So this morning, we wrote a piece for the Wooster
site about how graf artists are buffin’ out the same work that they are being
paid to create through their day jobs. (I know it’s a bit confusing, but if you
read this morning’s post you’ll understand why). So, of all of the things we’ve
ever written for the Wooster site (Banksy hittin’ the New York museums not
included) this morning’s piece has generated the most amount of emails of
anything we ever put up on the site. The truth is that we’ve been aware of
artists “working on the inside” for a long time but have never written about it
until this morning.

But that said, we need to clarify something in
regards to Axe and Chicago….

In the Axe instance, the artist who
was painting over the Axe ad was not the artist who originally painted it. We
got the story wrong in translation. Rather, from what we’re told what happened
was that the artist who painted the ad saw the other graf artists buffin it out
and then became pissed that something that he was paid to do earlier was now
being fucked with. He then got involved with calling the cops on the other
artists. The other artists couldn’t believe that another graf artist was turning
against them.

What’s interesting in all of this is that it seems this
event has caused a major rift in the graf community in Chicago. Before brands
were hiring graf artists to do ads, everyone was out for the same thing. Bombing
the streets and gettin’ up. But not anymore. What’s happened in Chicago is that
some of the graf artists are now doing commercial work on the streets and some
of them aren’t. The artists that aren’t doing the commercial work are taking to
the streets buffing the work of the artists who are. This has created an all out
war on the streets of Chicago as artists are turning against other artists based
on their decision of doing commerical work.

One other thing we should
mention - While some won’t agree with us, we actually like the Time, Inc.
project on Houston Street done with CopeII and created by Fallon. First, the way
we see it, Cope’s being paid to do his shit the way he wants to. He’s not
painting a car or a deoderant or a candy bar, he’s creating a fuckin’ massive
tag. And second, the campaign has got people talking. That’s what the best
campaigns do. They provoke. Unlike the Axe ads and the Hummer ads and all that
shit, the Fallon ad for Time is meant to be controversial. It’s meant to
provoke. It’s meant to get people thinking about this stuff. And for this we
applaud Time, Fallon and Cope for a terrific campaign. We don’t, and won’t, lump
the Time ad with all of the others. Nothing is perfect. And for us, the CopeII
ads achieve what they are meant to achieve - they get people talking and
thinking. They are meant to provoke and they do.