Local artist Mini-Graf kindly installed this work: Danger: A repressive society is coming in Brougham Lane for a prospective docco some friends of mine are piloting.It was taken down within two hours. Can't have good art on the walls now, can we?
The Carriageworks people asked for the pic to run in their next art magazine.
Today I found a kindred blog, Nosey in Newtown, which pictured the German version of the stencil (below), also since removed.
Nosey documents the history of that wall as more artists keep putting new work there.
What officialdom will never realise is that some people need the freedom to act outside its claustrophobic middleclass oppression, and such people will gravitate to the inner city because suburbia is suffocating.
But control is getting more and more effective in the name of nothing more than a middle-class obsession with order and sterility.
As one caller on radio 702 commented to graffiti-hater Deborah Cameron, "At the end of the day it's only paint on the wall". 'Get some perspective' was her message to those whose brains explode every time they see wall art.
Funnily enough calls ran mostly in favour of wall art and even lenience to taggers -- "make them clean it up" was the commonly suggested punishment, and I have no problem with that if the wall owner doesn't want it on their wall.
But the haters of public art believe themselves to be the sole arbiters of public amenity.
PS Deborah Cameron yesterday spoke a nice faux-pas when she described herself as "a scrubber", referring to her neurotic habit of scrubbing out graffiti.
4 comments:
Graffiti artists are maybe the last creators of social colour on our dreary streets.
The glammed up eccentrics (Simon Reptile et al) have all disappeared and it's rare to even spot a drag queen these days.
I've trekked here via Darlinghurst nights blog. Saw your comment under the 3 saints post about writing a piece in City News about local blogs. I have a street fashion blog and I often find interesting outfits around the Cross, Darlinghurst, Paddo or Surry Hills. Here's my blog, please have a look and you can find my email on the contact page. Thanks! http://xssat.wordpress.com/
Hi Xiaohan
Yeah, let's do the article. Like yr style!
email me!
Hi Anonymous. Dreary streets? That's just what the middleclass twats who control this city like. Because it's, you know, respectable and Aunt Hilda from Pymble won't think less of them when she comes to visit.
The trouble with middleclass people is, though, that they think their opinion is reality and that anything outside their own limits of acceptability is therefore unacceptable and therefore must be stamped out. It's the old Mission mentality.
We bohos, artists and eccentrics on the other hand are quite happy for middleclass people to be as middleclass as they like. Just leave us alone!
Post a Comment