Torontoist: Vandalist: Bearing It On The Street

April 4, 2008

Vandalist: Bearing It On The Street

Once a week, Vandalist features the best street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.

By Teeth.

AT SPADINA NEAR DUNDAS
PHOTO BY JOULGER.

By Posterchild in Culture | Link | Comments (13) | Recommend this! (6) |

Tags: art, discovery!, spadina, street art, Teeth, vandalist, vandals!

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Comments (13)

[1] | 04/04/08 04:59PM

This should be called Scandalist, the way she flaunts those bear ankles and calves.

Get it?

[2] | 04/04/08 05:12PM

Or Sandalist! (See footwear.)

[3] | 04/04/08 05:41PM

It is so typical of Torontoist to promote the criminal vandalism of a fire hydrant. Maybe if it was your fire hydrant you wouldn't be so quick to put it up on a pedestal and call it art.

Sorry, it seemed like the right time for that.

[4] | 04/04/08 07:33PM

howze aboot that lidder eh?
beauty bearlady though.

[5] | 04/05/08 06:21PM

Odd how some Vandalists outrage people and others don't attract their attention at all.

[6] | 04/06/08 12:38AM

The styrofoam cup, Starbucks drink bottle, plastic bag, and discarded butt litter in the photo are much more unsightly and worrisome than any street art portrayed in Vandalist.

[7] | 04/06/08 12:58PM

Doesn't seem odd at all to me. Some street art takes a nice looking surface and makes it ugly, others take an ugly surface and make it interesting.. This one clearly falls in the second category.

[8] | 04/06/08 01:08PM

Quite right James. If the vandals in my neighbourhood put sexy bear-girls on fire hydrants instead of ugly talentless tags on the walls of small businesses, I'd b a lot more kindly disposed towards them.

But they don't, and I'm not.

[9] | 04/06/08 01:47PM

Seems like whether or not you are for or against grafitti, it`s the thought that one side either hates it or loves it without taking the time to think about it that angers both camps.
My own view is that 99.9% of anything I`ve seen doesn`t show me much talent,and if it did, it`s wasted talent. If it`s in support of positive social change, then it`s a cop out because there are so many ways you can work towards that goal instead of middle of the night anonymous spray painting.
If you think the issue of defacing somebody elses property isn`t that important, I think you`re missing a certain amount of empathy.
It`s all a little hard to...bear.

[10] | 04/06/08 02:54PM

I firmly believe that a lot of graffiti and a lot of tags are unaesthetic or uninteresting, just as the bulk of all art (Romantic, Modern, music, film, sculpture) is unaesthetic or uninteresting. I continue to come back to Posterchild's assertion that the important question about graffiti isn't whether it's art, but whether it's good. Graffiti is just more assertive; it's hard to avoid crap if it's confronting you on the street rather than in a gallery (or kept abandoned in an artist's studio). The form necessitates a stronger response than other forms do. (Incidentally, I think this may be part of the reason why people who against either advertising or street art are opposed to it so viscerally and, in some cases, so universally.)

What's important to bear in mind, I think, is that Vandalist really isn't intended to show off the crap.

[11] | 04/06/08 07:22PM

I like that Vandalist has had us talking about this for, like, what---8 or 10 weeks now?

[12] | 04/07/08 12:19AM

Well, there's a middle ground between "all graffiti fucking rules" and "all graffiti fucking sucks." It'd be nice to know we're working towards establishing that.

[13] | 04/07/08 12:16PM

Well, I dunno... what do you want, for it to be widely accepted? That would pretty much destroy all its street cred.