Gangsters' Grafitti versus taggers' art?

ooh er Missus. This is a bit scary. Check out the first in a series of reports in the Pasedena Star News. All very amusing, note the text which explains:

Cavemen did it. So did Roman soldiers, political dissidents and generations of lovers. They left their names, thoughts, complaints, slogans and drawings scratched on walls for the world to see - graffiti.

(Thanks to Wackydoodler for posting about this on Flickr.)


I have been thinking about street art in another context this week too. You may already know that there are quite a lot of people on Flickr who are interested in street art. For example there is a Banksy group or this one with work from arofish . I like this one that is ccalled NOT Banksy. There are also groups with mixes like this one. Stickers are popular too.

So streetart makes quite an easy transition onto the web; the people's art, free art a kind of democratic art 'of the people' by and for the people. (To put it romantically.) Lots of people on Flickr, funnily enough, put up stickers, stencils and other types of streetart then photograph it and upload to Flickr.So it moves back and forth, in and out. C-monster, based in the states, even makes stickers, (who TT made contact with on Flickr, through a shared interest in streetart), and sent some to TT and others to put around the place, to photograph, email to her, so she can upload to Flickr for this international collaborative set. So, OK. All quite fascinating in terms of fluid geographical borders, and fluid spatial borders in terms of:

• Online/offline
• Journeys everywhere
• Affinities
• Collaboration
• Coherences.
  
  

Imagine my interest then, when Kid Acne complained about his work being shown on Flickr. KA has pretty much taken over the London Road area in Sheffield, with art work mushrooming particularly in recent months. He has sent e mails apparently, asking people to remove their photos from the web. (Not disclosed here for ethical reasons!) But he is really cross about the fact that a new group has been set up on Flickr which is dedicated to showing his work. See the discussion thread here. K
Is this an example of web phobia where someone is OK about their work being in an off line public domain, but edgy about it going online? Or is it to do with wanting to control something for reasons of profit - he is currently wanting to brng a book out; has an exhibition on in Barcelona and one coming up in Sheffield.

And in the Picture? TT crosses borders taking a photo of a Banksy, for Flickr: