So I wrote this a while back and didn't publish because I'm a lemon, but I still like it so it's going up.
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Do you like graffiti or not, London?
You
commission graffiti artists to decorate the Olympic village, to put up
themed street art in skate parks. If you're paying a tame painter to do
something on the theme of community then their command of spray paints
and perspective is amazing, and it's so gritty, and urban, and emblematic of your regeneration project.
But
the minute the artist is doing it because they have something genuine
to say, because they want to put their stamp on their environment, to
spend their time and money and risk their liberty in order to
communicate with every goddamn passerby in that neighbourhood - that's
malicious mindless vandalism. Got it? If you're not being paid (or being Banksy, for some reason the sole graffiti -artist- around) it's mindless and it's meaningless. If you want to be recognised as
an artist with a message you need to be a corporate sponsor's baggy
trousered hand puppet.
Never
mind that the corporates already own the billboards, the screens, the
papers, the public transport network. They own words like love and
beauty and summer and they use them to sell chips and face cream and
souvenirs. In return for your expression, your daydreams on the tube,
they'll decide what you want and you can give them your money for it.
Motherfucking bargain of the motherfucking year.
But
their greed and their power is their weakness. They are so greedy people shut down. stop noticing their clamour as
they shout all the time for you to like them, follow them, flash your
loyalty card, buy your children their cuddly toys, because you can't ever care enough for their exponential profit projections.
And that's why
they're interested in graffiti because they think we haven't noticed
them leaching it yet. They think we can't tell the difference between
someone's urban improvements and an exploration of brand values rendered
in pantone matched colours.
They think we're stupid.
And
now they are scared that their poodles - and hey, I got nothing against
tame graf artists, poodles gotta eat, man, like the rest of us - might
still have a few teeth. Right at the back. Usually saved for grinding Supa-Dehydrogenated Texturized Meet-U-Like biscuits, but maybe they could skin a nose or two. So they wire their mouths
shut.
And
so the police - servants of the people, keeping us safe and orderly - go
find an urban artist - who's done work for the olympics for Christ's
sake, that's how they know where to find him - and tell him he can't
have paint. Can't travel in his city. Can't go near the bloody Olympics
show that you've sold to the world on the strength of all us urban cool
cats and handbag dogs.
You'd
make cool Britannia hobble her patent-stiletto'd lambeth walk on cut hamstrings because
you're scared that your fucking people might have feelings and
expressions that your fucking branding partners don't approve of.
Some might say that a country exists for people, not to generate profits for synthetic entities.
Others might say: fetch the markers
