Its Hard to Make It In the World of Graffiti and Street Art World

***This feature was written during Banksy's Better Out Than In but never published. The timing references might be out of sync, but the larger points still apply***

This morning, Banksy's 'Eternity' piece woke up to even more damage.  The funniest is a new tag that says nothing more than 'Fuck Banksy'.

Its hard to make it in the world of graffiti and street art.  Everyone outside your community hates what you are doing.  The authorities will arrest you for your art.  Even within the community, it often times feels like there are more haters than lovers in the scene.  And at end of the day, some buffman is waiting to paint over your art.  Its tough to get up and stay up.  It takes a thick skin and balls of steel.  And, some might add, questionable judgement. Bottom line, it is tough work being a graffiti or street artist.

M&F already addressed the small minded--and small dicked--mindset that leads to tagging over pieces and 'Team Robbo' type behavior (there are also some valid points raised in the comments). This post is to point out that it is hard work being a graffiti or street artist.  There is a lot of hate coming from every angle.  Not every graffiti and street artist has experienced the hate on Banksy's level, but everyone who gets up has experienced it on some level or another.

As Banksy prophetically quoted on this very piece yesterday,  "I'm just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker". 

Staying up is for the strongest, toughest ones.  Stay up!~

Cops, Cope2 and Banksy -- ***UPDATE***

Legendary New York graffiti writer Cope2 just posted this picture, which he claims is a collaborations between he and Banksy.

Cope has been hounding Banksy over social media for weeks trying to line up a collaboration with the stencil artist.

So then this stencil just happened.  Not sure if it is legit or not.  A lot of people are pointing out on Cope's own thread that this piece does not look very complimentary.  Its a fat pig with NYPD scrawled over it.

To give this piece a little context, Cope has been accused by other graffiti writers of being a snitch informant to the NYPD.

Like we say, not sure if this piece is an authentic Banksy or not.  But what we are really wondering is why Cope would post this unflattering picture?

Guess technically its not even beef.  This is more like beef bacon.

***UPDATE -- Late last night, Cope2 removed this photo from his Instagram***

***2nd UPDATE -- Now Cope claims the entire thing was staged by himself.  In his own garage. WTF? This whole fiasco comes off as beyond desperate, and why would Cope choose to portray himself as a pig?***

Banksy's Concrete Confessional - The Reformation

Oh man.  Even though this piece got boarded up last night, it didn't work.  Someone still managed to get through and paint a beard and a red new medallion on the Priest in Banksy's Concrete Confessional.

The final result is definitely less powerful than before, and the beard seems to cover up some of the hidden face in this piece.

If there is a silver lining, it might be that whoever added the adjustments didn't cap the piece entirely.

The Reformation?

Art Show Cap

Calling it like it is with a simple 'Cap Cap' going over an advertisement capping a poster that has Banksy's art show announcement for October . . . in Los Angeles.

Verve & Lukas Battle

The battle between Lukas and Verve keeps going.

The first pics M&F captured had Lukas at the spot writing 'I Dare Ya to Try and Cap Me!'.  Verve responded with a piece that said 'Challenge Accepted'.  Now, Lukas takes back the spot with giant JDI Crew letters and writing 'Shut the Fuck Up!'.

M&F wants to clairify that sometimes folks tend to shoot the messenger.  Please don't. We have no stake in this except posting the action that happens on the streets.

Stay up!

The Butt-Crack Vandal Tags Over a Banksy!

M&F has named a few street artists, so we thought we'd take a crack at nameing this dude.

This guy just posted a series of himself tagging at Banksy's 'You Complete Me' piece.  The dude actually tagged 'My 1st Tag was a Bansy'.

Oh man.  M&F has said many times how the fame hounds who tag Banksy's pieces are not true writers and or taggers, or even artists.  They are doing it because the cannot build their own fame themselves. So riding on Banksy's coat tails is the best they can do.  Shame they have to ruin a Banksy in the process.

But the fact that this guy spelt Banksy's name wrong doesn't get any funnier!

Up In Smoke

Doubled pasters from Combo and Abraham Lincoln with a mohawk from RVSR.  Dig the Abe, but its always different when its from a clothing company.

These Combo's haven't been capped yet . . .

We Hate To Say We Told You So . . . But We KEEP Telling People So!

Most folks in LA get up the right way, respecting other artists and the streets.

But the times that there is disrespect or needless capping, well, almost without fail the response is more disrespect and return capping.

Like here.  M&F made a post a few weeks ago about how when you cap a head (this time with an ad), then it probably won't last long.  It didn't.  Here is the box now, with a freed up paster from The Fudre Mask, riding under a JTS capped paster from 'The Ceremonies'.

Return of the Mummies!

Street art on Melrose with the return of the sheep from Ricky Sencion.

Also, Thrashbird is capping back and holding down a spot after getting capped by Combo.

It also looks like a hand painted piece got capped in the process?

Verve - Cap Challenge Accepted

A few weeks ago, Lukas bombed this spot, writing next to his piece 'I Dare Ya to Try and Cap Me!'.

Well, Verve took on that challenge.  Verve caps Lukas at two separate spots in this same yard.  And in the same spot that Lukas had written his message, Verve leaves one of his own saying 'Challenge Accepted.  I dare you not to be a toy!'

Behind Melrose.

Love Me Some Money

Apparently, someone is talking shit to Love Me about his corporate collaborations.

At multiple spots along Fairfax, Love Me stickers have got capped with Goldman Sachs slaps.  Yeah, like the bankers.  Love me some money!

Poor Placement All Over Your Face!

Its a shame.  Swoon's beautiful street art piece got capped not once but twice with a graffiti bomb, and a graffiti tag on top of that.  The bombs cover over the top part of Swoon's wheat pasted character.

Poor placement all over the place, and poor placement all over Swoon's face.

Maybe this case was not on purpose since the Swoon piece did blend in quite well with the background.  But stuff like this happens all too often.  Some graffiti artists go over street artists on purpose and some street artists go over graffiti for background.  Both are sophomore moves, and the big names don't usually go over anyone.

Riding with Kiosk, Branded, In Name and Blood and more.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

M&F has posted beef battles before, and for whatever ridiculous reason, sometimes the hate gets turned towards the blog.  Listen, what this street art blog does is capture and document what's on the streets.  Don't shoot the messenger.  This is just posting what is happening.

There is clearly some beef between Reaching Out Los Angeles and BKC.  ROLA has got completely capped out by BKC, including the line up top that says 'Live Above the Hate'.

Not sure what is going on here.  There has been mention of snitching, hating, and even registered sex offenders.

M&F does not know any of the details of the beef or the accusations, and we do not want to weigh into this case in particular for that reason.  But as a hard rule on the streets, hating is part of the game and hate is just a difference of opinion.  Indeed, get above that.  But snitching is inherently wrong and will break the street art system.

Anyway.  Here is what is happening on the streets.

Anthony Lister - "Your Artwork is Just Not That Good"

Anthony Lister has no respect for LA.  He has demonstrated it time and time again when he has come to the city and disrespected local artists getting up in the city.  Like here, it may be a small thing, but there is absolutely no reason to cap the sticker from Struh, and half a sticker from Borat.  There is plenty of other room on this same pole, and the way you capped others just shows that you have no respect for what is really happening on the streets.

Sure, you travel all over the world painting murals and showing in exclusive galleries.  However, quantity does not make quality, and because your art agents don't seem to want to tell you, its time someone does.  Consider this a street art intervention.  Someone had to tell you sometime.  "Anthony Lister, your artwork is just not that good".

Your artwork is an acquired taste.  It is something that someone can be taught to love and appreciate, if someone tells you to love and appreciate it.  But on its own, your style is sloppy and simply not very aesthetically pleasing.  You are one of the biggest names in the street art game, but you are far from one of its greatest talents.

There are rules to the streets and there is artistic talent.  We are calling you out for lacking in both.  We know you will read this, like you did before.  If you have something to say in response, don't send your LA graffiti friends to try and threaten us again.  M&F is always on the streets, and the streets are always watching and listening.

Crossing Out Name Only

Typically, when there is beef or crossing out, the slice tends to cut through the whole mural.

But it is interesting on this mural how the crossing out has only been done to the name, and not Bear Head's but only Loius'.

Someone's Always Riding Coat Tails

Whenever someone makes waves, someone else seems to always want a piece of the action.

Like here.  Chod brewed up a special recipe to secure this giant wheat paste to the ground.  The method has worked for weeks on end, and so someone had to come and put a little 8x11 right in the middle of Chod's piece?

Seriously?  What is wrong with people?  Find a spot to put art without trying to ruin something else.  Street art is about making the environment better, and stuff like this does not contribute.

Make your own waves instead of spot jocking someone else's.

Stay Up and Keep Wielding

Morley gets capped over with some graffiti from Eench.

Morley's original piece said 'Wield Those Weary Bones'.  Eench changed it to say 'Wield those weak quotes'.

Don't dig it.

Morley is doing his own thing and forging a path with his own brand of street art.  What he is doing has not been done before and there will be some bumps in the road.  Not everyone will appreciate any form of genius, but these are not quotes, Morley's street pieces are original street poems.

Stay Up! and Keep Wielding ~

Chod's Rebuttal to Annie Preece

The plot has thickened.

In response to having her painting purchased, and then painted over, and then returned to the streets, it turns out that it was Annie who took the NONE OF THIS IS REAL painting from the streets.

The street art community has been abuzz with talk about this event, as has Annie's Facebook page with all kinds of accusations and insinuations as to why Chod would have done such a thing.  Well, Chod thought that it might be best to try and explain what he was trying to accomplish, and issue some sort of 'rebuttal' to the hate that has been hurled at him so far.

Read Chod's full rebuttal below:

My latest piece seems to have raised the ire of a fellow street artist named Annie Preece. I've been privy to some of her posts on Facebook and my Youtube video of the piece's creation (seen HERE) which I'll now do my best to address in the order in which I saw them. But before I do that I'd like to generally say that Ms. Preece seems to have missed the point of the piece and is incorrect in many of her assumptions about me and the artistic intent behind all of this.

Ms. Preece maintains that I am "trying to prove some point or make a mockery" of her. I am trying to prove a point. All art does or at least should attempt to. I am not, however trying to make a mockery of her nor would I attempt to mock any artist. I'm concerned with making my own work and little else.

The point: The intent of the piece is to explore the idea of value, specifically monetary value where art is concerned and even more specifically where gallery art done by a street artist is concerned, but generally the idea of what values we assign to objects and who specifically attaches value to them. In this case it's quite clear that Ms. Preece herself attaches the highest amount of value to the object, removing it from the wall it was attached to literally twelve hours after it was placed and taking personal offense to my use of her original piece in the creation of a new collaborative piece. More interesting though, is that the level of value she attaches to the piece obviously far exceeds just monetary value. She feels some ownership over it. This is clearly evidenced by her repeatedly calling the the object "my painting" in her response posts despite the fact that I purchased the painting which removes her claim to it. I'm curious if she still considers the object "hers" now that it's been altered by another artist, or if she'll continue to consider it hers after she sells it again and gives the proceeds to charity (which is commendable). I never expected Ms. Preece to reclaim the canvas but I must admit this turn of events has added something to the piece that far exceeded my expectations in terms of examining value.

Why Annie Preece?: Ms. Preece continually claims that I have in some way singled her out, that I'm attempting to gain some sort of notoriety by attacking her work. This couldn't be further from the truth. Ms. Preece was selected for a few very simple reasons. I wanted to keep as many variables in this piece (which includes not just the object itself but the location and manner of its placement, the final value ascribed to it, and the entire conversation that has now begun as a result of its creation) similar to one another. My end goal was to add my own work to the work of another artist (only the purchased work of another artist - I would never alter anything in the street), and then return that collaborative effort to a location we had both placed individual pieces. Annie Preece was simply the most readily available artist in terms of knowing the location of her individual work, knowing the location of a piece of hers that I could buy and knowing that we share a space of individual display - a wall that we have both put work on several times.

Ms. Preece's reaction: When I conceived this idea, I had no idea where the final piece would end up. I assumed there was a high likelihood that it would just get painted over by the proprietors of the wall it was attached to, which would ultimately reduce its perceived value to nothing proving the point that art only has value to those who give it value. I never imagined Ms. Preece would reclaim the object and have such an enraged reaction. In terms of fully exploring the concept of the value of art, Ms. Preece's reaction couldn't have added anymore to the piece.

The money: Ms. Preece and some of the other posters on her page mention wasting money or the amount of money spent to purchase her original piece. Much of my work deals with examining the systems of control that we created to govern our reality. Money is one of the primary systems. Its value is arbitrary and determined by collective agreement. The value of the materials in a one dollar bill and a hundred dollar bill are worth roughly the same - about nine cents. But we collectively agree that something with a number one-hundred printed on it is worth one hundred dollars and something with a one printed on it is worth one dollar. Money, like many other systems we're governed by isn't real. So while some people may see the original piece as having a value of only $2500, I see it as having the potential artistic value to open up the conversation we are now having which doesn't, for me at least, carry a monetary value.

A post from Ms. Preece on Facebook: "Fuck him he's trying to get attention by vandalizing my painting an hating on me then blasting it on the Internet. The point I was trying to make when I posted this is that his attempt to get noticed backfired. hes some young kid trying to come up but..."

Ms. Preece incorrectly assumes here that the painting is hers again. Because I owned the painting, I could legally do anything to it that I desired so her accusation of vandalism is blatantly incorrect. She also claims that I'm a "young kid trying to come up." This is equally inaccurate.

She refers to me as an asshole multiple times. Ms. Preece and I have never met therefore I can only assume her assessment of my character is based on our disagreement over the ownership of the object, my addition of work to the object and her continued attachment to it after its sale. 

Ms. Preece claims than I'm "not an artist.' Everyone defines art differently but this brings up an interesting aspect of the piece that far exceeds value. In claiming that I'm incapable of creating art, she now begs the question - is the final object art or not? I'm curious to know how she would classify the piece we collaborated on. Is it art? Does it still have value as art to her, or to anyone else for that matter? These claims are precisely the reason why I created the piece. Again, her reaction elevates the piece to a place that I personally find extremely interesting.

While it's clear that Ms. Preece and I will likely never see eye to eye on this piece, I'd still like to thank her for adding an extra dimension to it that I never saw coming.

After reading Chod's well reasoned response, check out these screen shot's of Annie's Facebook page and another level of conversation with more emotional based ad hominem responses.

Chod Caps Gallery Canvas from Annie Preece - and Returns it To the Streets

The history of this piece is absolutely fascinating, and is like nothing that has done before.  It all began when Chod went to a local LA gallery and purchased a painting by Annie Preece for $2,5000, paying cold hard cash for the piece.  Chod then took the painting and painted over it with a bright red cap with letters that say 'NONE OF THIS IS REAL'.  At this point, Chod took the modified painting and returned it to the streets by attaching it to a wall where both he and Annie had housed pieces previously.

Most street art in Los Angeles that isn't permanently attached, and even much of it that is (Examples 1-2-3) gets taken right away by aggressive street art hunters.  Overnight, the wall next to the Chod/Annie Preece piece got hit with graffiti tags, but even the next day, no one took the $2,500 painting.  Is that because the original painting was modified? Or because it wasn't worth the asking price to begin with?  After all, Hollywood is an area where old beaten up desks and dilapidated couches get scooped up by hustlers looking for whatever resale value they hope to get out of it.  The fact that it sat for an entire day does suggest that the general public does not recognize this as something with a value of $2,500.

A commentator has left a comment on the YouTube video saying that Annie herself took the modified painting off the street and plans to resell it.  Not sure if this is accurate or not, but if so it would be another rich chapter in the history of this painting.

This piece is seminal   It is something that challenges the way people look a street art in relation to institutions.  In a similar way to Banksy's invasion of museums, and the zoo, Chod does something that is similar but has never been done before, and his piece is a direct confrontation with the gallery itself, and a vicious attack on the value of street art.  What is the worth of a piece of 'street art' when taken out of context?

Or even put back in?

Click the jump for pics of the actual street piece

My Spot Homie

Agod KOG RK claims back another spot along Melrose saying 'My Spot Homie!'.