Help out my friend

[Beat Takeshi]

Ket has been a good friend of mine for 20 years and this benefit is to help him with legal fees to fight the city! All the great artists have donated their art work for this benefit. The online auction has a gallery open this Wednesday in Brooklyn @ 6PM were you can see ALL the art posted on line and also meet some of the artists…

http://www.thewallsbelongtous.com/

http://www.supportket.org/

[Jeff Anderson]

wow... if i was local I'd be having trouble right now deciding which pieces to buy - thats some fantastic art. Really too bad since the wife and I are redecorating our office at home with a really urban feel. Shoot I'm tempted to be buying a plane ticket right now... Hope the auction sells well - looks like it will!

[Beat Takeshi]

I wish I knew about it to donate some of my own work to that in time but I just found out about it.

[Paul Coleman]

Some good stuff up there. :thumbup:

[OldCorpse]

I know I'll catch flack for this, but this is a tough situation. Obviously, if they arrested him on simple possesion of tools and so on, that's BS. Also, grafitti artists are as legitimate as any others. My problem is with random kids defacing public or private property with gang signs and the like. Recently I went on a daytrip to the Angeles National Forest, and hiked near a stream in the woods... most big bolders were defaced with gang signs - IN THE MIDDLE OF A FREAKIN' NATIONAL FOREST!!! Disgusting.

And how are you supposed to tell which is a "legit" artist vs just a gangbanger and vandal? I'd argue you can't really - who is to say that someone who is 16 is not just "expressing" himself? All grafiti art is political on some level - and so the dividing line between a vandal and a "legitimate" artist is blurry. I'd rather not make that call.

Many cities have developed a solution to this situation, which is a compromise that works out well for all, IMHO. They designate certain areas, walls and properties as free for grafitti artists to work on. It's good for the grafitti artists too, as more tourists and grafitti art lovers get to see their work, and they get more exposure, and the quality of work is generally higher, while the city gets nice artwork. That is cool, and seems to me the right way to handle this, and I support this.

Meanwhile, I'm sorry, but if you destroy and vandalise property randomly all over town or in national forests, monuments and the like, you should answer to it, and calling it "art" is not going to cut it, since any gangbanger can call their stuff "art" and good luck trying to separate this from "legit" art.

I don't know the particulars of this case, so my remarks are general in nature, not aimed at this individual.

Just my 2 cents.

[milksac]

Here's a NY Times article for reference.
http://tinyurl.com/23qhpt

IMO, Ecko Unlimited should pick up the legal tab since they stood to benefit from KET's publicity stunt.

[Beat Takeshi]

Yeah they should. He has a point about copy cat taggers though. I see my old name up and pretty much the same way I used to write and I haven't bombed anything since the 80's but if you put my stuff next to the new stuff you probably couldn't tell the diff.

[ddp]

I know I'll catch flack for this, but this is a tough situation. Obviously, if they arrested him on simple possesion of tools and so on, that's BS. Also, grafitti artists are as legitimate as any others. My problem is with random kids defacing public or private property with gang signs and the like. Recently I went on a daytrip to the Angeles National Forest, and hiked near a stream in the woods... most big bolders were defaced with gang signs - IN THE MIDDLE OF A FREAKIN' NATIONAL FOREST!!! Disgusting.

And how are you supposed to tell which is a "legit" artist vs just a gangbanger and vandal? I'd argue you can't really - who is to say that someone who is 16 is not just "expressing" himself? All grafiti art is political on some level - and so the dividing line between a vandal and a "legitimate" artist is blurry. I'd rather not make that call.

Many cities have developed a solution to this situation, which is a compromise that works out well for all, IMHO. They designate certain areas, walls and properties as free for grafitti artists to work on. It's good for the grafitti artists too, as more tourists and grafitti art lovers get to see their work, and they get more exposure, and the quality of work is generally higher, while the city gets nice artwork. That is cool, and seems to me the right way to handle this, and I support this.

Meanwhile, I'm sorry, but if you destroy and vandalise property randomly all over town or in national forests, monuments and the like, you should answer to it, and calling it "art" is not going to cut it, since any gangbanger can call their stuff "art" and good luck trying to separate this from "legit" art.

I don't know the particulars of this case, so my remarks are general in nature, not aimed at this individual.

Just my 2 cents.

I've got to agree with everything you said, no flak from me.


DDP

[TwistedLincoln]

And how are you supposed to tell which is a "legit" artist vs just a gangbanger and vandal?

Seems to me this is an easy distinction -- if you own the item you are painting, or have permission to paint there, then it is legitimate art. If you are spray painting someone else's property without permission, that's vandalism. I don't care how good it looks.

On the other hand, I don't think "possession of graffiti tools" should be a crime. Seems as if we should punish people for things they do, not for the things we think they're going to do based on what they're carrying around...

[Deep*Life]

The turnout was great. They are moving it to Vegas in about a month and I donated 2 pieces for action.
Whooooop!!! Whoooooop!!!
Its the sound of da police!
Whoooooop!!!! Whoooooop!!!!
Its the sound of the beast!