Just so we are clear (I would like to think many have picked this vibe up from me before): I think a lot of legals are shithouse. Like, really fucking banal and vanilla. Spare me, shoot me, just stop being cute.
There is a paradoxical vibe undermining street art right now. Some are attempting to use the paradigm and power of 'legitimacy' to pull rank. In public. On walls. In shared spaces. Outside of galleries. I don't care who owns a wall, legally, no one owns rights over how others choose to treat it. Well, aside from the cops, obviously.
Coming from this perspective, with my romantic notion of anarchy, I need to therefore ask: why the fuck are some people increasingly becoming so pent up when 'legals' get 'capped' ?
Do we need to drag this old argument out again? How does a pecking order based on what looks 'good' sit next to the reality that art in the street is public. By allowing the idea of a collective understanding of 'good art' to have any legitimacy we are actually buying into the commercial and bureaucratic ideas of how to control the 'filth on the streets'.
This is very judgemental territory people. Make no mistake, you will turn Melbourne into a giant Chadstone food court if you buy into it.
I absolutely refuse to support any notion that involves favouring one thing on a wall over another because of some notion of beauty, talent or legality. I don't mind if you do. But it makes you a conservative, in my mind.
Who says what is good? What does it mean to critique the street? Like I said, I know as much as anyone in the public, about seeing and responding in public spaces.
But Trish, sorry but back at you, who the fuck are you?
Our walls. Our land. Our rules. Stop buying the shit the council tells you. Let them pay your rent, for sure, but don't sell out.
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