Hipster Diss Graffiti Advert

The story is on WoosterCollective.com and there is a video of it here and loads of chat too.

Big excerpt from Wooster below. Bizarre thing is someone called the cops and them whilst they were doing it and it is meant to be the writer that did the ad in the first place. He dropped the charges and now intends to sue them instead. Crazy stuff.

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 a hipster was arrested in Chicago while covering up a corporate graffiti advertisement for Axe Deoderant. The artist that did the graffiti saw them and 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 Critical Massive, the company that was paid to put up the ad wants to sue the hipsters 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.

 

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.

fuck hipsters.

interesting...

im tempted to go and try it and see what happens.

some one wrote "off limits" on that axe add thats why they were buffing it....and fuck those kinds of adds because there is one for a car a few blocks away and it says "street art" on it but then some one wrot "not art" on that one i think its cool to get paid for that but at the same time lame as fuck

fuck hipsters indeed...

fuck graff ads as well...

i still suspect seeks of being a closet white belt...

i guess its cool in a way that graff is finally being reconized by the masses, as art, but its not cool that with that, comes the corporate.

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.

I like how the hipsters are organising an "open panel discussion" to discuss what happened. Fuck discussing it. If the writer saw them doing it he should have thrown the buff paint over those stupid artfgas heads.

Fuck advertising....because I'm currently pounding the pavement for an internship

TBWA Ya'll

Fuck where it's at. Fuck why it's there. In plain black and white terms: I did a legal. You come and fuck with it, it's regular graffiti beef!! I'm fighting you! & crossing you out everywhere. Unless if the people who actually got me to do the legal instructed those Other writers to buff it. Then I wouldn't care. But those art fags just buffed it on their own cause they don't like legals?? Hell na. FUck them! BEEEF. I wouldn't have called the cops, though. I would have informed the people I did it for-that there's some punks out there right now buffing it.

its a bit iffy that the writer got in touch with the police...

fight fight fight!

Originally posted by El Mikinbin De Miami@Jun 15 2005, 08:40 AM

Fuck where it's at. Fuck why it's there. In plain black and white terms: I did a legal. You come and fuck with it, it's regular graffiti beef!! I'm fighting you! & crossing you out everywhere. Unless if the people who actually got me to do the legal instructed those Other writers to buff it. Then I wouldn't care. But those art fags just buffed it on their own cause they don't like legals?? Hell na. FUck them! BEEEF. I wouldn't have called the cops, though. I would have informed the people I did it for-that there's some punks out there right now buffing it.

Quoted post

Yeah, pretty much....

Fuck an open panel discussion. This isn't D.C.....Whatre they gonna do? Set up a "commission to investigate the events"? These hipster dorks should stick to doing their gay little stencils and fronting like they "have something to say". Fucking gut these clowns for real.

You go over a REAL writers fillin with some gay stencil or wheatpaste, you deserve to get slapped or have the rest of your stupid shit get dissed. Buffing that shit is in the same leauge as dissing it via tag, fill, stencil, what-the-fuck-ever....

Haha this is excellent.

Basically these hipster kids were probably like "Yeh dude, like, we're totally going to get props for covering up this lame-ass graf ad, probably done by some stupid yuppie (that we're going to be in the future.) We're going to get soo much street cred!"

Right. What is this, fuckin adbusters? If you're going to destroy graf-oriented ads, destroy all of them!

And yeh, the original artist called the cops. But most like the agency he works for told him he had to call the cops. Yes graffiti is graffiti, but once it enters the business realm of things, you must handle it in a professional manner.

Im sure if the artist had his own way he would have gotten a shitload of his crew and banged some heads together. Unfortunately, when another company pisses you off, its not your honor to put your foot up the CEO's ass. You gota deal and call the appropriate authorities.

no u ididots it was writers going over the legal advertisement done by writers.

"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."

im a bit confused here.....from what i gather a "writer" got upset because two other "writers" (who look to me like two poorly dressed shitheads painting a wall black) painted over an ad that he had already gotten paid to do. then said "writer" called police?

im coming away with two things....

a)this isnt worth the discussion its sparking

and

b)this is a shitty article

Originally posted by neater@Jun 14 2005, 12:37 PM

some one wrote "off limits" on that axe add thats why they were buffing it....and fuck those

kinds of adds because there is one for a car a few blocks away and it says "street art" on it

but then some one wrot "not art" on that one i think its cool to get paid for that but at the

same time lame as fuck

Quoted post

Actually I live right there.

2 days after it was put up those (i won't name who) kids put the black buff paint on it. 2 days

after that it was repainted, then the following day someone dissed it writing "Off Limits" That

rode for about 4 days and it was fixxed yesterday.

The way i see it is, this was a known writer, that's up nation-wide and deserves respect for the

decade + he's been painting. However as far a vandalising it any advertisment is up for grabs

but if your doing it to this because it's bastardising "street art" you better hit all the comedy

central ads, converse ads, and the countless others that use a"graffiti stylized" treatment.

To all the chicagogoans on this board, do you think they are the ones buffing the fill-ins on

billboards with black paint? (lets hope not). I've seen this done twice.

****EDITED****

While I said that advertisments are up for grabs, know your history before hand, and keep

in mind you my offend some people you did not wish to.

And don't bother guessing who it's by if you can read style, good. If you can't, get a clue.

The kids buffing are not writers. They do some instalation work but that's it.

So wait... now the 'artfags' and 'hipsters' hate legal shit with a passion? Damn, I guess that whole IRAK Clothing/Culture Club thing had more of an impact than expected.

Everyone listen to Detterant. Hes a smart cookie.

And again, the kids doing the Comedy Central/MTV/Converse/etc Ad Campaigns are all past and/+ present writers.

yea its still pretty fucked up that legal shit is getting buffed. From what it seems they could care less how good it looks they just want to have some all out war.

Its pretty sad that someone would buff such nice legal walls. It just shows how dense they are.

"Legal walls are for pussies man. You ain't even knowin how to bomb"

I hate when people say shit like that.

Originally posted by seeking@Jun 15 2005, 01:37 AM

fuck hipsters.

Quoted post

but vice said graffiti's cool, weren't they reading?

I HEARD IT WAS NECKFACE.....

Aw com'on.....Corperate graff rocks.

My take on it is how would those artfag/hipsters feel if they did a public mural and some writers had "issues" with public murals done by middle class graduates in poor neighbourhoods and went and did fills on it? They would be all sad and talking about how "fellow artists should respect art" despite the fact the mural would be a commercial venture in that they got paid to do it. Whilst their argument (which is why does the fact that graffiti which is commissioned become legitimate and "art", whilst graffiti which is illegal is an evil to be buffed straight away?) is a good one, I think by dissing a piece done by a writer they have done the wrong thing. Surely going to the city council/mayor or writing to the papers etc is the way to do it if they want to bring attention to it city-wide. By doing what they did they just pissed off loads of writers.

Originally posted by HIDING BEHIND A SCREEN@Jun 15 2005, 11:28 PM

I HEARD IT WAS NECKFACE.....

Quoted post

hahahaha yeah i heard it was him and "butt crack"...they were really mad cause there new 50 dollar bell bottoms had gotten paint on them and the new atreyu cd realease date had been delayed so they had to take it out on someone

....when hipsters attack!

fuck corporate america.

That Axe ad was legitimate and was bought and paid for, and some kids defaced it. That is vandalism. I don't understand what the issue is. I'm not gonna waste my brain thinking about how the corporations can't play by the rules of graffiti. That is stupid and you naive people need to relax yourselves.