Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Somebody Please Take the Spray Can Away from Annie Preece




Apparently, Annie Preece is upset about her lack of coverage, and the tone of the coverage she has received on M&F.  So we thought we would take a minute to spell it out and explain what it takes to be a street artist, and what this blog looks to give positive coverage to.

Annie showed up out of nowhere a few weeks ago claiming to be a recovering drug addict and saying that she has been getting up on the streets for 15 years.  Those of us who have been on the streets just look puzzled in response.  If Annie had been on the streets for 15 years, we would have heard of her, yet nobody has.  Perhaps what is most ironic is that if the best artists are supposed to represent the voice of a generation, clearly, Annie is just convincing us that her's is a voice we don't want to listen to.

In all fairness, Annie has done a couple of murals that seem child-like, but we did enjoy the bright colors on a couple of them, and mentioned as much on the blog.  But aside from the murals, Annie has crapped up the area with horrendous tags--these tags are extremely bad for many reasons, and here's why.

First of all, the basic rule of street art that any street artist should be asking themselves, is 'does this art make the city better?'.  Some hardcore graffiti artists might argue that any vandalism is a good thing, but for the rest of the street artists, and society in general, little crummy tags with no placement or handstyle are a fail.  Senseless, vandalistic, no-style tags don't make the streets better, instead it is an entry level behavior that most graffiti artists grow out of by 14, or stylisticly develop beyond after a few weeks, or get busted by the cops for not getting up properly. This is the worst part of art on the streets.  Its not art, its littering on the streets.

Let us be clear--tags in general are one of our favorite elements of the streets, and some graffiti and street artists have developed a basic handstyle that looks simple yet works.  But most of these artists are conscious of what they are doing and familiar with the dialoge on the streets.  Annie's affront is not just the no-style frantic manner that she flops tags around the street with and where she puts them, it is also what she says.   Writing 'I Was Here' is the absolute lowest tag there is.  It is what any non-street artist imbecile might put on the wall.  It is stupid, because if you understand the nature of tagging, it is already assumed that you were 'here'.  It is something written by idiots who have nothing else to say--and who don't understand the streets.

Intention is everything, and it is clear when artists are engaging with the streets, or simply harvesting the streets for publicity.  Engaging with the streets is what makes street art special and what the goal should be.  But all too often, when folks use the streets for publicity, they end up abusing the streets, like with what Annie has been doing.   The fact that Annie is signing her real name while destroying real property of real businesses that are still in business seems beyond ridiculous to any real graffiti writer.

Annie starts at the bottom by littering tags on the streets and her level of street conversation just erodes from there.  She writes things that are inane and annoying at the same time, like "This is really nice wood.  What is this, pine?", "I'm sleeping with a really hot guy right now.  And he's nice. SCORE!!!", and "My butt itches".   Please.  Spare us your painfully unwitty witticisms. Its great that you finally have a cute guy to sleep with Annie, but by writing it on a wall you just convince the rest of us that what you have to say, is not worth saying.  The crux is since its written on the wall, we are kind of forced to look at it.  It does not make the streets better, but worse.  We tried to ignore it for a long time and because we could not say anything nice, we tried not to say anything at all.  But you keep crapping up Melrose and we feel forced to tell you how it is, even if it is mean.  The truth is, dialoging with Annie's tags is like having a one-way conversation with a retard.

For those wondering how to get up the right way and receive positive coverage in general, it is very easy to follow a simple street recipe to get up the right way.  Have something worth saying and people will want to listen.  Package it in a way that looks good and people will want to see it.  Treat not only other artists, but also the streets themselves with respect, and you will get respect in return.   If anyone gets up and treats the streets the right way, people will notice and you will most likely receive positive coverage on M&F.

Annie, you might write on the streets but you are no street artist.  Like a child writing on walls, hope you enjoyed scribbling on the streets for a few weeks.  Meanwhile, the city is hoping you get bored with this quickly, so the streets will look better.









35 comments:

  1. A street art intervention. Support.

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  2. Ha, sooooo true. Def some street art I don't mind seeing buffed

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  3. All these "fans" that love her are all confused hipsters that swear they understand what street art is...

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  4. yes!!! please live and learn and get better with your work annie.

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  5. she's a nobody and will never get respect from the streets.

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  6. THANK YOU for this post. It's perfect and to the very true point. She also needs to learn to stop talking shit on her FB page about other artists. I saw the post before she deleted it. She is nothing but a clinger to the art game and will eventually fade out...I hope

    Carl

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  7. arent recovering drug addicts not supposed to do drugs??? all of these tags looked like they were done by someone who was, drunk, cracked out, or just plain stupid

    love
    -ya boi

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  8. It's called hpd. Histrionic personality disorder. A simple Wikipedia definition should suffice. But for what it's worth, it's still a mental illness so go easy on her.

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    1. go easy on her??????? hell no!!!! if she has a mental illness get her off the damn streets and in an institution where she belongs or the hell out of this town. she's giving us all a bad name!!!!! her crap is enough to piss off the cops and make them come down harder on all of us!!!!!!

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    2. not everyone with mental illness belongs in a mental institution. remember that many of the world's greatest artists are mentally ill. not to say that annie qualifies as either.

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    3. none of the great artists with mental illnesses trashed the streets!!! or caused any problems for other artists!!

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  9. Thank you for writing this M&F, it's about time.
    Real talk right here.
    She's no street artist, and needs to stop this crap.
    It's funny though, cuz the real artists just sit back and laugh at her,
    Ahahahah.

    -mr.666

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  10. she should go back to drugs. she's probably better at doing those

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  11. HPD!!!??? hahahaha that's the funniest shit I have ever heard! If this is true than every celebrity and rock star in the world has it. Now HPD could also be confused or misdiagnosed as GPRS? (Great Public Relations Syndrome) HA!
    As for Annie? Congratulations as you have just instilled interest by publishing this on her. Her career just kicked off. Fuck it up Annie. Mad love to all of you :)

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  12. The truth hurts but everyone is in love with her story, not her art. the groups she hangs with are scared to tell her that shes a conceited CUNT that did a couple "cat in the Hat" murals and acts like shes the face of vandalism. Ive spoken to real street and graffiti artist and they dont know or dont care who she is.

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  13. http://health.howstuffworks.com/tv/addicted/addicted-about-annie-michael.htm

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  14. GO AWAY ANNIE. I'm calling bullshit on your bio of "oh I've been doing graf on the streets since 1997". Addicts are great liars aren't they?
    You apart of the lame new street art "crews" now?
    God I can't wait for this trash to get off the streets

    Ryan

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  15. I heard her dad recently passed. It might not be such a good idea to fuck with a recovering addict right now at this point in her adventure.

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    1. nobodies fucking with this girl, yet. we are trying to get her to stop making asses out of all of us. would someone who knows and cares about her please get her to stop trashing the streets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  16. Okay, so Annie Preece is not yet the world's best street artist. Fine. And I don't live in LA so maybe she is extremely annoying, but based on just looking at the work and not knowing her personally, I think you're all being pretty harsh. She's not the best and maybe she doesn't deserve to be covered on blogs all day long, but she isn't the worst either.

    Annie is ballsy enough to not even pretend to hide under another name, unlike so many pseudo-anonymous street artists who hide their faces while painting legal spots and unmask themselves as soon as a potential art buyer wants to say hello. Taki183 effectively tagged his real name and practically his address, so did Julio204. They didn't include their last names, but using your real name in graffiti is not unprecedented. And what about in street art? Keith Haring. He didn't generally sign his outdoor work, but it was no secret who was behind it. Aiko uses her real first name and her last name is easy to find. In New York, Paul Richard uses his full name on some of his street work. And I'm sure there are lots of other examples.

    The "screw her she's crazy and therefore belongs in an institution" attitude is pretty sad to hear. I like to think of the street art community as fairly liberal and accepting, but apparently that's only true until someone gets in your way. Can't wait to hear "Well, I don't mind people in wheelchairs until I come up to one on the street and she's taking over the entire sidewalk with her chair. Then I just tip the chair over because that's annoying as hell."

    Maybe Annie's tags are more or less meaningless, but I'd still rather see "This is really nice wood. What is this, pine?" on a wall than a blank wall. Actually, I think that one is kind of funny. I'd smile if I saw that every day. As for "Annie was here," I suppose Greg would be happier if it just said "Annie," but that's really just shorthand for "Annie was here and wants to be acknowledged." Phil Frost used to put up stickers as personal markers of where he had been, so that's definitely part of street art and graffiti.

    As for the dislike of child-like writing, shouldn't that be okay in street art and graffiti? If Annie wants to spend the time to develop an awesome handstyle, good for her. If not, so what? I think that graffiti and street art should be avenues for anyone to express themselves in public space. That doesn't mean you have to like everything you see or buy the gallery-version of it. Jim Joe in NYC has a naive handstyle and he's one of Manhattan's most popular writers.

    Maybe Annie is nothing more than a bad artist with absolutely no absolutely talent trying to capitalize on street art's popularity with a slick PR machine and an intriguing background story. I don't know. But if she is, she's following in the footsteps of LA's golden boy: Mr. Brainwash.

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  17. WOW M&F actually had something real to say for once. I check this site once a month and it's nuts.
    Everyone must remember... anybody recovering from drugs or alcohol and are "clean" always feel they are self-righteous and deserve the "look at me - look at me" treatment. It's only been 1 year allegedly... that's nothing in the big picture. This person needs attention to get her through her days and thats just what her street peers give it to her. It's true her art is not the best out there and her tagging like a child is unacceptable. Few times I've seen her in public... she is loaded drunk, sweating, dirty, obnxious, and in your face talking about herself non-stop.

    Addict behavior to me. :/

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  18. I like her work. its more real than somthing you print at office depot. Like laws, street art rules are made to be broken. -word 16

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  19. Funny. If this was a guy, he would be capped all day long. I love when people worry about how a person may feel. If you choose to write on the streets, your opinions are up for scrutiny. END OF STORY. If she wants to cry, cry bro. Lets keep the "oh well maybes" and "what if shes" out of this, she's made her decision.

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  20. This blog claims a "celebration of street art"

    If you don't have anything nice to say.... you know the rest!

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    1. ^^you would talk wouldn't you? Its also called street art, IDK what you are doing.

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  21. Vandalog <<< M&F

    Hahaha
    Looks like someone is trying to kiss ass to annie.

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    1. Don't I have a much better venue to kiss Annie's ass? Seems like the best way to do that would be to post about her all the time on Vandalog rather than the comments section of another site. And yet, I think she's only ever been mentioned once when I linked to another M&F post.

      Hell, I may disagree with Greg here, but Annie isn't impressing me either with this suggestion that Greg should only say nice things. Street art needs more critique, even if I disagree with it.

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    2. Why don't you piss off RJ, calling MBW "L.A.'s golden boy" is ridiculous.

      MBW is a turd from France and L.A. has no love for him either. You assholes from out of state are always hating on L.A. because your jealous. Try to nitpick any failures and overlook accomplishments of west coast artists. You're a pompous price who runs a lousy website...

      GOOD DAY!

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  22. Annie has a awesome new piece on Sunset at The Roxy.

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  23. Annie is an idiot who I had the displeasure of meeting recently.
    I asked her of her history in LA, and all she could spout were a few nonsensical obscurities, like one gives out when they have no realness to speak of.

    No one I work with respects her work, nor regards it with any kind of positivity, recognizing it for what it is, pandering bullshit. I observed her work and behavior quite a bit, and she is nothing but a vapid attention whore with an gallery owner boyfriend. She adds nothing of interest to the art scene, and only furthers the notion of appropriating a genre to gain notoriety. Hope she fades out just as quickly as she came in.

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  24. Perfect a artist who starts controversy and other artist don't get it because they're so caught up in what's PC or not.True expression of art will bring many forms of controversy like it always has so get over yourself and what art should be or what's PC.If anyone who does art should look at the most controversial artist in the world and get over being critics.

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  25. This is all less about art and how disgusting many of you are for verbally tearing down someone who is dually diagnosed with mental health issues and and addiction should not be dogpiled like this on the internet because, yes, folks in this spot, you have no idea how volatile she may really be to herself.
    But I would think people would just not go there, because they even somewhat knew her situation. So best just to not talk about her.

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