I’m the early 2000s I worked as an assistant producer on a San Francisco graffiti documentary featuring several of these artists https://youtu.be/7Ub8uRFzUCQ
Why did you leave San Francisco?
San Francisco Graffiti
101–110 of 257 posts
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#102Beautiful and disgusting at the same time. It’s vandalizing public property in the same way that human shit vandalizes a lot of public property in SF. I don’t know which one is worse. One can be beautiful, the other is done because he has no choice. For graffiti I’m in support of lashing or whipping the people that do this. It’s effective in Singapore. But then we lose all this great public art.
If they're not covering windows, signs or art, what is being vandalized? A blank slab of concrete performs its function equally well no matter the color.
Most graffiti is just tagging, scribbling their name on something. I do not consider this art. It makes the environment you live in lease appealing (looks more ghetto).
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#103Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#104For a small business owner, graffiti is an unconsented, recurring tax that provides zero ROI for the neighborhood. In SF if you own a business that gets tagged, you have X number of days to clean it up yourself otherwise YOU get fined.. the city does nothing to go after the criminals. They only go after law-abiding tax paying citizens cause that's where the money is.
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#105The thing that really gets me about graffiti is that you don't own the canvas. It's just vandalism. If you're commissioned to do it one someone else's wall, I'd call that a mural instead, and I see quite a few aesthetically pleasing ones around. Why can't you paint on stuff you actually own, instead of making it someone else's problem? You might as well just shit on someone else's lawn and say it's fine because it's…
If a graffiti artist believed shitting on a lawn was art, they would, but they don't.
The problem and solution are similar to OSS:
The problem: the artists have something to say, they want as many people as possible to see it and use it.
The solution: make it free, and put it where as many people as possible can access it.
Yes, I just compared graffiti to github.
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#106I live near Paris, and it's a shame to see this sort of thing on every surface here. It's so easy and effortless to trash the look of a place, and so much effort and pain to get it back to a presentable state. It just seems hopeless trying to stop it. Sure, you can point to examples of graffiti that don't look all that bad, and I imagine some examples can even be considered to improve the look of a space. But taking…
I consider corporal punishment inherently barbaric. An appropriate fine or short stay in jail ought not be life-ruining.
Also, I think there are other effective approaches in some circumstances. People (including "the kids"), locally (Toronto) and other places I've heard of, have been paid (not a super common thing, but it happens) to do actual artwork. There's a mural I consider quite well done, not too far from my place, that isn't getting defaced even though it's in a place where I would otherwise ordinarily expect strong temptation to "tagging" and other graffiti.
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#107Beautiful and disgusting at the same time. It’s vandalizing public property in the same way that human shit vandalizes a lot of public property in SF. I don’t know which one is worse. One can be beautiful, the other is done because he has no choice. For graffiti I’m in support of lashing or whipping the people that do this. It’s effective in Singapore. But then we lose all this great public art.
If they're not covering windows, signs or art, what is being vandalized? A blank slab of concrete performs its function equally well no matter the color.
A 'blank slab of concrete' isn't just a structural element; it’s a signal of stewardship. When you ignore tagging on that slab, you create a permission structure for more intrusive vandalism. It’s the 'Broken Windows' theory in practice: tagging leads to broken glass, which leads to copper theft, because the physical environment signals that the space is unmonitored and ownership is absent.
High-trust societies rely on the shared maintenance of the commons. If the community can't even agree to keep a wall clean, it’s a leading indicator that the city has lost the ability to enforce the social contract on larger issues.
Sadly this is partly why SF will never be a high-trust society.
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#108For a small business owner, graffiti is an unconsented, recurring tax that provides zero ROI for the neighborhood. In SF if you own a business that gets tagged, you have X number of days to clean it up yourself otherwise YOU get fined.. the city does nothing to go after the criminals. They only go after law-abiding tax paying citizens cause that's where the money is.
This site scrapes the city efforts to document who is doing "how much" damage/art.
Once they catch an artist in the act, they will use these archives to recommend a punishment.
But your point in valid - San Francisco likes graffiti.
Re: San Francisco Graffiti
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect most graffiti doesn't actually have this twisted motivation. It's just selfishness by thoughtless people wanting to advertise themselves, like dogs marking their territory. This intellectual rationalisation is more of a projection by resentful people with a poisonous worldview.
I think you may have agreed with them a long time ago, when you chose your username. Have you perhaps become wealthier, in the interim?
Maybe just more mature.