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…but is it art? By P.A. Sévigny, The Suburban

 

2.1014390.graffiti-BW.jpg

Photo by Martin Chamberland, The Suburban 'Castro' found! Is it art? 2.1014390.07-8-cityCOVER.jpg

Photo by Rob Taussig, The Suburban

Besides trying to allocate hard-to-find tax money to clean up the mess, city officials don’t seem to know what to do about the plague of graffiti being sprayed all over the walls of the city. While any stretch of concrete up to 10 feet from the ground is considered to be fair game for the city’s “taggers”, those with a little more initiative and enterprise have taken to the roofs of the city in order to find a visible space upon which they can do a “throw-up” —their tag. Property owners all over the city are furious and city councillors are under heavy pressure to do something about the situation.

 

“I don’t get it,” said a disgusted Michel Legrand. “Why would anybody want to spend time and money to keep doing this baby la-la bull__it all over the city?”

 

Legrand was staring at CASTRO’s latest tag, a two colour “throw-up” taking up at least a square metre facing a parking lot off Aylmer Avenue in the downtown core. CASTRO is one of Montreal’s more ubiquitous taggers who uses spray paint, a brush or sometimes nothing more than a marker to scrawl his signature all over the city.

 

“A lot of people do what I do,” he said, “but not many do them as BIG as I do.”

 

Using a friend’s apartment on **** Street in NDG, 27-year-old ***** is Montreal’s ubiquitous CASTRO. At first, *** refused to talk about his life as a tagger but after a few minutes and a few pointed questions, he did admit that he was CASTRO. Pleading a previous appointment, Castro promised to meet later and talk with The Suburban but he missed his appointment and has once again dropped out of sight.

 

Sterling Downey was not surprised. While Downey is the creative director of Faux Amis, his own successful marketing business, the man is also considered to be one of the city’s experts on post-modern and post-industrial culture.

 

“Self-promotion is at the core of graffiti,” he said. “It’s all about the individual and it transcends all of society’s ideas about art.”

 

While Downey understands and even agrees as to how and why some people consider urban graffiti to be the cutting edge of contemporary art in the western world, he also agrees much of it is nothing less than irresponsible vandalism.

 

“Being an adult is being responsible for your actions,” he said. “But there’s a lot of power and a lot of freedom when you’re totally anonymous.” Citing several of the comic book heroes in contemporary pop culture, Downey explained how taggers use comic book superheroes as their role models.

 

“Superman is only Superman because everyone knows he’s really Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter who has a crush on Lois Lane. Spiderman is only Spiderman because everybody knows he’s really Peter Parker, a single guy who lives with his aunt in a high-rise.”

 

Anonymous or not, members of the SPVM (Service de la Police de la Ville de Montréal) youth squad will have a hard time agreeing with Downey as to whether graffiti is on the cutting edge of the contemporary art world. An entire section has been organized to deal with the problem and cases are already being prepared against a number of the city’s taggers, including both CASTRO and another tagger who calls himself “Monts”.

 

“This guy must have hit the wrong wall,” said one officer. ”Sun Youth is ready to pay anyone $1,000 for information leading to his [Monts] arrest and conviction.”

 

The city’s municipal court considers a graffiti conviction to be nothing more than a misdemeanour offence and sentences are usually nothing more than a $200 fine and a promise to be good and “to keep the peace.”

 

“As soon as we arrest them, they’re back on the streets the next day,” said one Verdun police officer. “The city has to get serious about these guys.”

 

Downey doesn’t agree.

 

“So what are you going to do,” he asked. “Shoot them? Are you ready to send someone to jail for marking up a wall?”

 

Jail might not be the solution but several city officials think convicted taggers should do something about cleaning up their mess and paying for the damages.

 

Last year, Verdun borough executive Jean Reid said it cost the borough over $160,000 to clean more than 7,000 square metres of assorted tags.

 

“People want us to clean up the borough and they’re the ones who have to pay for it,” he said.

 

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lol i see monts up a lot in westmount

why dont all u groupies jus shut up and stop being jealous and do ur own thing

bump every1 doing their thing

at least some of those kids r out at night doing shit and not painting rouen all day like some other faggots doing played out piecing styles

support the movement ...dont stop it

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