September 12, 2007
SF Mural With 9/11 Notes Gets Basquiat Treatment
Ann Sherry's North Beach mural "Gold Mountain," a work that depicts Chinese influence to San Francisco and American history, fell victim to hooligan defacing. Specifically, the recent addition of Betty Ong, a San Francisco flight attendant who died in the World Trade Center attacks.
While it doesn't seem like an intentional hit on Ong's heroism, 9/11-ness, or whatever -- because murals in this city get defaced the second the paint starts drying -- it is interesting to note that "the taggers used paint (mixed) with epoxy that we can't...remove." Sherry told the Chronicle, going on to say, "[w]e started fixing it ... but the taggers get angry if you remove their graffiti and they just tried to ruin it."
Who knew taggers were such a bratty yet tenacious lot? Nerds, really. We thought that they were more hit-and-run. This is disappointing.
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If they'd tagged it with 'Gmzeeo' would we instead be praising it as high art?
New rules - if we catch a tagger, we cut off a finger.
No kidding, Ciaran.
"Talented" graffiti artists should be doing their work on canvas. Any of them trashing property outside should have dogs sic'd on them.
I've seen tagger teams going down my street spray painting their initials or whatever onto buildings, mailboxes, etc., and the team always moves on before the cops I've called show up.
If we tolerate this kind of outrage, then the terrorists will "quynh".
"nguyen", sorry. i'm so white.
New rules - if we catch a tagger, we cut off a finger.
Nah, make the punishment fit the crime. Strip'em & cover them head to toe in Krylon.
If they happened to suffer a Jill Masterson, well, that'd be a damn shame.
Once again certain readers have failed to differentiate a paid mural versus obnoxious and blatantly disrespectful taggers.
But the point remains: NO mural should be tagged. Amaze -- Gmzeeo for all you anti-graffiti zealots -- and muralists are not the same as taggers.
I like guest [6]'s idea, too, so don't think I'm some sort of apologist for vandals.
Too bad the Basquiat diss is so off the mark. Haring would have been marginally better, he having worked on the street past high school age.
Did Haring or Basquiat ever deface a mural? Somehow, I seriously doubt it.
There is big gulf the size of the Grand Canyon between what Basquiat and Haring did and what these perps did.
I second - or third - the Jill Masterson treatment. Excellent Bond reference, BTW. I'd even support castration by blunt fork, although that's probably too merciful.
This sort of crap is a blatant attack on a community and should be treated as such. Show no mercy. And I'm not being ironic in a hipsterish snarkier than though way. I mean literally show no mercy.
When I used to live in Beantown, our neighborhood was plagued by tagger punks - my neighbor across the street once had his car tagged while parked in front of his house. The BPD once finally caught the most prolific of the taggers in our hood. Turned out the punk was a Northeastern U. student and his parents were rich lawyers in DC. BPD and the DA tried to throw the book at him with real jail time, but the fucker got off with community service as the court couldn't bring themselves to send a rich white boy to jail.
I agree - stip em naked, tag their asses head to toe with epoxy and dump them in the middle of Union Square on a Saturday at noon.
So where are all the prissy "art" police who were so protective of the warm water cove masterpieces, and bitched endlessly on SFist?
They loved trashing me here and live for my calling tagging vandalism.
Have y'all gone out to photo the latest works of art that your beloved scumbags have done to this mural?
Gee the silence is deafening...
The tags are lame, sure - but it's not exactly like that crap-ass mural getting tagged is a great loss to humanity.
Mariconsoy: This is a MUCH different situation than War Water Cove. This type of tagging involves the defacement of another piece of art that pays homage to the community.
There were no such murals at Warm Water Cove. Doest that mean everything at the cove was a masterpiece? Hell no. Some of it was crap. But at least there the only thing being defiled was already blighted property that the city failed to maintain.
See the difference? I doubt it, but I thought it would be worth a shot.
-- Van
I meant Warm Water Cove.
Van
Opir, right?
Opir?
"The tags are lame, sure - but it's not exactly like that crap-ass mural getting tagged is a great loss to humanity."
guest #11, please, i'd love an explanation as to why you say a mural depicting chinese influence to san francisco and american history which was touched up and restored twice out of the goodness of the building's owners and community volunteers' hearts to be a "crap-ass mural."
please, i'd love an explanation.
and really, it it the action of defacing a mural like this that is truly the loss to humanity; the blatant disrespect shown, is the loss to humanity.
As long as we're doling out eye-for-an-eye fantasy punishments, wouldn't the perfect karmic retribution be for the owners of tag-defaced properties to be allowed to crudely tattoo their names onto the foreheads of the captured perps?
How about just making taggers do community service cleaning up tags. It will be both humiliating and they would have to work with the community members and perhaps that interaction would give them a perspective on why these community murals matter to people.
"please, i'd love an explanation"
what it depicts, how many times it's been retouched, and whether or not it has any artistic merit are all unrelated issues.
I think taggers just need a good hug. Prefaced by a concerned look with pursed lips.
#19, they are related issues and you have still failed to answer why you believe it's a "crap-ass" mural.
and brock, i think taggers who mix their paint with an epoxy making the "art" permanent need more than just a hug prefaced by concerned looks with pursed lips. perhaps that punishment would be complete if you add a 24 hour continual game of patty-cake while listening to raffi sing baby beluga. then i think your kumbaya type sentence would be perfect.