[Closed] Graffiti artists jailed- bit harsh?

There's a huge gulf between "street art" or proper graffiti, and scrotes tagging your letterbox/fence. Where's the line?

But photographs recovered from the men show some had also struck in Sydney, Japan, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Police discovered gang members had recorded their crimes in more than 1000 photos, often posing with their damage...

...UK police have been working with their counterparts in Sydney and the men could face further action when they return home to Australia.

Detective Inspector David Aiton said the "primary intention" of the gang's global travels was for graffiti.

"Worldwide you are looking at well over £200,000 ($410,000) damage," Insp Aiton said.

Police spotted the gang in a railway yard at Ilford, northeast London.

On that kind of scale and if they're taggig trains etc then they're not going to get the kind of sympathy that Banksy et al do brightening up dour industrial walls or "quietly approved" graffiti sites like the undercroft at the National on the southbank.

I just wish someone woudl tear this odious tagger a new hole
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http://londonist.com/2009/03/tox09for_sale.php

Good question. These blokes were 'vandalising' trains, as far as I can tell from the BBC article. We've had no examples of their work.

I really don't think jailing people for such crimes is appropriate. As for 'the answer' to this tricky issue, I dunno. But Toxo9 has been banged up, apparently, and it hazzunt stopped them, as jail does not in any way stop yer serial sex attackers, murderers and career criminals.

Tell me that when you've just had your property receive the benefit of someone elses vision of art, then had to pay £1000's to sort it out.

Happy for them to paint on their own stuff, and apply for planning permission like everyone else to display it. In the meantime while it is a crime, I would \agree that we should save the tax payers as you rightly suggest, and simply put them to work until such time as they have paid off the costs of their actions, that to include removal, court costs, cost of policing, etc etc.

simples

I totally agree, I thought our jails were full anyway? As you say they could have been made to do something constructive.

As you say they could have been made to do something constructive.

You did got me scared my dear RD... You've missed 2 thread about london, for a moment I though you were
Dead...
Banned...
OR both...

community service maybe......get them to clean what they sprayed....with a tooth brush and some nitromors........... 😉

You did got me scared my dear RD... You've missed 2 thread about london,

the peace and quiet, now shattered...

Well, what about, convicted Graffiti artists being made to work in crack clean-up squads? So, if you have your property vandalised, you can 'phone them up, and they will come and clean it up for you, FOC? That would save the taxpayer millions every year, and may dissuade the 'vandals' from trashing bus stops and tube trains and that.

I think spraying up someone's private property is out of order, but the proper 'artists' don't do stuff like that; they tend to stick to stuff where a bit of graffiti won't matter. Like under motorways, and on old warehouses and along train lines. Places where it actually is of some aesthetic benefit, IMO. Many a dull wall has been enlivened by a nice bit of graffiti.

Does seem a bit harsh, but can't stand graffiti personally.

Then again, I live out in the countryside and not some inner city slum 😉

The bit about 'proper' graffiti and just tagging is true as well. Was in Milan recently what was once I'm sure a beautiful city is just a sh!thole now with crap grafitti everywhere.

Just out of curiosity, do these artists decorate the outside of their chav council houses in the same fashion?

Mind you when I see the design of the trains, i am not sure covering them with graffitis could be name trashing...

I accept some form of punishment should be in order, to discourage others if nothing else, but jail? For talented, creative people?

Some criminals are very talented. They come up with ingenious fraud schemes for example. Maybe we should let them captain our industry?

FFS you TROLL.

You could do with your face sprayed up, make it less ugly. 😈

if only they had decent PR people they'd be enjoying month-long exhibitions in Bristol

I think if there were more graffiti projects / walls in areas, then it wouldn't be so bad.

In terms of style and image, I really like graffiti ... i like the imagination of it, and when done well, i find it really interesting.

However, personally, I dont agree with the idea that so called 'artists' should be able to spray anywhere and everywhere on other people's personal property, no matter how good they are and how artful they are, and for them to get away with it scot-free.

The trouble is, that where you may have a few real top notch artists such as the likes of Banksy, for everyone of them, there are 1000+ little shites running round with spray cans from B&Q tagging their own areas with " Young Team Rulez " and similar tat. And its done on everything from bins, walls, poles, windows, bus shelters, the ground ... you name it.

That is not art, its vandalism. And its me that has to go to the doors of the victims and take all the details and then catch up with the dafties and caution / charge them for it.

So at the moment, I think you do need the punishment and deterrent, and for it to remain a crime, in order to minimise the crap mindless stuff.

You'll never stop the likes of Banksy, however if some folk are caught and punished, then it keeps the balance OK.

You could do with your face sprayed up, make it less ugly.

RB, the problem with gettign them to do somethign usefull like "teach kids art" is that that requires A) you to be a teacher B)to have some knowlage of art.

I can draw a pretty good picture of a boat or a face , just because i was taught how to do those two things. Can't rememeber who Gaudi was though so probably make a hopeless art teacher.

And whats that picture supposed to be, isn't art supposed to make a point or trigger some kind of response from the viewer????? Just looks like a computer?

The trouble is, that where you may have a few real top notch artists such as the likes of Banksy, for everyone of them, there are 1000+ little shites running round with spray cans from B&Q tagging their own areas with " Young Team Rulez " and similar tat.

True dat. And that is a huge problem. Sadly, the Law does not in any way distinguish between 'art' and 'fart'.

It is certainly a tricky one. One one hand, you've got the unconstrained creative freedom, and the other, simply vandalism. Responsible artists will get permission, where possible, quite often. But there is the anarchic element; commissioned or tolerated works aren't 'true' to the ethos of Graffiti.

RudeBoy - Member
You could do with your face sprayed up, make it less ugly.

resorting to personal insults eh? Might as well admit defeat on that one. And I'm rather handsome, you'd know if you'd ever seen me.

Sadly, the Law does not in any way distinguish between 'art' and 'fart'

I disagree. The law does distinguish between them.

Banksy has been "identified" or at least if the police really thought there was a public interest case they could nail him if they wanted to.

The "law" is not just whats written in statute. Its a combination of the police, the CPS and the jury's/Judge/Magistrate's discretion as to whether it should be applied in any given case. Thta's not internal inconsistency, it's common sense and I dont think you give our amazing legal system enough credit for it.

I disagree. The law does distinguish between them.

No it does not in any way. If you spray something somewhere where you don't have permission to do so, you are committing an offence. That is the Law.

Whether or not the police etc decide to implement it, is another matter. A lot of the more creative graffiti is tolerated, if the building owner is not bothered about it. A lot of the time, it simply is not in the Public Inertest, to utilise police/legal resources, to pursue and prosecute 'offenders'. The Offence remains, however.

twit rude boy. You've deliberately ignored most of my post.

The "Law" in this country is applied by agencies. Its is not some orwellian automatic indictment. The application by agencies and trial by peers is specifically designed to allow flexibility.

if only they had decent PR people

While Banksy's work may not be the deepest stuff out there, he is bloody good at what he does.

I agree that a bit of graffiti does no harm if it's had some thought put into it and the location is sympathetic. Even tags can look really nice if they're done well - Barcelona has some great examples.

However you have to accept that if you are writing on somewhere that has a massive problem with vandalism already, like public transport, or vying for attention with adverts that people have paid to put up, you are going to piss people off.

Didn't the judge point out that as grafitti artists, these guys were talented.

Sentencing, Judge Gledhill said: "Each of you are intelligent well-educated young men, hard working and capable of holding down jobs.

"Each of you are talented artists, in terms of graffiti artists, so to have to see the six of you sitting in the dock of this court about to be sentenced is quite appalling."

So they are not being sent down for being graffiti artists, more so that they caused 70k damage.

Ringleader of the graffiti gang - called the AMF - Marcus Wisman, 22, was sentenced to 16 months for conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

Ironically the judge appears to be agreeing with RudeBoy, or vice versa.
Perhaps if the gang had paid for space on the trains like advertisers have, this wouldn't have happened.

Ironically the judge appears to be agreeing with RudeBoy, or vice versa.

I dont see where.

Rudeboy's rather naive take on the legal system is that committing an offence automatically leads to sanction, which it doesnt. The absence of this automatic link is deliberate feature of the legal system.

Rudeboy's rather naive take on the legal system is that committing an offence automatically leads to sanction,

Where did I say that?

You'd be a rubbish lawyer. Don't give up yer day job... 😉

vying for attention with adverts that people have paid to put up

That's an inertesting one. Personally, I hate seeing huge billboards all over the place. some ads are eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing, but most are just a form of 'visual vandalism', to me. Sadly, the Law protects their imposition.

Stoner - Member

Ironically the judge appears to be agreeing with RudeBoy, or vice versa.

I dont see where.

RudeBoy values grafitti as an art form, judge says that as grafitti artists these guys are talented- I read this as judge agreeing that grafitti is an acceptable form of expresion and is not jailing them for grafitti.

RudeBoy says that it is acceptable to grafitti on dead spaces rather than on public property (I know this is open to debate). See above for my take on the judge.

They were jailed for criminal damage, same as throwing a brick through your window. RudeBoy appears to be ranting about the fact that the judge is trying to prohibit artistic expression, when clearly this isn't the case. Up until the point of sentencing, both agree with each other. This is the irony.

most are just a form of 'visual vandalism'

And a 20-foot high dub can have exactly the same effect. Even more so, as it has negative implications about how well cared-for and looked after the place is. And when it's done somewhere with no respect for the wider environment it really irritates me. There are some ****s in Bristol who've done some really shitty throw-ups (quick pieces using silver car paint) on places like the old gaol gates - they should have their hands chopped off.

The whole artist/vandal dichotomy in graffiti has been going on for yonks. The film "Style Wars" details it really well and is one of the best documentaries ever made IMO. In that film there is one group of graffiti writers who really put thought and creativity into what they do, and one twonk who just wants to get his name up there and doesn't care who he pisses off.

I dare say the train companies spent millions respraying the rolling stock when they took on the franchise to build the brand. Quite reasonable that it shouldn't be defaced, and the £70k needed to repaint is just as much a loss to the as if the "artists"
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had broken into a ticket office and nicked £70k in cash. Would 8-16 months be appropriate for nicking £70k in cash?

Tagging is ****in awful but proper grafiti rocks

especially brightening up hideously filthy railway sidings and rotten dirty brickwork that is the signature of british railways

prison time will turn these mild social menaces into bitter, connected, criminally educated tax burdens

i saw lots of good stuff in athens...

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The world would be a splendid place if every urban vandal was a talented graffiti artist.

It would also be pretty good if every robbery was just like The Italian Job or The Thomas Crown Affair, every murder left an attractive corpse at a picturesque angle and a thorny problem to be solved by an old lady and all street fights involved chinese people who could fly.

Another problem with graffiti is that the nice stuff, if it's left, legitimises the ugly stuff. Illustrated quite well by Banksy:

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Midlifecrashes, I'm sorry that you think of that as vandalism. You could have picked a way better example of worthless ugly daubing. It looks like quite a bit of thought has gone into it. I doubt the person doing it will ever make any money from it either.

street fights involved chinese people who could fly.

BD you are on vintage form at the moment. 🙂

BD's a legend 😆

agree that a bit of graffiti does no harm if it's had some thought put into it and the location is sympathetic. Even tags can look really nice if they're done well - Barcelona has some great examples.

I heard of some terrific muggings in Amsterdam, done with real flair and panache considering the lack of real training or natural talent the purpetrators had. Still i felt fit to judge them on their choice of location and personal style. No one was really hurt as all the victims property was insured. 😀

Shoefiti, did your copy of the Daily Mail just drop through the letterbox?

Yup there it is thanks Mr_A!

Been to Berlin at all recently? They've had a graffiti problem there for years now, great swathes of the city are pretty much covered in tags and assorted spray painted shite, I dare say there are some good artists amongst them, but I'd imagine they'd get short shrift from a judge over there by proclaiming, "my public defacing is better than most..."

Arrrrh if only Robert Hughes could speak German and pass a law degree - he'd clear up the town!

yeah but great swathes of berlin are dreary post communist concrete hell holes

[url] http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/02/29/travel/1194817116596/graffiti-in-berlin.html [/url]

heres a vid about it

not sure if berlin grafiti obsession isnt related to the wall the ugliest bit of concrete ever!

Hmmm, depends how persistant offenders they were.
If i got hold of the little scrote who sprayed a nice red band along my families cars, prison would have been the least of their worries, walking again might have been.

You'd permanently disable someone for causing possibly rectifiable damage to a car? 😯

That would simply be criminal damage, anyway, as there's no attempt to be creative at all. Not comparable to graffiti, really, other than the fact that paint is utilised.

Graffiti is a tricky issue. If it's done with a degree of 'responsibility', I doubt anyone could argue against it's validity as artistic expression; sadly, there is too much 'vandalism'.

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Any uninvited graffiti is unwelcome, antisocial and 9/10 times aweful quality. They broke the law, they damaged £70,000s worth of property. WTF shouldnt they be jailed? Want to paint? Do it officially, get permissions, if you cant get permissions find somewhere else. I've no idea why graffiti artists are considered outside the law somehow just because they're a bit talented with a spray can? I dont think graffiti has a place anywhere, its permanent and most of the time makes the place look bloody horrible, a lot worse than the plain wall it was on.

FFS.

Happy to have designated areas for graffiti but in many cases it is just criminal damage (which anyone who does this is perfectly aware of).
Cant do the time dont do the crime ...they knew the risks and are now suffering for their art as have many owners of property they have attacked/improved/ruined.

They had a brush with the law then ?

IGMC

miserable old stw codgers dislike grafiti shocker!

Any uninvited graffiti is unwelcome,

You're seriously arguing that urban environments like the ones in Kimbers' pictures are made worse by a bit of graf?

antisocial

Any more antisocial than endless adverts, rubbish planning decisions and general city grime and filth? Does their work actually harm anyone, aside from the cost of cleaning it up?

and 9/10 times aweful quality.

Maybe I'm just lucky with where I live, but it seems like most of the graf I see in Bristol is the product of people with a bit of talent, and some of it is outstanding.

Edit: Kimbers put it waaay better than me. 🙂

Yeah, I think the stuff on the photo I posted is just worthless vandalism, doesn't show any originality, and barely any style or finesse. It's just a scaled up and coloured in version of a marker pen tag. I chose that example because it's supposedly one of the trains in the case.

The stuff in RudeBoy's post above are great, but context matters especially around political art. Tags on a train are just lame, there are no end of spaces available to get stuff up legally if you're half decent, and this large scale illegal work is more about forcing your ego onto a largely unappreciative public for vanity's sake.

Kimbers did you have any pics of the [i]good [/i]stuff you saw in Athens? Those are just copies of emo kid's T shirts.

midlifecrashes your username implies that you are indeed the target demographic i was talking about

I think the stuff on the photo I posted is just worthless vandalism, doesn't show any originality, and barely any style or finesse. It's just a scaled up and coloured in version of a marker pen tag.

You seem to hate it cos it's not a cartoony picture. It looks to me like the shape of every letter, its colour, internal and external outline and even its position on the train have all been really carefully considered. The fact that someone was able to do that at night in a train yard while beign chased by security guards is even more remarkable.

Mr Agreeable, have you ever been up that little lane just off St. Michael's Hill (down at the Park Row end)...some wonderful stencils up there - including a fantastic multicoloured AK-47.

I sort of know in theory that it's all very good and clever and daring and that I'm supposed to find that it brightens up the drab concrete world with little guerilla flashes of brilliance. But my actual reaction is "Oh. Someone has spray painted a word on a train/stencilled something profound and leftist on that wall". It doesn't upset me particularly, but the vanity of it is a bit tedious and the good stuff just seems to breed a mess of rubbish.

If they're so good at "art" why are they going round causing tens of thousands of pounds of criminal damage by vandalising property which usually means councils spending tax payer's money to clean up?

As to the "brightening up urban hellhole" idea - why then do immature taggers scrawl their daubs all over otherwise attractive stone walls in the parks where I live? Or tag all over the mural that local kids had done?

I think it might be that they are idiots.

the vanity of it is a bit tedious and the good stuff just seems to breed a mess of rubbish.

You've not been to the Tat Modern lately, I take it? 🙂

I am not going to have bad graffiti outside art galleries justified by what goes on inside art galleries. 🙂

Not fussed about the demographic, just saying a lot of the art harks back slavishly to the 80s subway scene and folk like fab5 and The Death Squad. That was a long long time ago. I remember seeing Keith Haring stuff back then as he moved the form on, and he's been dead nearly twenty years now. Yeah I'm on the way to being an old codger (44) but my point is that the first time an artform arrives it has impact, but if it the same old stuff is being churned out by younger artists, there's nothing in it. Banksy works by posing a question or being very topical, and I don't see much of that in street work. Not saying they haven't got the craft element to the work sorted, they have, I just don't see the originality they think they have. Maybe you need to be the old codger to see it's been done before.

I'm with midlifecrashes - that posted train graffiti isn't up to much.

This isn't bad, though:

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i would say the stuff going on outside the tate modern was quite good actually

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and i rather enjoy going round the inside too

Graffiti No, Art Yes,

Graffiti = an attack on other peoples property/lives/space

Art = something which enhances other peoples property/lives/space.

The person whose property it is defines whether it is art or not.

Simples

What a lovely little ray of sunshine yo are, G... 🙂

Midlife; The example you posted is a bit cliched and derivative, praps, but still fairly well executed. I don't think people should graffiti up trains, really, although boring grey Tube trains are sometimes jazzed up nicely with a bit of good graffiti.

Graffiti has moved on a bit, though, from the 80's hip-Hop style, although it's nice to se homage to that era, if it's done well.

Sickboy and Sweet Toof are two contemporary artists who's work you will see around London:

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Maybe they could all just do their own [or parents] houses & cars & be done with it?
No need to then ruin other peoples property

It's a win/win - they get to do their stuff, no one else has to pay, they don't have to be some big fat nonces pillow biting bitch

[i]miserable old stw codgers dislike grafiti shocker! [/i]

Actually i think you'll find most of the "old codgers" have in fact said, in it's place graffiti art is cool, random acts of vandalism with a spray can isn't...

Any uninvited graffiti is unwelcome,

You're seriously arguing that urban environments like the ones in Kimbers' pictures are made worse by a bit of graf?

Yes. That's part of what makes them unpleasant places to be.

antisocial

Any more antisocial than endless adverts, rubbish planning decisions and general city grime and filth? Does their work actually harm anyone, aside from the cost of cleaning it up?

Yes. Does their work harm anyone? Yes, its not very pleasant to look at so makes anyone who lives or works near it have a less appealing place to work, though no it might not jump up and smack them in the fact with a baseball bat. Someone recently decided to improve a wall near my work, it was noted by several clients that the area was going downhill, and noted again when the council cleaned it up.

and 9/10 times aweful quality.

Maybe I'm just lucky with where I live, but it seems like most of the graf I see in Bristol is the product of people with a bit of talent, and some of it is outstanding.

Maybe it's just a difference in taste, most (if not all) of the graffiti I have seen in Bristol makes the place look like a dirty, scrote-filled mess.

Ultimately it is only attractive to those who find it attractive, and I don't. All these "Banksy Art" items, look like a ****ing mess, barely above the scrawlings of a teenager. I've yet to see any graffiti that improved the place.

i think my stw old codgers comment is proving itself time and again!!

kimbers, I'm 27 and very definitely not "old fashioned". Just because someone disagrees with something it doesnt mean they're automatically the embodiment of the exact opposite point of view. If following your example I could say "oh christ, here come the angst ridden teenagers wanting to be "creative"" but that would be a strange thing to say about someone I dont know at all.

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i know i think im trolling a bit now

but i just have this mental image of "stw old codgers" quivering with rage at out of control hoodies daubing obscenities over this countries great buildings, probably the same youths who trampled his prize winning begonias last summer and exactly the reason that the british empire fell apart!!!

I read of a guy who got an indefinite sentence (IPP) because the police pinned him with conspiracy and he got caught up in immigration hell because one of his parents wasn't British. He'd arranged to meet people over his mobile to do graffiti. No violence, no previous, respectable employment.
A few years ago the sentencing policies went to crap with novel sentencing devices and the concentration on "nuisance" crimes, as well the new powers brought in to answer terrorist threats and sex crime but misused by police and prosecutors to inflate arrests for petty crime to the status of grand villainy. It's calmed down a bit now, thank goodness.
That doesn't mean I sympathise with breaking the law, but I just think a sense of proportion is an important element of justice.

Kimbers - I can see the annoyance at trampled begonias (despite the fact that I dont grow any plants other than food ones!) 🙂 I am, however, sat in a hoody at work 😀

trailmonkey - yes but we have moved on a bit since then...
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danceswithcats - proportion is a two-way thing, maybe we're too lenient at the other end and that makes this look too little?

the point is once these guys leave prison they will be more likely to commit serious crimes than when they went in

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5362217/Reoffending-rate-rise-for-first-time-in-five-years.html ]torygraph[/url]
[i]The number of prisoners re-offending has increased, the frequency of that re-offending is rising and the most serious re-offending has shot up by over 10 per cent in a single year.[/i]

Ray of Sunshine? Moi? Not bloody likely, I am indeed that personifaction of a grumpy oold man that kimbers is wattling on about. One of those who would most willingly grass up ANY graffiti "artist" and do a wee jig when they go down.

Like I said I have no problem whatsoever with them performing their "art" wherever it enhances other peoples lives/space/property. There is no argument whatsoever available in support of a contrary position, apart from "its not effecting me and I like the pretty colours/patterns so the fact its costing you (and indirectly everyone else) thousands is irrelevant next to my own selfishness"

kimbers, thats their own fault. Its our problem, but they caused it. "letting them off lightly" would not work as a deterrant. What we need to address is why they feel the need to spray rubbish paintings all over everything in the strange and ill-founded belief that everyone thinks they're making the place nicer! 😀

Recidivism is not of itself a reason to decriminalise something. It is however a reasonable indicator that the current approach isn't working. So how about poking their eyes out with a sharp stick? Brail graffiti isn't anywhere near as offensive to the eye.... 😉

G makes the best suggestion of the thread.

I thank you ....

So now we've cleared that up whats next?

Mr Agreeable, have you ever been up that little lane just off St. Michael's Hill (down at the Park Row end)...some wonderful stencils up there - including a fantastic multicoloured AK-47.

Just saw that the other day! Quite an otherworldly place.

a lot of the art harks back slavishly to the 80s subway scene and folk like fab5 and The Death Squad

Yeah a lot of it is a bit "traditional" and the progression isn't really evident from stuff like that photo - but really who cares, it's an OK piece, it's not a straight rip-off of something from Subway Art, and it would probably get their peers excited. You can say the same about a lot of art.

Banksy works by posing a question or being very topical, and I don't see much of that in street work.

You have to read between the lines a bit - for example some people use their tags to comment on gentrification or development. There's a really nice piece in Stokes Croft here that kind of sums up the way the city centre is currently being raped by greedy developers (or at least was, until the money ran out). A lot of this stuff poses interesting questions by its very existence.

Banksy's stuff is just repackaged Situationism anyway, and as for Keith Bloody Haring, IMO a more shallow and tedious artist you could not hope to find - but I'd still rather look at either's work than a bit of dirty concrete!

but I'd still rather look at either's work than a bit of dirty concrete!

I'm an engineer, I'd rather look at the concrete 😀 Bloody "artists" 🙂