Czech it out!

December 15, 2011 11:07 AM

Five guys, five hundred cans of spray paint, and sixteen days.
posted by chronkite (39 comments total)

That is fucking gorgeous. I'm really fond of the way the leg just fades into the plain brick wall.
posted by griphus at 11:10 AM on December 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

Amazingly beautiful. But part of me wonders how they're going to feel when some twit comes along and tags it. Blow up the set of pictures and look at the one on the top left. How's it gonna be when the bottom of their supermural has that crap over it?
posted by rusty at 11:14 AM on December 15, 2011

This is so beautiful! I like to think other graffiti artists would leave it alone and find a blank wall instead. I am an optimist.
posted by chatongriffes at 11:21 AM on December 15, 2011

i love this part:

Some folks made it a point to come see us every day. This one man repeatedly brought us freshly brewed coffee from his home. I can tell you one thing, we “own “very little of that wall . It belongs to those who see it everyday now.

posted by cristinacristinacristina at 11:25 AM on December 15, 2011

This is absolutely amazing.
posted by Zophi at 11:26 AM on December 15, 2011

Amazingly beautiful. But part of me wonders how they're going to feel when some twit comes along and tags it.

I live in a city (Philadelphia) with a huge mural arts program; tons of walls all over the city are done up, many in not-very-fancy parts of town. And nearly all of them remain entirely untagged. I'm not worried.

And holy crap that is GORGEOUS.
posted by Tomorrowful at 11:26 AM on December 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wish I was in Montreal.
posted by Hoopo at 11:28 AM on December 15, 2011

Nice but the head needs some work, she looks squished. Sorry, that's 3 semesters of life drawing talking. Otherwise very nice.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:29 AM on December 15, 2011 [5 favorites]

MOAR!!
posted by LoudMusic at 11:32 AM on December 15, 2011

years ago in SF I got to watch a mural get painted on the side street near my work. its sooooo cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7bjN0zvoo

this is incredibly beautiful and I love the story of the local man bringing them coffee and the artists feeling that the mural belongs to the community. yeah :)
posted by supermedusa at 11:35 AM on December 15, 2011

Amazingly beautiful. But part of me wonders how they're going to feel when some twit comes along and tags it. Blow up the set of pictures and look at the one on the top left. How's it gonna be when the bottom of their supermural has that crap over it?

Most taggers aren't total assholes. Tagging a blank wall is a lot different than destroying a piece of public art.
posted by mightygodking at 11:37 AM on December 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

More? Well, they're not all massive art nouveau works, but Mural Locator could scratch your itch.

And the tagged murals I've seen have been untagged for many years. Unfortunately, they seem to fall under the Broken Windows theory, where the first tag to stay up signals the demise of the mural. But by that time, perhaps a new mural should replace the old?
posted by filthy light thief at 11:39 AM on December 15, 2011

doh
posted by supermedusa at 11:41 AM on December 15, 2011

Hmph. Some cities know how to deal with graffiti. HAMBURGER
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:44 AM on December 15, 2011

Holy god is that beautiful.
posted by notsnot at 11:56 AM on December 15, 2011

Stunning. One hell of a visual gift to the neighborhood.
posted by kinnakeet at 12:05 PM on December 15, 2011

Glorious. Even if she does look like Celine Dion. Coincidence?
posted by Madamina at 12:07 PM on December 15, 2011

Rob Ford would make sure that was painted over next day even if he had to use a pumper truck full of grey paint to do it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:17 PM on December 15, 2011

At first I thought "huh, that's neat," until I scrolled down and saw how huge it is in relation to the artists.
posted by slogger at 12:26 PM on December 15, 2011

Beautiful!

Big-motor art is a baffling talent. They can't see it all at a glance while working on it.
posted by rahnefan at 12:27 PM on December 15, 2011

I saw your description and I rolled my eyes. But in fact it is gorgeous.

It's sad to say, but within a month the very bottom of it, as much as can be reached without a ladder, will be covered with graffiti. Too bad they didn't stop their image about 20 feet up.

Usually this kind of image begins small, and has to be transferred to the larger format. Making it come out right is a problem; you usually use a grid. In this case it has to have been much easier, because the brick work is inherently a grid, and in fact one with pretty fine grain.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:31 PM on December 15, 2011

Wow! (Does not look like Celine Dion to me.)
posted by Glinn at 12:35 PM on December 15, 2011

Most taggers aren't total assholes. Tagging a blank wall is a lot different than destroying a piece of public art.

My neighbour put up a beautiful new fence. Vertical, rough-cut cedar boards on cedar stringers between cedar posts. Not a damn square inch of pressure treated wood in it. A glowing spectrum of sunrise cedar colours which by rights should fade over the years to that rich ghostly grey. A gorgeous, simple, natural, organic adornment to the street.

Two days later, some asshole tags the entire length of it.

So maybe most taggers aren't total assholes, but the ones who are make up for the rest of them.
posted by Rumple at 12:37 PM on December 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ha!

My girlfriend lives in Montreal very near that Mural-we saw it going up on my last visit! We stood around and watched them work a few times. It's even better in person. I doubt it will be tagged, but I'll ask her if it has been. She'll have noticed, as we were both blown away and totally loved it.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 12:57 PM on December 15, 2011

mightygodking: "Tagging a blank wall is a lot different than destroying a piece of public art."

Says the guy who doesn't own a blank wall.
posted by falameufilho at 1:10 PM on December 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

What a fantastic mural. I like how they framed the whole thing with untouched margins.

FWIW, my understanding of tagger etiquette is first art stays unblemished, as if it is 'claimed'.
posted by yoga at 1:17 PM on December 15, 2011

I think the "taggers" in this case would be teenagers with paint markers, not twentysomething artists with spraycans and an understanding of graffiti etiquette.
posted by griphus at 1:22 PM on December 15, 2011

Heh, this is just a few blocks away from my son's daycare. It really is a nice, though. NDG has lots of stupid tagging "graffiti", if you can even call it that.
posted by Premeditated Symmetry Breaking at 1:24 PM on December 15, 2011

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad to hear that chances are this won't be tagged. But no love for those of us who prefer blank walls to scribbling? I would cheer a movement of graffiti artists that was explicitly anti-tagging. To me, it seems like the difference between beautifying and defacing, where art > blank wall > scribbled names. Most of the vitriol against graffiti is due to the scribbling, whereas most of the defense of it is due to the art. There's a basic disconnect.

There may be such a movement -- if so this would be a good place for the more knowledgeable of you to bring it to our attention. I don't have any special insight into this other than a casual interest.
posted by rusty at 1:32 PM on December 15, 2011

16 days??? Wow that's fast.
posted by smcameron at 1:47 PM on December 15, 2011

mightygodking: Most taggers aren't total assholes. Tagging a blank wall is a lot different than destroying a piece of public art.

Timely.
posted by Acey at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damnit, so many people already beat me to a Rob Ford joke.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:38 PM on December 15, 2011

In August see no evil did something similar with Nelson Street in Bristol. A couple of videos of what the street looked like afterwards: See No Evil - 36 Hours and Who's Lenny?
posted by Z303 at 3:46 PM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

mightygodking: "Most taggers aren't total assholes. Tagging a blank wall is a lot different than destroying a piece of public art."

Maybe it's just Montreal's taggers then, since they didn't have any problem damaging a work of art in our metro.
posted by vasi at 3:48 PM on December 15, 2011

DIG IT. and look the city financed it. i wish portland would be more proactive with dope ass murals
posted by beefetish at 5:44 PM on December 15, 2011

That is amazing.
posted by bongo_x at 8:10 PM on December 15, 2011

Imagine. The nerve of people who are hungry, beat down and hopeless expressing their opinion of the sanctimonious majority in a hurry instead of taking a few weeks to do it 'properly'.

No wonder we can't have nice things.
posted by Twang at 12:31 AM on December 16, 2011

This graffiti on a garage, would be beautiful. It's way better than this crap that goes on my parents' garage.
posted by stormpooper at 6:51 AM on December 16, 2011

Tomorrowful: "Amazingly beautiful. But part of me wonders how they're going to feel when some twit comes along and tags it.

I live in a city (Philadelphia) with a huge mural arts program; tons of walls all over the city are done up, many in not-very-fancy parts of town. And nearly all of them remain entirely untagged. I'm not worried."

I was just going to write the same thing. If you visit Philly and love murals, there's even a murals tour that you can take through the city. But for me it's more fun just to drive through the city and just come upon something wondrous without warning.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:16 AM on December 16, 2011