Pie Palace

In another post, LKG responded to my reaction to the destruction of the attached picture:

“small minded and reprehensible.”? Hmm, so, how is it that the original graf doesn’t fit into that same meta desciption by ‘editing’ the original wall in the first place? Are you suggesting that the orignal graf *wasn’t* small-minded and reprehensible b/c you agree with that P.O.V.?

I would draw a distinction between sticking a work of art onto an empty wall, and modifying a work of art that someone else has produced.

An empty wall doesn’t have much to say. It communicates some basic information about “mine” and “yours,” and it might say something about the economic status of the owner, but, for the most part, it isn’t the result of a creative or imaginative act.¹ As a side note: since the wall is someone’s property, I would say that it is fully in their right to remove all graffiti from it, and to charge anyone who has “vandalized” the wall in the first place.

Art is the work of someone’s imagination. They’ve created something that is designed to be seen as they have created it. It may not express a coherent idea or thought, but it should evoke a reaction in a viewer. Ideally, the work of art will be original, bringing something new into the world.

When this artwork was censored, someone decided that they didn’t like the emotional response that the picture evoked. Instead of dealing with their reaction in a constructive manner (either by creating a piece of their own, writing a written response, or dealing with their emotional turmoil on their own), they decided to destroy the thing that caused them distress. They have effectively said that their emotional view is more important than that of the artist and the artist’s viewers. I wouldn’t call this a free-speech issue, so much as an issue of egalitarianism. The censor has said that they are more important than the artist.

As to your last point:

Are you suggesting that the original graf *wasn’t* small-minded and reprehensible b/c you agree with that P.O.V.?

I’m not sure what the artist’s original POV was. I’m not sure what the original picture was trying to say, if it was trying to say anything at all. Given that, I have to say that I neither agree nor disagree with the artist, I just find the picture attractive and aesthetically pleasing. Seeing a peacenik dove mixed with a bomb creates a little tickle of confusion at the back of my mind that’s enjoyable, if only for the mixing of the two perspectives. I think of myself as anti-war/anti-violence in pretty much every possible way, especially when it comes to indiscriminate weapons such as bombing; but I can still get something from art that contains images of those acts.

Centretown has been blessed with plenty of street art that I find ugly and unpleasant. Last year someone covered down town with drawings of severed hands with the word “hate” written on the knuckles. Last fall someone painted ghoulish floating heads around downtown. Those creeped me out, and were unpleasant, but I felt richer for having seen them. As much as I didn’t like seeing each one, I enjoyed the reaction they evoked.

If the censor had decided to respond to the original image in a creative way (either by drawing an olive branch over the bomb, or somehow subverting the original idea), I wouldn’t have as much of a problem, as they would have created something new, rather than stomping on someone else’s idea. But their act of destruction is just that: it says that the artist is worth less than they are, and it says that the artist’s idea and action don’t deserve to be seen.

1. We can argue semantics here about creativity, but let’s just call the average wall a functional item rather than an expressive item for the purpose of this discussion. (back)