comments

1. Doc on September 27th, 2010 at 4:39 am

   everything happens in higher definition

2. Rob on September 27th, 2010 at 5:13 am

   He should stop romanticising it and trying to sound deep.

   It’s illegal. Why is it illegal? Because most of it isn’t a critique on the media or society’s obsession with “status and infamy”. Most of it isn’t worth thousands on the wall, and doesn’t sell for thousands in a gallery. It’s swear words, or pictures of cocks, or other things of no discernable meaning to anyone apart from the artist.

   Oh, and Banksy was a public school boy. In short, not your average graffiti, not your average graffiti artist.

3. Daryl Scroggins on September 27th, 2010 at 8:11 am

   Banksy–It’s all about you, isn’t it. Here’s another thing that sharpens the senses and provides a renewed sense of self worth: join one of the volunteer groups that goes around cleaning that shit up. Help the people who don’t want your jiz all over their fences and garage doors, who are going to have to buy paint and cleaners and spend time removing it.

4. Cindy Scroggins on September 27th, 2010 at 9:29 am

   I have a greater appreciation for graffiti than do most people, I think. I get excited when I pass under a trestle that is covered with colored words and images. The problem–as Rob and Daryl point out–is that most of it isn’t pushing at the boundaries of what Art can be, but rather mediocre acts of self-expression being foisted on the public.

   That said, if I have to choose, I’ll tolerate mediocre graffiti for the excitement that comes when someone does something magnificent. And I would die happy if Roa would paint a dead bird on one of my buildings.

5. Daryl Scroggins on September 27th, 2010 at 9:37 am

   Okay–a clarification about competing values: I love radical art, which is usually bound up in some sort of transgression, but I also feel for the people who have to bear actual costs related to an artist’s work. I’m not talking about the emotional cost of having to see something one doesn’t want to see–I’m talking about money and time (since we are talking about an “unregulated free market” here). I am often delighted to see huge environmental art, but my appreciation changes if I see, for instance, a farmer standing in a field of near ripe wheat that has been “modified,” without permission, by artists making smash down designs. And there are a number of large cities that have ordinances that require property owners to remove graffiti at their own expense. So it can be a fine line sometimes. In the end, though, I suppose if Basquiat (tag name “Samo”) were still around, I would love for him to paint something on my fence–and not for reasons of market value. But we would be speaking of a quality here that might earn more in the way of a dispensation.

6. Cindy Scroggins on September 27th, 2010 at 9:56 am

   When Daryl and I move to Marfa next year, I’m going to do two things:

   1. Write weekly to Roa, entreating him to come to Marfa for a visit.

   2. Grow my gray hair long and in dreadlocks.

   Okay, 3. Be very happy.

7. Deron Bauman on September 27th, 2010 at 10:03 am

   4)

8. Cindy Scroggins on September 27th, 2010 at 10:13 am

   yeah

9. Doc on September 27th, 2010 at 3:32 pm

   Is one of y’all conversant enough about the drug violence along the border to speak (perhaps in the 3rd person so as to not invite incrimination) to its influence in both Marfa and Presidio?

10. Cindy Scroggins on September 27th, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    Doc, there have been a number of murders in Ojinaga. From the time that Texas was Tejas, residents of Ojinaga and Presidio moved back and forth freely. But the current drug situation–combined with tightened security at the border–now make that kind of openness impossible.

    Marfa’s crime rate remains relatively low. Interestingly, the same is true of El Paso (my home town). People are being murdered by the hundreds in Juarez, yet the US side remains relatively safe. El Paso has seen a huge influx of middle-class Mexicans moving into the city in the past year, weary of the dangerous situation in Juarez. The decline of Juarez has resulted in an unexpected boon for El Paso. It’s a sad situation.

    The only way the violence will decline is for the US to legalize and regulate the drugs that fuel these multi-million dollar operations.

11. Sheila Ryan on September 27th, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    Yes to the thousandth, Cindy. (This is really something that gets me to rocking my hobby-horse — or whatever you call it.)

    Clusterflock friend Juju Pongo and I had a recent meeting of minds on this topic. An In These Times article, I believe, prompted our exchange.

12. Doc on September 27th, 2010 at 8:19 pm

    Thanks, Cindy.

    I kept hearing news reports concerning Juarez over the last year and have just now finished Bowden’s Murder City… Then you pulled Marfa out of the air…Don’t know if you’ve read it but it’s a desperate book.

    As a people we lack nerve. We’re afraid of fringe groups and polls and cholesterol and responsibility. Legalize drugs – oh horrors, think of the children! You know, the children doing drugs. Instead we have created an infinite loop, a recursive need/denial system that the rest of the world strains to service.

    All because we’re a bunch of weak-kneed bitches.

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