The City of Santa Monica is trying to levy a $5,000 per day fine against this mural.
Retna and Risk were commissioned by 'Heal The Bay', an organization that fights to keep California's waterways clean, to paint a giant mural on a house in Santa Monica.
Risk put down the gorgeous colors for the background, and Retna applied his beautiful calligraphy on top of that. The finished piece looks gorgeous. And everyone seems to like it except the city itself, who have levied a $5,000 daily fine against the mural.
The fine seems ridiculous, and what kind of country are we living in where property owners can't do what they want with their own land?
If you want to hurry over and see this building in its full glory, it is located at 825 Berkley Street in Santa Monica. Will keep an eye on it to see how this plays out, but we are really rooting for this gorgeous mural to stay up!
Pics and story from LA TACO.
A perfect example of a situation where the 'Sanctioned Street Art Rubric' could help convince a city through quantitative data that a public piece of art is pleasing to the eye, accepted by the public at large and not offensive, among other criteria, ultimately extracting it from the outdated definition of vandalism and saving it:
ReplyDeletehttp://carlsbadcrawl.com/?p=7052
Snyder is the MAN!!! lets get some legislation going on this!
ReplyDeletebtw, sorry again about your sidewalk Snyder... let me know if you want me to beat some sense into your landlord =)
~teacher
I don't get it. Why are the West Hollywood Public Library walls fine and this piece for a great cause isn't? The city needs to get paid.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this mural looks 10x better than that old house did.
More evidence of the law recognizing that public facing walls belong to the public, not the building "owner." In this case, the city ordinances are not reflecting community standards. Requiring this mural to be buffed is a travesty of blind bureaucracy. This mural is obviously a treasure. Voters in Santa Monica need to change the city ordinance to reflect their better nature.
ReplyDelete