Graffiti in Twin Cities Urban Core (Minneapolis, Badger: houses, neighborhood, university)

[OneTimeSEALover]

Is graffiti in Minneapolis and St Paul up or down? Riding buses on University in St Paul, it seemed to be on every block multiple times. Then also on Lake Street in Minneapolis. A lot of tags are the same both cities.

[bostonguy1960]

I'm also curious.

Hate graffiti.

Isn't MSP supposed to be so clean?

[demtion35]

Some of the stuff in S Mpls. is on certain buildings, but it is more like art decoration, like large paintings, murals and stuff like that, then the kind of tagging that is always about stupid stuff, and defacing or bad things, but the paintings or maybe it is graffiti that looks nice is on several or many sides of complete walls of buildings, even some if not many that make the areas colorful and nice. And many of these were not done in the middle of the night.

[OneTimeSEALover]

Tons of markings with no evident effort. Some believe they don't even merit the term "tag". A couple of the people are doing main streets in both Minneapolis and St Paul. Example "CYBIN" "RAYNE" As for "clean" it could be if you make the right comparison, the cities are "clean". But a few people are busy working against that reputation.

[Pincho-toot]

Originally Posted by bostonguy1960

I'm also curious.

Hate graffiti.

Isn't MSP supposed to be so clean?

Graffiti isn't dirty, its art. It can be found in any city and honestly IMO adds character and grit.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by BadgerFilms

Graffiti isn't dirty, its art. It can be found in any city and honestly IMO adds character and grit.

Not all graffiti is art. The large wall murals that some referred to here are usually commissioned pieces and the artists are sometimes paid for their work.

On the other hand, some graffiti is just tagging where the graffiti "artist" wants to see their tag everywhere, and some of it is to mark gang territories. A black spray painted MS-13 on a garage wall is not art, it's a warning.

The Kingfield neighborhood of Minneapolis has had great success in fighting graffiti by commissioning murals and by shrink wrapping utility boxes with photos taken by neighborhood artists. I consider this sort of innovation to be a great use of neighborhood funding.

[MichaelOwne]

Personally, I've always wished there was more graffiti in the Twin Cities. And by that I mean beautiful tags, not the bs gang tags that are nothing more than a couple squiggles...

[tijlover]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

Not all graffiti is art. The large wall murals that some referred to here are usually commissioned pieces and the artists are sometimes paid for their work.

On the other hand, some graffiti is just tagging where the graffiti "artist" wants to see their tag everywhere, and some of it is to mark gang territories. A black spray painted MS-13 on a garage wall is not art, it's a warning.

The Kingfield neighborhood of Minneapolis has had great success in fighting graffiti by commissioning murals and by shrink wrapping utility boxes with photos taken by neighborhood artists. I consider this sort of innovation to be a great use of neighborhood funding.

Here, in conservative Las Vegas, we spend $30 million a year erasing tagging and some noteworthy street art that should be left as is, and I think you can fight graffiti by commissioning murals instead, or have a judge go around, and decide what should be erased and what should be preserved. There are even some simple taggings, if done in the right colors, which should be preserved as well.

Having lived in Minneapolis, I can't recall there being a lot of wall space even for graffiti, or taggings. In this city, we have hundreds of miles of walls, as, for some reason, Las Vegans feel naked without their walls, and their backyards ringed with cinder block walls, all crying out for a mural artist. And, this city, is in love with beiges/tans/browns/grays, not just the walls but the houses as well. Even if someone tags one of these gray or beige walls using red or turquoise or orange, Hip, Hip, Hooray!