11673: Bombing Hateful Graffiti.

Is this concept from Croatia really a solution—or does it just potentially add fuel to the fire? Plus, why are all the slurs written in English?

From Ads of the World.

11609: Gap Gets Graffiti.

From The New York Daily News…

Gap praised for quick response to racist graffiti against Sikh model, as more evidence of vandalism pops up

Racist graffiti replaced the words ‘Make Love’ with ‘Make bombs’ on a Gap subway poster featuring Brooklyn designer Waris Ahluwalia. Gap reacted by placing Ahluwalia front and center on its Twitter and Facebook profiles. But more examples of graffiti are showing up.

By Carol Kuruvilla / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Images of Sikh Model Waris Ahluwalia in Gap’s new “Make Love” campaign are still being defaced in New York City.

A vandal apparently tried to rip Ahluwalia out of a Gap ad inside the Christopher St. station.

Evidence of racist graffiti against the Sikh actor and designer started appearing online on Tuesday. Journalist Arsalan Iftikhar alerted his social media followers to a subway ad that compared the 39-year-old Ahluwalia to a terrorist.

The vandal replaced “Make Love” with “Make bombs,” then wrote, “Please stop driving taxis.”

Gap has been lauded for its quick response to the graffiti. The company asked Iftikhar for the whereabouts of the defaced ad. Then, it placed Ahluwalia front and center as its cover image on Twitter and Facebook.

“Gap is a brand that celebrates inclusion and diversity. Our customers and employees are of many different ethnicities, faiths, and lifestyles and we support them all,” the company said in a statement released to The News.

Gap spokeswoman Kari Shellhorn told The News that the company plans to erase all signs of the offensive remarks.

“We are working quickly to replace the vandalized images,” Shellhorn said.

The company’s supporters were quick to show their approval online.

Ahluwalia is an actor and designer who grew up in Brooklyn. He’s popped up on numerous “best dressed” lists and is known for his signature look—a sharp, tailored suit and his custom pink desert boots.

Ahluwalia has come to be seen as something of a role model for Sikhs, according to Kanwar Singh, a practitioner of the faith who lives in Richmond, Va.

After hearing about the racist graffiti, Singh started a Facebook page thanking Gap for choosing Ahluwalia to be a part of the “Make Love” campaign. Singh says he’s heard from hundreds of people — both Sikh and non-Sikh — from around the country and the world who have come out in support of Gap.

One of the most heartening messages he got was from a parent named Ashmeet.

“I took my 5-year-old son to see their billboard just to show him we are not that ‘different’ after all,” the message read.

There have been numerous instances of hatreds against Sikhs in the years after the 9/11 attacks. In September of this year, Sikh Columbia professor Prabhjot Singh was attacked by a group of thugs yelling “Osama” and “terrorist.” And last August, a temple shooting in Wisconsin claimed the lives of six Sikh people.

“I think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that every single Sikh man, woman and child in this country has faced racism in some way,” Singh told The News.

“It’s been a struggle since 9/11 to educate others about our faith, who we are and what we believe in,” Singh said.

While some members of the community have criticized Gap for using the image of a Sikh man to sell their clothes, others are glad to see support from such a large American company.

“What Gap has done is they’ve placed a Sikh model on advertisement all across America,” Singh said. “Our community would never have been able to afford that kind of campaign.”

“We are grateful every single day to people in our community who recognize and support us,” Singh said.

11606: Shooting Shit.

Stop gun violence by promoting sticker graffiti. Brilliant.

9942: Read The Writing On The Wall.

Gotta believe these Canadian ads will actually inspire taggers.



From Ads of the World.

9014: Guided Graffiti Tours.

From USA TODAY…

Graffiti tours turn Miami street art into attraction

By Suzette Laboy, Associated Press

Graffiti was once considered a sign of urban decay, the sort of thing that might keep tourists away from a neighborhood. Now, not only is it an accepted art form, but it’s also the subject of a new tour in one of Miami’s trendiest neighborhoods, Wynwood, where legal outdoor murals by graffiti artists cover the walls near art galleries and restaurants.

The two-hour tour — which takes place on Vespas — is offered by a company called Roam Rides. It starts with a 15-minute ride from Miami Beach over the Venetian Causeway to the Wynwood Arts District, considered the mecca of Miami’s emerging arts scene, and includes four or five stops to survey the area’s best graffiti. The tour ends with lunch at a happening Wynwood restaurant.

Once considered a rough neighborhood, Wynwood has become a destination for artists from all over the world. Art galleries abound and events are held here each December as part of the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair. Wynwood is also now home to one of the world’s largest installations of murals by multiple graffiti artists.

“It’s gotten to be so pervasive and it really brightens up the neighborhood,” Kit Sullivan of Roam Rides said.

“It’s so not what you would expect of Miami,” said Jesse Bull, an economics professor who took one of Roam Rides’ recent graffiti tours. “The graffiti has kind of added to that. It livens it up and makes it fresh and artsy and I think that’s a good thing.”

Guides point out work by different local artists — such as Typoe and “Tribe Called Phresh” aka TCP — while explaining the evolution of graffiti from the days when artists plastered their names on vacant buildings and train cars as a way to gain street cred.

These days, building owners give permission to artists to spray paint their designs, and these legal pieces share the walls of dozens of neighborhood art galleries and chic restaurants. They’re easy to distinguish from illegal graffiti, which is often done fast, in secret and at night, with a single color or very few colors. The sanctioned murals, in contrast, allow artists to take their time, use multiple colors and work in-depth in large spaces with elaborate details.

“It’s definitely a changing art form,” Sullivan said. “It’s gotten to the point where a lot of these guys don’t even use their names at all. They just have a certain distinctive style. You can recognize it when you see it.”

For example, artist Chor Boogie’s signature work includes geometric elements and half-hidden faces, as well as an eye.

Major paint companies are even helping graffiti artists make the transition to a legitimate art form by donating spray paint.

“Graffiti has been a bad word in America for a long time. We are trying to change that,” said Jayson Moreira, co-owner of Montana Colors North America, a spray paint company based in San Francisco, which donated 8,000 cans of spray paint used to create many of the murals in Miami during Art Basel. He even helped paint a mural of Japanese girls on the side of a two-story building that was once an RC Cola Plant.

The world of graffiti has its own lingo. Artists “tag” their works with their names. A “throw up” is a quick piece. A “bomb” is usually illegal work that is “thrown up” fast, often at night, in a place that’s difficult to access. “Slashing” is when an artist disrespectfully “throws up” his names over a legal piece. A legally done mural or elaborate work that took days or weeks to complete is considered a “masterpiece.”

Artists looking for a space to paint legally here may seek help from Primary Flight, an organization that has brought hundreds of artists to the streets of Wynwood.

“A lot of people don’t go to museums or aren’t art collectors or art-educated,” Primary Flight founder Books Bischof said. “If you can take the same exact image from a street and put it in the museum, it doesn’t speak as loudly as it would if it were illegally on the street corner or in a gritty part of the neighborhood.”

Oscar Montes, 36, has been painting since he was a young teenager. Better known as Trek6, the artist wanted to pay tribute to his origins and the Puerto Rican community that once made up the Wynwood area, so he painted a legal mural that included a coqui, the island frog named for the ‘ko-kee’ sound it makes at night.

Montes said he spent around $2,000 of his own money on paint — as well as hours of his time under Miami’s hot sun — creating the mural.

Graffiti is changing, he said. “A purist would tell you it’s gotten really soft,” he said. “When I started, everything was illegal. There was (a) serious graffiti task force. They’re less aggressive now because so much of it is legit.”

But while the artists are invited to do their work on buildings and sometimes get donated materials, for the most part they are not paid. Some predict that may change, and that the Miami graffiti community may eventually find fame and profit in their designs, the way artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat did in New York several decades ago.

“That generation is going to bring it to another level where one day,” said Erni Vales, who runs a studio in the arts district, “it’s going to be like Pop Art.”

8966: Stuff White-Toothed People Like.

Check out this Rembrandt Deeply White Toothpaste commercial (Sorry, couldn’t find a clean version). The demo shows a giant tooth covered with yellow graffiti, which can only be properly removed with Rembrandt. The spot closes with the two White tooth cleaners striking a rapper-style pose. They should have been sporting Rembrandt-logo grillz.

7322: This Is Not Disneyland.

From The Los Angeles Times

Giving tourists a look at gang culture
A group of civic activists is preparing to offer bus tours of some of the grittiest pockets of the city, with profits funneled back into the community. Some of the particulars are raising eyebrows.

By Scott Gold

A group of civic activists, united by faith and a belief that the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, is preparing to offer bus tours of some of the grittiest pockets of the city, including decayed public housing, sites of deadly shootouts and streets ravaged by racial unrest.

After a VIP preview last weekend, L.A. Gang Tours expects to open to the public in January, giving tourists a look at the cradle of the nation’s gang culture—the birthplace of many of the city’s gangs, including Crips and Bloods, Florencia 13 and 18th Street.

“This is ground zero for a lot of the bad in this city. It could be ground zero for a lot of the good too,” said Alfred Lomas, a former Florencia member who has become a leading gang intervention worker in South Los Angeles and is spearheading the tours. “This is true community empowerment.”

The nonprofit group plans to offer two-hour tours at an initial cost of $65 per adult, with profits funneled back into the community through jobs, “franchised” tours in new areas and micro-loans to inner-city entrepreneurs. Early routes will focus largely on South L.A., with forays through Watts and Florence-Firestone.

The concept appears to have no equal in L.A.—for good reason, some might argue. It seems to echo, more than anything, the “slum tours” of such sites as India’s Dharavi township and Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. Those operations have been lauded as innovative economic tools and mechanisms for humanizing poverty—and also attacked as exploitative and voyeuristic.

The L.A. tour comes after months of planning, and is offered in a spirit of education and public service. Lomas, who will lead tours at first, plans to talk about important chapters in the development of the city’s core, such as how racist housing restrictions shaped ethnic enclaves and the formation of gangs.

Other aspects may raise eyebrows. Selling shirts painted on the spot by a graffiti “tagger” is one thing. But one backer said he also hopes to stage dance-offs between locals; tourists would pick a winner and fork over a cash prize. It wasn’t long ago that organizers decided against a plan to have kids shoot tourists with water pistols, followed by the sale of T-shirts that read: “I Got Shot in South-Central.”

“It’s going to be fascinating—but really controversial,” said Francisco Ortega, a field staffer with the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission and a respected mediator and neighborhood advisor in South L.A. Ortega said there could be great value in “sensitizing people, connecting them to the reality of what’s on the ground.”

“But the other side is that it could come across like a zoo or something,” Ortega said. “You’re being carted about: ‘Look at that cholo over there!’ It could be perceived as demeaning for the people who are living in these conditions. I don’t know how they’re going to manage those perceptions.”

City Councilwoman Jan Perry said she has offered bus tours of South L.A. herself—but those were for real estate leaders she was trying to persuade to invest in the neighborhood. She said South L.A. could benefit from an effort to demonstrate “the potential of the community.” But she said some aspects of this kind of tourism could go too far.

“It’s not right to put people on display,” she said.

“It depends on their intent and how they balance it,” said Councilman Bernard C. Parks.

Organizers, however, say they’ve been careful to plan tours that are respectful and neither glorify gangs nor exploit the poor.

“What matters to me is that kids get fed and families get help,” Lomas said.

The organization is bolstered by business leaders and gang experts who are contributing start-up capital and advice.

Several are connected to the Dream Center, the L.A. church ministry where Lomas directs a food bank. Lomas credits the organization with helping him to turn his life around.

Kevin Malone, a former Dodgers general manager, sits on the board of the Dream Center’s charitable arm and has become one of Lomas’ chief supporters. Malone said he has become involved in human-rights causes, such as combating human trafficking. He said the possibility of introducing self-sustaining economic development into the city’s poorest neighborhoods is no less of a human rights issue.

“I believe in this,” he said.

Other backers include Ron Noblet, a leading gang expert and an early proponent of using gang intervention to augment traditional police tactics. Noblet dismissed any potential for criticism or controversy.

“There will be a lot of people who will be delighted if he fails,” Noblet said of Lomas. “But there is clarity in the dream.”

Another backer is Terry Jensen, an owner of Seattle-based Duninger Corp., which has subsidiaries in engineering and real estate investment. Jensen is the inventor of the “Jakpak,” a jacket that turns into a tent with a built-in sleeping bag. It was designed for the homeless and communities hit by natural disasters.

Jensen, also a minister, has allowed Lomas to use his accountants and marketers. The team, he said, believes the tours could generate $1 million in profit in the first year, and that it would compete for customers with operators of celebrity-home tours in Hollywood.

“I think this will be a destination tour,” Jensen said. “I think people will come to Los Angeles to take this tour.”

Jensen acknowledged that customers will have to sign a watertight legal waiver. He said that’s why it’s important to spread the word through affected neighborhoods that the tour is coming—and, eventually, generating jobs, grants and loans. For example, Jensen said he’d like to see some early profits send a graffiti “tagger” to art school.

“We all know that the day somebody gets hurt, it’s over,” he said. “We’re counting on the fact that the gangs aren’t going to mess in their own beds.”

There is another reason to spread the gospel: Lomas hopes to use the tours to foster peace on the streets.

In recent weeks, The Times was granted access to a series of “sit-downs”—meetings—seeking understandings between gangs that have historically warred: Florencia, 18th Street and Grape Street, the dominant gang in the Jordan Downs public housing development.

Other gangs are being added to the talks and will shape tour routes down the road. Lomas, for instance, hopes to include the South L.A. bus stop where five children and three adults were shot in gang crossfire last year, but needs the local gangs to sign off, giving him “safe passage.”

One “sit-down” took place in a Jordan Downs apartment that serves as the hub of the small nonprofit empire of Fred “Scorpio” Smith. The 38-year-old Smith said he joined Grape Street when he was 11 and recently completed a 13-year prison term on drug charges. Influential in Jordan Downs, he now runs a charitable organization, including a program for kids who have dropped out or have been kicked out of local schools.

A small group, led by Lomas, went to the apartment seeking approval to run the tour through Jordan Downs. At first, Smith sounded skeptical.

“A tour?” he asked incredulously. “Of the ‘hood?”

Lomas offered to hire two teens from the housing development as part-time tour employees.

“I’m not saying you have to stop shooting each other,” Lomas said. “Just allow me a certain time in the day. … Just let the bus go through.”

“Safe passage is a guarantee,” Smith said.

Lomas and Smith discussed a host of delicate issues: tension between African Americans and Latinos; a recent skirmish between Florencia and Grape Street. They discussed building a phone tree to open new lines of communication between their neighborhoods.

But the long-term goal, Lomas explained, is economic viability.

“People around the world have stereotyped us,” Lomas said. “I’m talking about sustainable change. But it won’t work unless we have unity.”

“The people on the ground doing the work,” Smith replied. “That’s cool. That’d be cool.”

7286: Graffiti In The Bronx.

The New York Daily News presents Brooklyn photographer’s Kel Condon images of the eclectic graffiti at The Point Cultural Center in the Bronx and the surrounding neighborhood.

7248: Grampa Graffiti.

From The Los Angeles Times…

73-year-old man is arrested in L.A. vandalism
Sheriff’s deputies say they saw the suspect posting ‘Who is John Scott?’ stickers in a downtown subway station. They say he is the oldest alleged street vandal ever captured.

By Andrew Blankstein

For months, a mysterious vandal has been slapping hundreds of “Who Is John Scott?” stickers on buses around Los Angeles.

Authorities expected the vandalism to be the work of teenage “slap taggers,” who hit buses, street signs and light poles with stickers advertising shoes, skateboards, music bands and sometime their own hand-drawn monikers.

But the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s anti-graffiti detail got a surprise when it finally tracked down the man allegedly behind “Who Is John Scott?”

The suspect is old-school — 73 years old to be exact.

On Friday, detectives arrested John Scott on suspicion of felony vandalism, making him the oldest alleged street vandal they have ever captured. Scott, suspected of causing several thousand dollars in damage, was being held in custody on $20,000 bail.

“Up until this year, the oldest guy we had arrested was 36,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Erik Ruble. “We knew our guy was older, but not [73].”

The arrest caps an investigation that began when orange-and-black “Who Is John Scott?” stickers began popping up on buses in Baldwin Hills and on the Westside seven months ago (though some bus passengers insist that they have been around for more than a year). In recent months, the stickers began showing up on light standards and street sign poles.

Then, on Friday, a special graffiti “saturation patrol” was monitoring the 7th Street and Metro Center subway station downtown when they noticed an older-looking man. Ruble said deputies saw him placing stickers on the transit hub’s main stairwell. Authorities said Scott had stickers in his pockets as well in a black briefcase he carried with him.

Detectives spent the rest of the day interviewing Scott, who will be 74 next month. The stickers urge readers to go to a crudely designed website that sells “Who Is John Scott?” T-shirts and hats. It shows a man with his face covered holding a briefcase with one of the stickers on it.

The site also includes some intriguing clues about the man. One is a clipping from a 1976 edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that includes a small item about the arrest of a John Scott for illegally selling T-shirts to tourists on a city street. It noted that Scott carried a briefcase with a “Who Is John Scott?” sticker on it.

One bus rider told The Times that he saw Scott in action last winter while taking the No. 780 bus home to Hollywood. The witness said he noticed an older man with gray hair reaching into his briefcase and pulling out orange stickers. The man quickly posted one of the stickers as some other riders looked on, according to the witness, who asked that his name not be used.

The rider said he videotaped the incident. And when the older man noticed it, he and a woman he was with abruptly got off the bus.

Ruble said detectives are still trying to figure out Scott’s background. But he said they believe Scott allegedly was driven to vandalize by the same motivation as his younger cohorts: “fame and notoriety.”

“It just goes to show, the graffiti culture in Los Angeles is not age-specific and is very diverse,” Ruble said.

Scott was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism. It is unclear when sheriff’s deputies will present their case to prosecutors. Whatever the motive, Ruble said detectives think the “John Scott” riddle has been solved. “The mystery exists no more,” he said.

6615: Saturday Morning With Mister Cartoon.

From The Los Angeles Times…

In the world of tag, Mister Cartoon is it

The underground artist has found his scrawl space in the mainstream, with his work emblazoned on movie billboards, custom cars and video games. He gives products ‘street cred’ and counterculture cool.

By Chris Lee

Mister Cartoon eyeballed a blank spot on the giant graffiti mural and rattled his can of spray paint. An aerosol hiss filled the air. With a few fluid swipes of his beefy arm, an image began to take shape: a cluster of storm clouds massing above a Windex blue hot rod.

“If I knew the cops were coming to bust me, I could probably finish this whole thing in an hour,” the street artist joked.

Cartoon is standing atop a ladder in front of a 14-by-48 canvas in his cavernous warehouse studio in an industrial cul-de-sac just past L.A.’s skid row. His work in progress would hardly qualify as vandalism. The billboard was commissioned by Universal Studios to publicize the latest entry in its street-racing movie franchise, “Fast & Furious.”

The burly Cartoon, with a shaved head and gang-inspired tattoos creeping down his forearms and up his neck, has become one of corporate America’s hottest image makers. He’s in demand to imbue products—even celebrities—with “street cred” and counterculture cool.

Cartoon (born Mark Machado, but call him that at your risk), 39, readily admits he perfected his craft practicing public defacement as an outlaw tagger. He’s a big shot in lowrider circles—the artist has 11 prize-worthy customized show cars. His ability to create visuals encompassing Chicano gang and lowrider culture, ‘70s New York graffiti and Japanimation has made Cartoon a sought-after tattoo artist, car customizer, illustrator and fashion designer.

“It’s definitely a rush seeing your art on a billboard,” Cartoon said. “Working with design agencies, designing concept cars—it’s a long way from my dad telling me to get a real job.”

Cartoon’s graphic designs, illustrations and artwork have also been used to add visual punch to a crazy quilt of pop cultural offerings:

He rendered the gang scrawl seen throughout the bestselling video game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.” He designed clothing for companies including Levi Strauss, Stussy, Vans and Supreme. He designed a customized T-Mobile Sidekick. He did detail work for a concept car for Scion. In 2005, Nike hired Cartoon to create limited editions of its Air Force 1 and Cortez shoes.

“The mainstream is coming around to his aesthetic, not the other way around,” said movie producer Brian Grazer, who is planning a film based on Cartoon’s life. “He doesn’t change. He’s still hard-core. He’s a gatekeeper to that world.”

Read the full story here.

6055: Investors + Graffiti = Messed Up.

Um, somebody tell this advertiser it will be difficult to convince clients that you have the formula for successful corporate communications when your own communications suck.