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27 Comments

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Something Quite Atrocious

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2007_05_31graffiti.jpg
A little bit of whimsy has been lost along the embankment of the Don Valley Parkway. One of the most light-hearted pieces of graffiti in the city has been recently whitewashed out of existence, leaving Bloor line subway riders without the biggest word they ever heard. Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay, so it goes.

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Comments

  • Mark Dowling

    “Bush is a terrorist” in the same spot only lasted a few days.

  • Steve

    They painted over the “supercalifragilistic…” that was cool lookin’.
    And Bush is not A terrorist…he is THE terrorist.

  • rek

    If they don’t paint over it, the wall will collapse and derail trains.
    Right?
    Graffiti breaks things, or so I’ve been told.

  • xoro

    The city paints over art.
    Lets make more room for Corporate Graffiti, a.k.a advertising.

  • Anticorium

    The problem with the art/commerce axis is that, uh, this is commerce too. It may be lighthearted whimsy, but it’s lighthearted whimsy that reminds everyone who sees it of one of the Walt Disney Company’s most prized corporate holdings (now available on DVD!). It’s art that helps convince you to open your wallet and chip in to keep Walt’s walk-in freezer running.
    Sure, the artist probably wasn’t paid by Disney, but it’s still an ad and it still promotes a product. Is Corporate Graffiti[tm] okay if it’s pro bono? There are probably a few Apple fanatics in the city who could totally cover your favorite murals with iPod graffiti at no charge, if you just gave them a chance.

  • http://www.newmindspace.com Kevin Bracken

    #5, points for creativity, but not much else.
    I will really miss this piece :(

  • Anticorium

    That’s a disappointment, Kevin, because I’m serious. This is textbook Thomas Frank or Carrie McLaren: corporate media and ads colonizing our consciousness so thoroughly that even our moments of free whimsy are movie quotes and corporate products. I suppose it’s also textbook Warhol, except I’ve never really liked him….
    That song about buying the world a Coke is pretty catchy, too, but you’d feel a little sick twitch if you heard a busker singing it on Queen Street. Why don’t we have the same reaction to this piece? Even xoro’s gut reaction was that it’s art that was erased to make room for corporate graffiti, despite the obvious corporate-media reference. (I think it’s a safe bet someone in Buena Vista is right now trying to figure out how to put that on a T-shirt.) I think it’s a fascinating question, and I still wonder how cool people would be with other pro bono ads.

  • rek

    The word predates the Mary Poppins movie by at least 16 years. (And a point of interest: the movie is based on a series of children’s books that first saw print 30 years before the movie was released.) Being strongly associated with a movie doesn’t make an expression of it an ad for the movie.

  • Robis

    Even further, just because something is a corporate holding does not mean that it is somehow invalidated as a cultural reference. Nor does it mean that such a reference automatically becomes pro bono advertising. It is quite possible to evoke the whimsey of Mary Poppins without feeling the urge to go out and buy the DVD.
    References very often transcend their connection to their corporate owner. The Santa Claus that we know today was popularized through use of his image on Coca Cola advertising starting in the early 1900s. How many of us who eschew Santa because we don’t wish to provide pro bono advertising for Coca Cola? How many of us would even make that connection? I would bet very few.

  • xoro

    “Superfragilisticexpialidocious” juxaposed against the backdrop of car World.
    Looks like contemporary, temporary art, to me.

  • Steve

    Maybe it’s the sound of it that’s really quite atrocious.
    I can’t believe I’m the first one to say that :- P
    Now, would someone please re-paint “Bush is a Terrorist” up there.
    It would be, ever so delightful.

  • dave

    I’m glad this unsanctioned selfish wanky act of vandalism is gone.

  • rx

    Well then Dave, you sir, are a wanker.

  • Anticorium

    rek, the book and word may exist, but both have been thoroughly colonized by Disney. In fact, I think that whoever wrote Mary Poppins in the first place (like most people I’d have to look that up) spins more slowly in their grave only because they’re scared of racing A. A. Milne. I wouldn’t say that I’d bet that the graffiti artist was inspired by the movie and the song, because “bet” and “near-certainty” are opposites.
    Robis: The idea that Santa is an invention of Coca-Cola is plausible-sounding, and depressing, and not even remotely true. Santa-the-red-and-white was cemented in the popular imagination about fifty years before Coke picked up on it. In fact, they only used the character because it was already part of the culture. It’s the sort of co-opting that was supposed to have been invented in the 1980s when Nike bought a Beatles song. While I can’t post a link to it, a quick google for “site:snopes.com santa” will link you to a great article on The Real History Of Santa Iconography.
    Mind you, I don’t think that corporate influence always taints everything it touches. What I’m saying is that for some reason, it sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t, to the point where cases like this happen: a piece of art is a clear quote of corporate media and yet we’re in near-universal agreement that it’s art. (See above re: Warhol, in fact.) I wish I knew why that was; I’m not quite that precocious. (Sorry.) What do you think?
    P.S. dave may not be a wanker. That implies there’s a bit of pleasure in his life, which seems open to debate.

  • dave

    Typical Torontoist response to grafitti – if it’s cool and charming to you, you have no problem with it. If you don’t like the subject matter, you all rail aginst it. Hip Oh Critz.
    I guess going through the motions of getting permission to paint something permanent there was too grown up and not edgy enough for the wankers who painted the original grafitti.

  • Chris Orbz

    Perhaps it’s the typical response because it’s the one that we think makes sense. Perhaps things ought to be judged based on merit, not approval from authority. Perhaps that is not exactly a crazy idea?
    dave, you sound rather a lot like the same sort of weirdo who was so obsessed with the status quo that they called out the graffiti squad to eradicate a neighbourhood childrens sidewalk chalk project in Ottawa: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=839ea109-9c67-416d-a3a4-bcb6363b858c&k=91170
    The people who think that the “Live With Culture” advertising and those models in black leotards are somehow representative of Toronto art are the people making all the decisions about what elements of culture are allowed in this city… which stuff is funded and which stuff our tax dollars are instead spent on destroying.
    The city is only interested in “culture” that means corporate bucks flowing in… These people are helplessly lost when they try to define our city’s culture, and prove themselves time and time again to be hopelessly unqualified to do that job. Yet it’s once that they do quite aggressively.
    We’re trying to build a culture here. Italy did not develop it’s world-famous cuisine by having each new pasta shape and wine variety run through a permit process of rubber stamps and rejections from bureaucrats, and Toronto has not built its incredible art-based culture by having each and every piece approved by people who are only capable of appreciating art when its bought for 8 million dollars and hung on a white wall in a gallery.

  • rek

    Dave – I’m interested to see if you can cite any examples of non-corporate graffiti Torontoist has slammed for its subject matter. I can’t recall any off the top of my head.
    (If someone had asked me two days ago which studio owned the rights to Mary Poppins, Walt Disney would have been a guess on par with Sony and 20th Century Fox…)

  • Jonathan

    Graffiti by it’s nature is not a permanent fixture.
    The wall is now blank for someone else. It’s just how it works.

  • Anticorium

    Holy heck, rek, I envy you. I guess too many Disney videotapes in my youth really did provide a lot more brand identification than the norm.

  • GraffBoy

    FUCK EVRY ONE YOU SUPPORTS THIS
    this should of stayd up there fer ever
    graffiti for life bitches

  • esole one

    what is everyone problem on here this is graff thats it. this dude went out and hit up a tight spot with a long ass word. it aint about disney or anything hes just a bomb ass writer.
    peace out and stay up
    esole

  • dark one

    graff, for those who are serious about, it is a game of proving your legitimacy. what this writer did was throw a ridiculously long word up, in an illegal area, inorder to further their status in the area. im sure that the artist had no intention of it staying there forever, but instead just for as many people to see it before it was taken down. now that it is taken down it opens the space back up for the orignal writer or another to put up something even better… because thats how graff works. if i lived in the area i would consider “Disestablishmentarianism”. it has trivial and practical value!
    furthermore as said in post #21 its not about disney or anything, the writer was just looking for a looking for a word to write. often, and i believe in this case it is not the meaning of the word that the writer used it for but instead the letters in it and more importantly the length of the word.

  • SHEP

    Wow. that was just an amazing piece, on the DVP no less. the work and effort not to mention the cost (roughly $8 a can)should be taken into consideration. Im sure plugging Disney wasnt on the writers mind but Im sure there was intent to brighten peoples days. Its too bad that it wasnt signed.

  • prince pauper

    I’m surprised no one seems to know that “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is a Benny Hill reference. Am I the only dirty old man around?

  • misc1

    To anybody wondering which graf artist painted this without signing it, I’ve heard from some graffiti associates of mine that the artists name was UBER. German for “over” :) . Shame this was taken down, even the MARE piece directly to the right… I haven’t been by in a bit, last i saw under the bridge were some AREK pieces and a bunch of other shit. I’ll get up under there soon sometime

  • Jon

    Damn this was good… The the idiots who buffed it are nothing but losers. Real shame. The painting may be gone, but the photo(s) will last forever, so haha to that!

  • jon

    looked real good. shame some idiots had to paint over it. it may be gone, but the amazing photo will last forever. so ha-ha to that.