I found this on Cesar Chavez and Eastern on the side of a liquor store. I first saw it riding the bus going to school and this sign stood out like the jewel that it is. I made some edits on photoshop, but only to bring out the colors. To me, this says it all right here. The tagging of gang bangers, crews, tagging crews and corporate companies. The dog eat dog competition of getting up, being seen and having your stuff be seen by everyone. Being a rockstar right ? It’s funny that this piece of advertising, covered in tags from head to toe, seen as an eye sore by everyone, never got taken down. Even as the wall it’s next to it gets buffed out every morning after it’s tagged up, they leave advertising like this alone because if it were to get painted over, the city could possibly be sued by the company or the store owner. I’m not entirely sure how the laws regarding murals/advertising works. No one does and that’s part of the problem right ? The city is so desperate to stop this problem that they’ll make an example out of anyone they catch. Even if you may or may not be beautifying the city with cool kitty cats.
Good point. Graffiti is at least a balance against the ugly assault of advertising, which is truly abhorrent. They should buff that out first.
Too bad MIDZT got busted for the cats- especially since I’m pretty confident that someone else was rockin them!
not naming names tho’
great police work boys!!!
FREE MIDZT!!! FREE MIDZT!!! FREE MIDZT!!!
Great post! With Bansky in town this is even more relevant. I think Shepard Fairey probably has a few things to comment as well. Thx, El Random Hero.
Yeh, I feel safer with a guy who paints pictures of cats being in jail. I think I can sleep with my door open, now.
I wonder who the Deputies shook down for the “tips” that led to Mr. Rios’ arrest? X2 with El Chavo – the blight of relentless adverts is more offensive than any tag I’ve seen.
The ironic (or sad) thing about the issue of graffiti vs. advertising is that right now in the city of LA legal mural art compositions officially cannot go up because of the pedo with commercial advertizers and landlords in court. Advertising isnt only as visually nasty as the ugliest tagging, but it is currently so destructive that even public art that is not graffiti is being affected.
on a similar note, supervisor molina has begun attacking free speech in Eastlos in the form of buffing legal graffiti art painted with permission. Under the guise of addressing constituent concerns about violent tagbangers, alleys and “free speech zones” kids could go and legally express themselves have been attacked by the buffers and diligent sherriff code enforcement patrols. While she has drastically cut art funding, the supervisor is now spending millions monthly to cover graffit in alleys and along riverbeds. The sad part is that alleys full of gang tagging and trash remain untouched, homeless shit and piss still left uncleaned all over east la; but the alleys and walls were kids can legally paint are buffed and patrolled daily. The supervisor can BS that this is graffiti abatement but it is not, when people get permission and local consent (including from the supervisor before she belly rolled) and our political and law enforcement institutions still attack and cover it is imfringing on free speech. i wish I had the feria for a lawyer.
PS El Random, where is the gang graffiti? I dont see no varrios mobbed up there, unless you count NHC because a grip of them are in the Lott 13!
Graffiti is part of Los Angeles culture and that’s never going to change. For 30+ years we’ve addressed the issue with the same failed approach waisting tax money covering it up and waisting talent by imprisoning artists. How about we take a new approach? Let’s paint the river, let’s paint our freeway sound walls, let’s let people color our public spaces.
Yeah a lot of it can looks like crap, why? Because most of the ugly stuff is quickly scribbled tags. What if we said go ahead take your time, let’s see what you’ve got. Maybe if we embrase it rather than reject it the city could get some real value from the free art people are willing to give us. Spending $15k to cover up something I enjoyed looking at seems like a waste of our tax dollars.