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TAG TUESDAY
A GOOD TIME TO TALK ABOUT VANDALIST!
“Toronto, we are told, is a world-class city. But Toronto is noticeably absent from the list of major urban centres famous for graffiti and street art: New York, Barcelona, San Francisco, Berlin, LA, Melbourne, and London. Even within Canada, smaller cities like Montreal and Vancouver hold a better reputation for graffiti than Toronto.
Vandalist seeks to change all that.
Toronto has some amazing stuff going on and up onto the walls––we just rarely hear about it. Perhaps it has something to do with that oft-lamented aspect of our national character: we all groan at Canadian content. We don’t make musicians famous here, we wait until others have approved of them before offering them our acceptance. Maybe a stencil really is cooler when it’s sprayed on the streets of NYC than on the streets of the GTA.
But Vandalist doesn’t think so. The work is there. It’s good. It’s getting better. And it’s not just downtown, but out in the farthest reaches of our city.
We want to expand its audience and increase its status. We want to give it an international showcase online. We hope this will enlarge and improve the scene––but we need your help, whether you’re an artist looking for a venue (other than the street) to show off your stuff, or a fan of the genre who likes discovering new work.
All you’ve gotta do to participate is send photos of the piece to vandalist@torontoist.com, along with the artist’s name (if you know it), its location, and––if it wasn’t yours and you want credit for the discovery––your name and website. Every week on Friday, we’ll feature the best stuff we get sent.”
If you are a GTAer, you should submit!
The comments have been predictably polar…
You know…
I drink,
but I certainly wouldn’t endorse all of drinking and drinking culture wholesale.
Nor would you be so ridiculous as to call me to task on the worst excesses of drinkers.
IE: “Oh, you drink, do you? So you think it’s OK to drive drunk? To brawl in bars? To date-rape and beat women?”
I do graff,
But…
If when you say graffiti you mean the devil’s scrawl, the urban scourge, the undying monster, that defiles the sterile, dethrones law, destroys the peace, costs untold millions of dollars, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally stains the community; if you mean the evil practice that topples virtuous youth from the pinnacle of righteous, leads them astray from gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, gangs and drugs, lawlessness and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But;
If when you say graffiti you mean the splendour of the everyman, the philosophic scrawl, the art and friendship that is created when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean urban cheer; if you mean the stimulating mark that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the images which enable a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean those magnificent calligraphic strokes, then certainly I am for it.
This tag also came from my nice night out amongst the storm.
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