Legal Information
Splashing the Art World With Anger and Questions
The New York TimesJune 30, 2007
Art
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Until the pranks turned ugly, it was heartening to follow the dust-up between a bunch of street artists and their nemesis or nemeses, identity unknown. As The New York Times reported this week, for some time works of stenciled graffiti art and wheat-pasted posters slapped onto walls in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan have been splashed with paint and scrawled with messages of protest.
Anonymous claimants have distributed various communiqués taking responsibility for the sabotage, citing the Situationists of the 1950 and ’60s as inspiration. One manifesto declared street art “a bourgeois-sponsored rebellion,” politically impotent, facilitating gentrification.
It was, if nothing else, good to hear that art was still being contested in the streets, not just marketed and sold in Chelsea. But then, earlier this month, as the summer silly season started, somebody lobbed a stink bomb into the… Read more
'El Barto' graffiti vandal sentenced
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Report
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A Santa Rosa graffiti vandal was sentenced Monday to 1,000 hours of
community service and three years of felony probation after he pleaded
no contest earlier this year to two counts of felony vandalism,
prosecutors said.
Saif Axxxx, 19, who tagged under the name "Bart" or "El Barto," will also pay restitution to his victims, said Sonoma County Assistant District Attorney Diana Gomez. Prosecutors dropped seven felony counts in exchange for Axxxx's plea.
Police said Axxxx, who was arrested in October, was a prolific vandal, tagging several hundred spots in the North Bay.
He will perform graffiti abatement as his service to the community, Gomez said.
SRJC student arrested as prolific tagger
By BOB NORBERGAND JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT (Santa Rosa, CA)
A Santa Rosa man suspected of being the prolific tagger "El Barto," whose widespread graffiti has caused about $100,000 in damage, was arrested Friday, police said.
xxxx, an 18-year-old Santa Rosa Junior College student, is suspected of several hundred graffiti incidents throughout Sonoma County and in other parts of the Bay Area during the past year, making him one of the region's most active vandals, Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Lisa Banayat said.
His tag has been prominent on freeway railings and overpasses, homes, commercial buildings, fences and signs.
"I even saw him once on Lombard in San Francisco," Banayat said.
After a monthlong investigation, xxxx was arrested at a first-floor, one-bedroom Ridgway Avenue apartment where he lived with his father, xxxx, across the street from the Santa Rosa City Schools District administrative offices.
Youth soccer… Read more
Writing's on the wall for graffiti guerrilla
Writing's on the wall for graffiti guerrilla Notorious S.F. tagger hit with $20,000 fine
Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Carlos Romero left his spray-painted graffiti marks around San Francisco for years, tagging everything from fences and walls to street signs and trash cans with such monikers as CREAM and QUESO (which in Spanish means cheese).
And it wasn't just dairy products he had an affinity for. When police linked Romero to one tag name, city officials said, he would simply switch to another, and in addition to CREAM and QUESO he left a trail…
Read moreBORF gets a Month in Jail
Stencil Archive stands in solidarity with BORF and all other artists who end up in bogus judicial systems that support property rights.
From the Washington Post
The teenage graffiti vandal known as Borf got tagged yesterday -- with 30 days in the D.C. jail and a dressing-down that no one in the courtroom will soon forget.
Borf, aka [not gonna give his real name out], chose not to address the judge who was deciding his fate. But D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz had a lot to say to the young anarchist from Northern Virginia. She didn't paint a pretty picture.
"You profess to despise rich people," she said. "You profess to despise the faceless, nameless forms of government that oppress. That's what you've become. That's what you are. You're a rich kid who comes into Washington and defaces property because you feel like it. It's not fair. It's not right."
Prolific like few local taggers before him, the 18-year-old [name…
The Right to Bear Cameras
Go to the blog post
Tonight Flickr pals Ropeboy, Aqui-Ali, Ranjit and I all went down to Oakland's warehouse district to shoot. No sooner had we begun than we were stopped and confronted by Sheriffs. They required each of us to turn over our IDs and then proceeded to detain us for about 20 minutes. Admitedly there is a small power plant and trains down in the district but ask yourself this, should carrying a camera result in this kind of harrasment? Should the police be able to randomly stop you and run your ID for warrants or a background check merely for being in the wrong place with a camera? There is a chill in the air in this country right now but I'm not sure that taking it out on the rights of photographers is the correct answer. We were…
Read moreVandalism or Art? Part II in the SF Chronicle
The public space belongs to everyone and no one. Caught in the middle are those who treasure public art and those who would paint over it.
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
When she first appeared, on a wall in San Francisco's Mission District, the woman smiled in sunny contentment as she patted a fresh tortilla in her hands. A large, skillfully shaded water pitcher stood nearby and beyond, an airy Mexican mountainscape stretched down the block. Today her smile looks pale and wan. Graffiti taggers have had their way with this mural at the corner of 24th and Florida streets. They've inscribed the white tortilla with their signatures and marched over the landscape with their spray cans. The mural itself, meanwhile, has faded, as if it were sinking back into the surface under the pressure of these multiple assaults.
Most viewers would likely agree that this is a sorry and degraded sight. Vandalism perpetrated on…
Vandalism or Art? Part I in the SF Chronicle
The urge to express oneself by writing on a blank wall is as old and primal as cave painting. But one tagger's colorful imagery is another person's ugly scrawl. One thing is certain: Graffiti's not going away.
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic
Monday, March 7, 2005
The boxy white truck chuffed up 18th Street and pulled over near the intersection at South Van Ness. Four Department of Public Works employees, clad in white jumpsuits and bright orange vests, got out, opened the back door and pulled out their supplies. With rollers and buckets of Mail Box Blue, Feather Gray and Navajo White, the crew set to work painting out a swarm of spray-can signatures, insignias, pictures and slogans. The first thing they covered was this waggish line on a stucco wall: "fresh out of college and I turn to a life of vandalism."
The graffiti, which on first glance seemed apparent only on the broad surfaces of buildings and mail boxes, was everywhere.…
Know Your Rights in the USA
From the ACLU: To fight police abuse effectively you need to know your rights. There are some things you should do, some things you must do and some things you cannot do. If you are in the middle of a police encounter, you need a handy and quick reference to remind you what your rights and obligations are.- Be polite and respectful. Never bad-mouth a police officer.
- Stay calm and in control of your words, body language and emotions.
- Don't get into an argument with the police.
- Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you.
- Keep your hands where the police can see them.
- Don't run. Don't touch any police officer.
- Don't resist even if you believe you are innocent.
- Don't complain on the scene or tell the police they're wrong or that you're going to file a complaint.
- Do not make any statements regarding the incident. Ask for a lawyer immediately upon your arrest. …
LA Municipal Code for Graffiti
"Graffiti" means any unauthorized inscription, word, figure, painting or other defacement that is written, marked, etched, scratched, sprayed, drawn, painted, or engraved on or otherwise affixed to or on any surface of county-owned property or non-county-owned property within the unincorporated area of the county by or with, but not limited to, any of the following: felt-tip marker, paint stick or graffiti stick, or graffiti implement, to the extent that the same was not authorized in advance by the owner or occupant thereof, or, despite advance authorization, is otherwise deemed by the board to be a public nuisance.
13.12 GRAFFITI PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REMOVAL
13.12.020. Definitions.
For the purposes of this title, the following words shall have the meanings respectively ascribed to them in this section:
"Aerosol paint container" means any aerosol container which is adapted or made for the purpose of applying spray painting, or other substance…