Difusor is a group of Barcelona-based “artivists” who stage guerilla projects in the public space. They recently improved an old decaying bunker from the Spanish Civil War by covering it with pink camouflage. (The bunker was already covered with graffiti, as seen here.)
They write:
Difusor has been trying to improve public space in the Barcelona area, developing different kinds of projects. Recently we (re)visited an abandoned Spanish civil war republican bunker. Our merge between war and absurdity.
Ah.
Dubious improvement. Looks more like vandalism to me.
Not all graffitti is bad, but in this case they did the bunker a favour. Question s how long before the pink camo will be covered in ‘Rizzo Loves Mandy’ & ‘I WAS HERE ’09!’ over and over again?
“the bunker was already covered with graffiti”
Sounds like the “well, he hit me first” argument my 4 year old gives. And the same answer applies here “doesn’t give you the right.”
Looks like an improvement to me. Would it be a better statement if they had buffed it to its boring grey origin?
That looks awesome.
@ Kevin Bracken: Yes. Much better. Not only would it be a historic site, it would not be an eyesore, and it would be respecting those that died on those beaches, rather than mocking them.
@ TheMindFantastic I have yet to see graffiti that was not bad, but then again, ‘good’ graffiti would be something subtle like painting over bad graffiti with the original color of the wall, thus hiding the fact that any graffiti existed there.
Improvement, maybe. Graffiti, possibly. But if it happened here in Toronto, it would still be classified as vandalism and the owner of the space would have a week to either pinpoint a suspect for police and/or clean up the space. If it was still there by a week, the space owner would face a fine.
Little do people know, in some places making someone’s “ugly” space look “prettier” and “improving” it will actually cost someone else a lot of money.
@ MattC that’s horrible. I knew that property owners had a cost, but I was not aware it is so strictly enforced.
It is horrible that these people are such slimeballs that they don’t know right from wrong, or understand the concept of property, but the city decides to kick you while you are down like that!
@ Ozymandias – I have a small but interesting series of photographs of grafitti poetry which I have shown around, the images were gotten in Toronto, Nashville, Miami, and Vancouver BC. The poetry isn’t always that good, but the fact they were empassioned enough that they had to get it out on anything even just a wall with paint I found somewhat interesting. So sometimes grafitti to me at least can be interesting or at least make you notice it and comment.
@ TheMindFantastic I have been known to comment on graffiti: “Wow, this neighborhood is really going downhill” and “Wow, what a slum”.
If they can manage to find paint, they can find easily find an appropriate writing utensil and an appropriate medium to write on. I am guessing if you were the owner, had to clean up those eyesores, or even just lived in the neighborhood, you would not be so complacent.
Ok Ozymandias. I admit that sometimes graffiti completely ruins something and it is an expensive pain in the ass to remove it. I think the worst is when idiots tag plate glass windows with glass etching fluid. What a disaster.
However, there is some graffiti which improves the look of a wall, or sends a social message which is more important to the neighborhood than a state of tidyness.
For example, if someone spray paints “2 pedestrians died here in 2007” on the ground next to a crosswalk, or if someone paints over a part of a malt liquor billboard to alter the message, or paints a plain abandoned cement pillbox bunker in pink camo. These are probably an improvement.
@ Ozymandias: Rob is correct. Not all graffiti is bad, and if you look at it in that way, it is just because you don’t see the meaning. Yes, a lot of graffiti is used as territorial markings for gangs, but a lot of it is just kids who understand their medium a way that is different that hours. When I want to draw, the way my personality is, I see all of my drawings in sketch format, and then I photoshop colors in to make them professional. I’m a comic artist.
Some people see their visions in graffiti-style, large works of art that catch the eye and make you think. That’s a graffiti -artist-, versus a gang -tagger-.
@Rob Cockerham
Please provide an example of graffiti that is an improvement.
Painting the sidewalk makes the neighborhood look trashy and costs tax money to clean up.
Painting the billboard over the message (even a malt liquor one) turns it into an eyesore, or even more of one than it already was.
Painting a bunker pink gets what we have here — a horrible looking eyesore that ruins a historical site and spits in the eyes of all veterans everywhere, and may result in public money getting wasted cleaning up after juveniles with no concept of property rights.
@Oleander
Feel free to make art in a graffiti style. I am not saying that there is no value or skill in it. What I am saying is once you stop being a graffiti style artist, and become an actual graffiti *criminal* you just did a bad thing. If you enjoy the look of graffiti, spray paint your own property, or allow others to spray paint it if you like. Just don’t be surprised when the neighborhood complains about the eyesore it is. I am not saying you do not have a right to paint in that style, I am saying you do not have the right to destroy what others created to slap your crap up!
Ozymandias. Maybe, you should launch into your little tirades against the “slimeballs” that do this? And no, graffiti does not automatically make a neighbourhood trashy. Here in Sydney, we are actually aware that there are fags who come in from the northen beaches, the expensive suburbs, and trash out upper-middle class places.
Get a hold of yourself. Be glad they didn’t just add more shit to the bunker, like many before them evidently did. Some people don’t mind smiling every once in a while, as you obviously do.
exactly Ozymandias!