As we all know, trillions of dollars were drained from the economy by these graffito creeps, triggering the housing collapse and the meltdown of the world's financial market....No wait, that was someone else. We'll get those guys later.
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Los Angeles' War on Street Artists
The art world sees a vibrant movement. Metro's cops see jail fodder.
See also: How the City of Gardena Turns Every Piece of Graffiti Into a Felony Crime
The Secrets of L.A. Street Art: Bumblebee, Sharktoof and Linelinedot Discuss Their Work
Fuck New York: Street Art Began Here in L.A.
Back when L.A. graffiti artist Sight was a teenager, he began slipping out of his mom's South Central home late at night, armed with a razor blade or a can of spray paint, to claim the city's surfaces as his own.
"When you go out in the nighttime, there's nobody out there," he recalls. "There's a full moon; the air's crisp. I'm with just me and my thoughts. It's a beautiful experience."
PHOTO BY NANETTE GONZALES
Sight: "I know I did a lot of damage, but I'm in a cell with a guy doing half the time for attempted murder. I'm like, 'Wow, I better be nice, or he'll try to kill me, too.' "
PHOTO BY NANETTE GONZALES
Vyal: "The cops have all of a sudden become art critics."
Details
See also:
How the City of Gardena Turns Every Piece of Graffiti Into a Felony Crime
The Secrets of L.A. Street Art: Bumblebee, Sharktoof and Linelinedot Discuss Their Work
Fuck New York: Street Art Began Here in L.A.
How the City of Gardena Turns Every Piece of Graffiti Into a Felony Crime
The Secrets of L.A. Street Art: Bumblebee, Sharktoof and Linelinedot Discuss Their Work
Fuck New York: Street Art Began Here in L.A.
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Marilyn Avila, Sight's high school sweetheart and, now, the mother of his two children — 6-month-old Sofia and 18-month-old Adam — says, "I saw how happy it made him. It almost freed his mind."
Sight was so prolific in his early days that he was known by peers, and graffiti watchers at large, as the "King of South Central."
Avila recalls: "We would get on the bus, and if there was other graf artists in there, he would know almost all of them. If not, he'll be, like, 'Oh, I'm Sight,' and they'll be, like, 'What?! You're Sight?!' "
By the time the young vandal began attending Los Angeles City College, though, he claims he didn't have time for the all-night branding sprees of his adolescence. He was working two jobs on top of journalism classes, and drove a car instead of riding and cutting up windows on the bus.
When he did break out the spray paint, says Sight, now 30, he had evolved from bus scribing and tagging to throwing up (spray-painting his name in big bubbly letters) and piecing (collaborating with friends on complex, mural-type works). His code of ethics was: "We're not going to write on anything that looks good. We'd look for abandoned buildings, and walls that were really tagged up. We'd want to put some color right there."
Along with his dream of becoming a journalist, Sight hoped to publish poetry and learn to piece like Saber and Revok, his heroes in the legendary Mad Society Kings (MSK) crew.
"It was like springtime," he says of the early 2000s. "Everything was blossoming — there was so much potential.
"Now, it's wintertime."
In 2006, Sight was handed the harshest sentence any artist or law enforcement official can recall for graffiti vandalism: Eight years and four months in state prison.
Released after four years for good behavior, he's perhaps the most dramatic casualty to date in L.A.'s war on street art — a multipronged effort that views young graffiti artists as public enemy No. 1 and has destroyed even those graffiti-style murals painted with full consent of building owners. As galleries and museums increasingly recognize the movement's artistic value, government officials only become more determined to wipe it from the streets.
Sight — a short, burly black man with a fuzzy beard and a gentle disposition — had and has no record of violence. "He gets mad at me if I kill a spider," his girlfriend says.
From the couple's one-bedroom apartment in South Central, Sight relives the morning the cops came for him: Ten to 15 deputies busted into his grandmother's house with "laser guns and body armor," he says, barking at him to hand over his drugs and weapons. Finding none, they took his paint and his poetry books, Sight says.
Because Sight's most expensive — and thus felonious — damage was beyond the five-year statute of limitations, he says, police asked him to date evidence photos of his graffiti "for a more recent date," in return for which, they told him, " 'We'll let you go and get you probation.' "
Sheriff's deputy Devin Vanderlaan, who investigated Sight, calls his accusation "absolutely ridiculous." UPN member Tahoe claims the same happened to him.
Sight would spend a one-year stint alongside rapists and murderers at Folsom State Prison, where he says fellow inmates almost killed him for hanging back during a race riot. But worse than hard-core Folsom was L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca's own Men's Central Jail, where Sight says that, among other degradations, he saw prison guards break the fingers of inmates who misbehaved.
Today, two years after his release, with 10 unusual "felony" counts for nonviolent vandalism on his permanent record, Sight can't even get a job as a dishwasher. He says he's filled out hundreds of job applications, but potential employers won't believe that spraying paint on walls or etching one's name onto bus panels could lead to felony charges in America.
"They think I blew up cars or smashed out windows or something," Sight says. "They think I'm a terrorist."
To believe Metro's version of the damage Sight did to L.A., he nearly was. They claimed he caused $70,000 in damage, on the basis that each Metro window or metal panel he etched was replaced. In fact, bus windows often are sanded down by graffiti-abatement crews — and tend to be marred by tagger upon tagger long before parts are actually replaced — but the exaggerated cost claims play well in court.
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5 comments
On this day the dept of Planning will be meeting yet again to vote on the proposed Mural Ordinance, before passing it to the City Council.
September 13, 2012 8:30am ROOM 350, City Hall 200 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012
Our city is bombarded with billboards and yet our murals are being erased, no new murals are staying up before graffiti abatement comes in and destroys them and artists are being cited and doing time, lives have been ruined, jobs have been taken away. Lets speak up..don't be complacent...
LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD!! ART IS FOR EVERYONE!! TEACHERS! COMMUNITY MEMBERS! BUSINESS OWNERS! ART BASED ORGANIZATIONS! COMMUNITY LEADERS, ORGANIZERS, ACTIVISTS! PARENTS! STUDENTS! ARTISTS!! OUR VOICE IS OUR WEAPON!!! USE IT!!!
"On July 12, 2012, the City Planning Commission (CPC) heard and deliberated on a proposed ordinance to allow the creation and preservation of Original Art Murals.
Thirty speakers spoke on the proposed ordinance and expressed concerns regarding:
(1) digitally printed images being permitted as murals; (2) the registration fee for new murals; (3) the registration fee for existing murals; (4) the 100 foot height limitation, and; (5) the mural ban on residential buildings with fewer than five units." *Dept. of City Planning Recommendation Report.
ART IS HEALING, BEAUTIFYING, LOVE FOR THE EVERYONE.
Sign the Petitioning Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles City Planning Department Stop the "Second Final Draft Mural Ordinance" as is from passing. https://www.change.org/petitions/los-angeles-city-council-and-los-angeles-city-planning-department-stop-the-second-final-draft-mural-ordinance-as-is-from-passing
This petition will be delivered to: Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles City Planning Department. mural ordinance as it reads
now: http://cityplanning.lacity.org/Code_Studies/Misc/MuralOrdinance.pdf
updated staff report as of July 12, 2012: http://cityplanning.lacity.org/Code_Studies/Misc/supplementalmural_StaffRpt.pdf
2 Like
Here's the solution for graffiti fans:
* Graffiti makers should designate their own houses, garages, sidewalks, walls, driveways, windows, etc., as graffiti zones. Let them put graffiti on their own property. They can spray and etch as much as they want all over their own homes and cars. They should invite others to do the same to their homes and cars.
* People who think graffiti is art should also designate their own art galleries, houses, garages, sidewalks, walls, driveways, windows, etc., as graffiti zones. The fans should invite graffiti makers to put graffiti all over their property like their houses, businesses, cars, sidewalks, windows, etc.,
That way the graffiti artists would not put graffiti over other peoples' property. Those art galleries in the expensive neighborhoods who've been paying graffiti makers should welcome every graffiti artist to their gallery buildings. Surely those art gallery owners would welcome all that free art all over their buildings, windows, sidewalks, gates, delivery vehicles, etc., That is the very obvious simple solution.
Please print this in the LA Weekly and please print your address so that graffiti artists know where they can start putting graffiti all over your business, sidewalks, vans, windows, walls, gates, etc., If you don't think this is a good idea, for graffiti artists to come to your business and home, please explain why. You said it was art, right?
@laweeklyartfan Responding only your final point, our building here at LA Weekly is actually covered in street art: http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2012/02/how_nosm_mural_graffiti.php
1 Like
this is a horrible way of dealing with graffiti artists. For centuries, all over the World. EVERYDAY CITIZENS have used posters, paint, markers, anything, to make a point. Graffiti began when vocal ie a person! stood up and SPOKE UP! and frequently led to arrest. Some decided to leave their political opinions on walls, and leave, fearing prosecution. Some used words, some drew, some, both. The birth of graffitti. Gangsters used it to show their turf, as warning to other gangs, actually smart use of graffiti.
Grafitti is a fascinating way to communicate. Illegal gangs have misused this vital way to communicate.
The power of art, in its many forms, breaches into this construct of city value and community safety,
what is value what is trash? Value of artists, from ancient times, to Banksey and Beyond, require societies to see gangster tagging, gangster art, extremely gorgeous art from everyone, as symbolic of our free USA, it is FREE SPEECH. The crap tagging, selling drugs, hurting people, yes, who needs another tagger???? but anyone painting spraying, using this artform is not a criminal, and not useless or harmful. ARTISTS IN JAIL????
PEOPLE, LOS ANGELES COUNTY OFFICIALS, dont throw graffitti artists in jail, throw illegal gangs using this artform in jail. Dont waste LA taxpayer money prosecuting BRILLIANT ARTISTS and thinking you are solving CRIME IN LA. Mayor, really? you are a smart guy, keep this simple!!!!
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