Over the years, one thing we learned about street art is that the motivation of the artist is not vandalism or destruction of private property. Rather it’s to beautify and bring creativity to “ugly” things and ugly places. 

When we received the photo above in our email today, it struck us that Rene Gagnon is putting up his art on ugly rusting crappy dumpsters, not beautiful marble walls.  The act of putting up his art is definitely illegal. And our opinion is that it shouldn’t be “legal”. It is indeed an “illegal” act. 

But when you look at this photo above- Is Rene’s act of putting up his art on a crappy dumpster “vandalism” or beautification? 

Vandalism is defined in the dictionary as:

“an action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.”

So the question we ask ourselves is:

Is adding his artwork to an urban blight “destruction of or damage” of public or private property?  Yes, the dumpster is private property.  But how is the act of adding art to rusting tin “destruction” or “damage”? 

We don’t expect everyone to agree with us. It’s just how we feel.