As more advertisers incorporate
graf and street art into their campaigns, more graffiti writers are taking to
the streets to protest against it. But in many cases, there’s an interesting
twist to all of this.

The artists
who are defacing the ads, are also the same artists who created them.
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Here’s the situation: A large segment of the most hardcore graf and
street artists also have day jobs to pay the bills. Who doesn’t. But many of
them now work in traditional ad agencies or design shops. Their identity on the
streets is kept secret in the workplace.

So as more ad campaigns begin to co-opt graf and street art
in the ads themselves, more graf writers are finding themselves in a bizarre
situation - they’re now working on projects that co-opt the very same shit they
they get arrested for. So rather than walk away from their source of income,
more and more artists are working from the inside. To balance the scales, the
artists who are now creating the multi-million dollar ad campaigns, are the same
ones that are taking them down.

One of the things that we find the
most interesting about all of this is that for years and years people have been
complaining that graf is a blight to society. That it’s ugly. That it creates
crime. That it destroys neighborhoods. And because of this, artists get
arrested. Walls get buffed. Newspaper articles get written about graffiti as
nothing other than vandalism.

Okay so now, the new wave in
advertising is outdoor advertisements that use actual graffiti in the ads. Time
Magazine is the latest one to do so with CopeII. But what’s so fucking
hypocritical is that when the graf is paid for - when it’s an “ad” and no longer
an original piece of art, it’s suddenly okay. It’s accepted. But it’s the same
shit! Only not as good.

I can picure it now - Mayor Bloomberg is
driving in towncar down Houston Street in New York and sees the massive CopeII
stealth ad for Time Magazine. He looks up at the huge piece of graf and says to
his aid - “What the fuck? I thought we were cracking down on this shit? How the
hell does a guy paint something as large as that and not get arrested by the
5,000 undercover narcotics cops we’ve put in Soho?” The assistant tells him that
the CopeII graf is actually an ad. And that it was paid for by Time, Inc, one of
the cities most prominant residents. Bloomberg hears that the graf was an ad and
not uncommissioned and replys - ” Terrific. Great campaign. How much are they
spending?”

But it’s the same shit!

So yesterday we heard about a more public example of
working from the inside. This week an artist was arrested in Chicago while
covering up a corporate graffiti advertisement for Axe Deoderant. The twist -
The artist who was covering it up, was also the same artist who was hired to
paint it in the first place. But the interesting thing is that the guy didn’t
tell the other guys who were helping him that he was the writer that did the
piece. He called his bosses in NY to find out what to do. He was embarrassed to
admit it so at one point he was going to press charges and send the others to
jail.

We’re told that href="http://www.criticalmassive.com/">Critical Massive, the company that
was paid to put up the ad wants to sue the artists for covering up their ad
saying that it cost them $7,500. The amazing thing is that Critical Massive is
not a large ad agency. It’s one of the now many “graffiti agencies” that have
sprung up. If this story is true, then a more appropriate name for the company
should be “Hypocritical Massive”.

At first, the artists who were
buffing the Axe ad told the cops that the City of Chicago has a “Graffiti
Blasters” campaign and that they were doing what the campaign asked the citizens
to do and were trying to be good citizens by covering up the unsightly corporate
graffiti, just like the city does to uncomissioned graffiti. Why should there be
a difference?

But of course, the cops didn’t buy it.

You
can read more about this fascinating turn of events here. Be sure to read the comments. They are
terrific. Be sure to also watch the video

We can definately see the
logic in all of this. - If a company uses graf in their ads, why should they be
mad when it gets written over or buffed out? It’s part of the world that they’re
trying to invade, correct? The two go hand in hand.

We’re told that
an article in one of the Chicago weeklies here has sparked a campaign to deface
all of the Axe graffiti ads in the city. A few more of the Axe ads have been
defaced, but none of the others have been completely painted over
yet.