Once upon a time there was the Big Apple which was colored with graffiti and murals: train wagons and metro tunnels, the walls in the Bronx as well as those in the exclusive Manhattan. A trade mark, a sign of the times. But times do change and it looks like New York has now decided to launch a real crusade against graffiti writers, also known as the rebellious artists. New York City Transit, the local Metro company, is going to unleash a patrol made up of retired detectives and inspectors into its 468 stations to avoid shelling out huge amounts of money at least this year: last year, in fact, the company spent as much as 125 thousand dollars to remove graffiti and 350 thousand dollars in 2007. With the death of great spray paint artists such as Basquiat and Haring, wall art appears to be headed for tougher times. All this despite the fact that Shepard Fairey, who has hit the headlines for his graffiti portrait of President Obama, hangs in the U.S. National Portrait Gallery in Washington. And yet, at 39 years of age, he is often chased by the police across the United States just like it happened to several of his colleagues, such as Dash Snow and Danille Bremmer. And in Italy? In Bologna, street writers are kept under control by the “ronde”, i.e., groups of private citizens, but at the same time they are assigned dedicated open spaces for their art. In Milan, instead, they have decided to be rigorous, also applying fines, obtaining harsh criticism from the media and the obligation to clean up. Milan anti urban decay provision calls for 500 euro fines for those who are caught defacing a wall with graffiti. And yet, the writers’ creativity can give life to a number of original openings. Davide Eron Salvadei, the writer who was awarded by Terna for the artwork “Untitled”, is currently involved in planning a “fresco” for the church of San Martino in Riserba, and the Rimini municipality has commissioned a 250 sqm. public artwork to enhance the value of the harbour area of the city. Moreover, the Civic Museum in Rimini has requested the 21 preparatory boards which Eron has made for this huge fresco. The museum will also dedicate a space for Eron’s artworks. For approximately ten years, between 1988 and 1998, the artist, with his can of spray paint, has “painted” the walls of Rimini, his hometown, and surrounding areas. He later decided to try painting on canvas while following the same technique of the writers. “It’s not an imported culture. Ours is an authentic and pure form of art, born out of a need to express and establish ourselves in a creative way in a society where minorities are often marginalized and discriminated against. After all it’s the same thing that happened to jazz, which has now been upgraded to the rank of a refined and cultured musical genre.” Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle and like Shepard Fairley, who was condemned to pay a 2 thousand euro fine and forced to clean up the graffiti, says :”Guys, art is art, but property remains private and should be respected.”
2009-07-20
