The earth is in a mess, it doesn’t take me to tell you the plain facts, look around, there’s pollution everywhere, smog in all the major cities from L.A to London to Beijing. The fish stocks are dwindling and what’s left is probably mutated. The human race’s hunger for energy is a major contributor to the collapse of the climate, everyone driving everywhere, flying across the world, using cellphones to tell anyone interested that they’re now halfway down the street, around the corner, at the front door, in the house. Every product we buy uses an enormous amount of energy, be it manufacture, distribution, packaging, you name it, even growing food is killing the planet. Take the mass destruction of bio-diverse jungles and forests for the sake of a few more burger fields. Actually I’m destroying the earth right now, I’m blogging, it takes electricity to run a PC (well a Mac Pro in this case), it takes electricity to read it – so technically we’re in this together, we’re all enemies of the green state and until someone can work out how to run everything on water we’ll continue to be, besides by then we’ll probably run out of water too.
So what’s my beef? It’s all the do-gooders dressing up their penchant for bland and tempered suburban etiquette, the politest and most middle-class fascism you can muster, camouflaging it as some kind of environmental push for the good of mankind. If anyone takes their 4X4 out with the kids on the 22nd of April 2009, parks up and starts painting over graffiti in their local area, they’re a hypocrite and so are all their friends.
I thought I’d see what the graffiti and lowbrow arts community were doing to help Earth Day and I learned two very important points:-
1) I can’t find any events involving graffiti artists for the day in question, and I’m not surprised due to my 2nd point.
2) Google has decided that anyone searching for "Earth Day Graffiti" is in for a nasty surprise, there’s going to be a worldwide backlash against graffiti art, run by a neo-conservative moral majority hell bent on blank white walls and most likely white picket fences to boot.
Take a look at some of the Earth Day events I’ve found so far…
Honolulu Neighborhood Examiner: Earth Day Graffiti Cleanup
Honolulu Article: Earth Day Graffiti Cleanup by local Honolulu Neighborhood Examiner expert, William Sager.
www.examiner.com/x-6214-Honolulu-Neighborhood-
City of Cincinnati – Earth Day Graffiti Removal Project in Duck Creek
Earth Day Graffiti Removal Project in Duck Creek. … Earth Day Graffiti Removal Project in Duck Creek. Earth Day Graffiti Removal Project in Duck Creek …
www.cincinnati-oh.gov/pubsrv/pages/-32642-/
Earth Day graffiti clean up and park beautification project in Los …
Earth Day graffiti clean up and park beautification project in Los Angeles at REI Northridge. Join REI as we support Councilman Greig Smith?s 2009 Earth…
eventful.com/northridge/events/earth-day-graffiti-clean-up-and-park-/E0-001
Earth Day graffiti clean up and park beautification project …
Things to do in Chatsworth: Earth Day graffiti clean up and park beautification project on April 25 at Chatsworth Park North.
thingstodo.msn.com/chatsworth-ca/events/show/86732879-earth-day-graffiti-
Paint over Graffiti | Earth Day Network
Start: 04/01/2011 – 00:00 Timezone: Etc/GMT Type: Location(s) Oak Cliff, 99999, United States
www.earthday.net/node/1816
That’s just a few listings from the top ten search results, the point I’m making is that graffiti has very very little to do with ecological breakdown, about as much as writing a blog in fact, if you want to save the earth try not driving for a day. The irony is if you clean graffiti you’re using detergents and they screw up the water table. If you paint over graffiti the paint you’re using is produced in a factory, that factory pollutes the earth, and so does the paint. You’re basically creating a target for more graffiti, a blank wall that’s been filled with graffiti before will again. Hey why not invite the best local artists to create a new mural each year if you really want to paint it? It could take an environmental theme and would help get the message across a lot better than wasting a load of white paint, detergents, petrol, time and money.
If you want to save the planet try not driving so much, take a local vacation, avoid buying so much brand new junk all the time, try repairing what you have, even if it looks out-of-date or out of fashion, and please stop cleaning everything all the time. Dirt is natural, if something looks dirty that’s nature at work, clean, but not everything and all the time, the chemicals are doing far more damage than graffiti.
Throwing paint over everything to promote a cause of censorship and calling it environmental action is insidious, it’s like calling Hitler a great painter, I don’t know if he really was a painter and decorator but I do know he’d be the first to white wash anything that resembled free speech. Tagging looks ugly, sure, but to class all graffiti the same and consign it to the same sociological dump is a regressive and backward-thinking move, you can’t stop it, so work with it, and leave the Earth out of this. This is simply local politics at work, and two-faced politics at that (surprise, surprise). If graffiti is dragging down your area’s property prices then it will take a lot more than a lick of paint to change things. It’s just that real solutions to social problems are usually complicated, expensive and for the most part against the values of the conservative public. You don’t want your taxes spent on youth projects that encourage the creativity of the sods that just tagged your back wall after all.
Here’s what the right wing faction of the green movement could be doing:-
Yes it’s green graffiti, environmentally friendly graffiti made from moss, check out the full article at a real ecological site – TreeHugger.com
Give graffiti artists a break this Earth Day, you don’t need to be a fascist to save the world, in fact quite the opposite applies, funny that, I guess some people never learn.
Hi
I found this on a graffiti Google alert rather than visiting your page because of Entrecard and then realised it is the same one! Small world.
I’m still surprised by the hue and cry against graffiti on the one hand and the high praise it gets as the latest thing in art on the other. I’ve been fascinated since a friend had a summer job in the 70s of organising murals to be painted on the ends of terrace house all over our town. It really cheered the place up. Your idea of inviting local artists to paint graffiti sites sounds good to me. Or just leave them as they are…
We’ve had quite a few posts and pictures up about Graffiti and Street Art on Creative Cafe by the way.
Very interesting post
Thanks
Jill
Jill’s last blog post..Art Exhibitions: Box, Body, Burial: The sculptural imagination of Keith Arnatt (GB)
Hey Jill
Thanks for the comment – I suppose I’m making the point that painting over graffiti isn’t exactly helping the earth and that there is a world of difference between graffiti art and graffiti – I just doubt many of those painting over an OBEY, a Faile or A Banksy would know when it’s art or not.
I do read the graffiti articles at CC from time to time – I really liked the post on Urban Art Goes Mainstream – keep ‘em coming
Hi
Yes I will have to look into this Earth Day business and what it stands for more closely. I don’t like to think of it taking an anti graffiti position. And there was a case quite recently where they painted over a famous street artist in London.
I’ll be looking out for stuff…
Bye for Now
Jill
[...] April 22, 2009 by artformsk8 Funny stuff [...]
[...] honour of Earth Day the t-shirt store Brand Of The Free are offering 35% discount on any of their American made tees. [...]
[...] honour of Earth Day the t-shirt store Brand Of The Free are offering 35% discount on any of their American made tees. [...]
Hmmm.. I have no idea what really is there but maybe some graffiti is worthy of staying where they are but others, they are just there for no purpose. I have to say, others really entertain me and they way they are done, they’re done good with passion and good purpose… others are just there to give dirt and disgusting view.
Webbielady’s last blog post..The Big Difference: Why Filipinos Are Mostly in Debt?
Hi, we must change the trends now, then we can get a better tomorrow.
Totally agree, it takes collective action and responsibility to do that, it’s just the collective that have chosen to do it so far have applied their own secondary agenda whilst they’re at it. Always the way.