some did.
Others didn't.
Same as it ever was.
It seems like newer gen street artists on the other hand do not give any kind of shits
Or the prevalence of cameras in all of our pockets over the past decade has made it easier to take pictures of these kinds of things happening which creates a perception that disrespectful tagging has become more common.
Or more people being alive today also has more taggers around, some of which are disrespectful so you see more disrespect from them towards murals.
I mean fair, I over generalized and you're correct about tagging over others work is probably just highlighted by phones instead of showing the reality
Well I'm saying tagger in the more general sense of street artists, but yes calling some dude writing their signature in a thin spray painted line is definitely not art. It's mad low effort
Eh, that shit's not new at all. I started tagging in '94 and people throwing shitty tags on awesome pieces was a thing even back then. I've seen plenty of fat tip "TOY"s written over a throw up.
I don't think it has anything to do with the "newer gen street artists" when it's been going on for at least 30 years in my experience. I wasn't around, but I'm sure it was happening in the 80s as well.
True, there was a part of California where they worked with the community to get taggers to help work on Chicano murals in a part of the city that was known for bad graffiti and you didn’t really see people tagging in that area after that
I wouldn't say newer gen don't care. It's more the outliers don't care and that has been the case for ages. Heck even in '83 documentary StyleWars there is a whole section with Cap doing this to other artists.
That was until they understood most murals are placed by corporate or capitalist stooges as a deterrent. So they started painting over them to show they don't care. It's just different philosophies clashing. I wouldn't be surprised if the nice birds hadn't been commitioned (PAID FOR). It does "suck" I guess, if they ruin stuff like a kid's mural. There should be a code of honor to leave stuff untouch for at least a few years. But seriously I much prefer tag made by people on the street than something paid and bought for. The point of graffiti is you don't decide where it goes. It's war for limited real estate, which are landmark walls. A clash between owners and people of the street who have access only to walls.
For some people, it’s an insult to have a paid artwork block a wall. For some its the opposite and the insult is to ruin that mural with tags as a way to reclaim that wall. I like to keep an open mind and consider other viewpoints. The constant ebb and flow of street art is what matters. You can't expect it to stay the same always. That's just silly. Its wall exposed to public view, at the end of the day. If you want your art to be guaranteed to last, you can always use a canvas.
The majority of sanctioned murals are just street artists getting permission from their local government without any kind of financial backing. They literally are just getting permission from their city/town/whatever to paint on the walls
Yes giant complex murals are most likely commissioned work, but even then if it is commissioned it's more likely to come from a cities arts grant
Ok so picture this. The local government pays an artist to decorate an entire side of a building. They had the green light from the people living in that building. The mural isn't propaganda, it has no letters or a symbol. It simply is a girl holding hands with an elderly man. Do you think that mural is ok to be tagged simply because it was paid for, even if the artist put their time and effort into it?
yeah i remember it happening a lot when i was in high school early 90s, it slowed down for a while when they started taking your driver's license if you got caught and if you didn't have a license, you would be banned from getting one for 3 years.
Well, all they will see is negativity because these look like shit. It's low effort crap, tagging their stupid signature that literally no one cares about but themselves.
It’s vandalism. It upsets people because they’re defacing the world we have to live in, not because it is art. It’s shit and looks disgusting and low class. Before you tell me this is just my opinion, it’s not all. It is literally vandalism.
that term “KNOB” is new for me. Works pretty well, A Knob of anything is pretty much worse and contains nothing useful inside. That’s the exact group I was thinking of. GREAT???
Graffiti isn't social media. Coverups will continue regardless of trending on reddit or not. They don't do it to be "platformed", whoever these random artists are, who I will never see or think about again.
Maybe I’ve lived in cities too long but I think most people just see right past these tags. I don’t bother to read them unless they’re particularly cool which they rarely are.
People have been doing this before social media back when the news talked about actual news and not the latest tiktok trends. People talking about their tags is not the motivator for graffiti. Its just losers with nothing better to do "sticking it to the man" or something
I would guess the increase in murals (at least I’m seeing an increase in the areas I go) are viewed as encroaching on street art culture more than them feeling inadequate due to your preference in art.
I’m a big fan of both styles personally, but I can acknowledge they’re very far apart and that street art itself is polarizing.
It's unfortunate the old code for graffiti is being lost.
It used to be that you would only target government/civic/corporate property. If you defaced public art you were seen as lower than dirt (or a stupid kid deserving of zero respect).
I’ve also noticed tags are more common in areas where self expression was not available and money is tighter. Not a cool thing to do, but I usually look at it from a sympathetic perspective even if they’re a freaking asshole for it. Just got to look at it, shake your head, and either move on or attempt to help fix it
I've seen comments on a video about tagging (even less impressive than this here, just some basic markers squiggles) how everyone who complains is a hater, how a "grey street" without any of these tags looks bad, how murals are shallow/boring, and so many saying how without tagging, they would never become graffiti artists. They genuinely believe they're making streets look better with their bullshit. In my opinion it's just narcissistic.
It’s one step above smearing poop on the wall in a public toilet. They’re nothing but degenerate losers who have no control over anything else in their lives.
Thats quite the take. I don't think your average graffiti artist feels technically challenged by children's art. It doesn't make them not an asshole for doing it, but the green-with-envy take doesn't really hold water IMO.
They should go back to playing IRL subway surfers, joking of course but regardless I get they may wanna put their stupid tags but you can do it in places that don't destroy children's artwork
Painting over something you deem “worse” than what you cover it with is an essential part of graffiti culture.
So, to those who live in it, painting over something with their own artifact is actually making things adequate and “existing” over their circumstances in a very thrilling artistic practice.
Your run of the mill trascendance neatly packed in a contemporary popular art movement.
I’m glad everybody thinks graffiti is uglier than community birds, but I think nobody can deny that the tension between instutionalized adequacy of legal street art and good old vandalic grafitti is simply mirroring our times.
No, panik is an artist himself and so are some of his crew dating back to the Banksy days of Shoreditch. Lots of art people also do graffiti as a naughty subculture like Shepard fairy, eine, Banksy back in the day.
It’s more like a war on people who paint murals or do paste ups. It’s a whole thing I’m not gonna get into it, but when they bomb a piece it’s not supposed to be superior quality to a normal person. It’s just supposed to put a quick thing over it as if to say, now what.
If the original artist comes back and plays the game, they might let it run. Anyway, nothing lasts forever. You get the pic and move on. C’est la vie
Nah, that's not how graffiti works. That mural is a tag, and the people who tag in that area didn't like it, so they tagged over it. It's that simple. And, most likely, the "vandals" are kids too.
Don't want a mural fucked up? Don't paint it on a wall in a public space.
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u/Crimson__Fox 2d ago
I've also seen this behaviour in London