The SF Chronicle ran a story on the growing number of tags going up on public art:

Increasingly, sculptures, monuments and a diversity of public art installations are falling victim to the same disrespect that sidewalks, walls and street signs have long suffered - unauthorized graffiti tagging and vandalism.

“In previous years, an incident would happen every two or three months, but lately it seems to be … happening monthly,” said Marcus Davies, the Arts Commission's civic art collection registrar.

It's a growing concern because the commission has a mere $15,000 of its $11 million yearly budget to clean up the tags, carvings and other unwanted artistic contributions to the 3,500-piece, $90 million collection, said Luis Cancel, the commission's director of cultural affairs.

The Chronicle goes on to say that every time someone tags a piece of work owned by the Arts Commission, it costs the city $5,000 because special care must be taken to clean up art (as opposed to just painting over a utility box).

The Arts Commission isn't the only one noticing the rise in vandalism.  KKKatie, who was infamous in her graffiti bombings of murals, public buildings and public artwork, might be rotting in prison, but people have  picked up where she left off.  Cancer Carl, whose tags and pieces can be seen all over the city, recently took it upon himself to hit the Banksy of Sycamore.  Another tagger bombed the mural on Public Works (it has since been painted over, as seen in this photo).  The mural on Valencia and 19th was getting hit so much this summer that they just painted over the entire thing a month ago.  The Chronicle is clearly going after the easy story (“taggers defacing city-owned art costing taxpayers bank”), but the situation, while certainly not a recent one, is not exclusive to city property.

Which brings me to the photo I used for this post.  The other day I was walking past Clarion Alley, which sits directly across from a police station, and I saw this bitch wearing all black (seen standing in the middle of the shot next to her leather-fetish boyfriend) making bold strokes with a silver pen over a mural.  I stopped and started fumbling for my camera, but her friend saw me, said something to her and she stopped.  Instead of just walking away, she attempted to shield herself from my view and started photographing her tag, as some sort of trophy honoring her 15-second accomplishment.

Even if I don't agree with it, I've always understood why kids tag.  But aren't 20-somethings supposed to have moved past it? It really blows to watch career baristas trashing what makes the city a pleasure to live in.

(Read the whole thing over at SFgate)

I having a feeling prosecutors are going to have trouble putting him on the witness stand…

(via Ice Tubes)

David Wojnarowicz (1954 — 1992), Untitled (One Day This Kid…), 1990

Before you read any of this, stop. Read the text surrounding the little boy in the image above. Great, thanks.

On October 28th, Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes wrote that the artist David Wojnarowicz seems important right now. Green authored this post about Wojnarowicz, the New York artist who gained notoriety in the East Village art scene of the 1980s, in wake of hearing about the rise of anti-gay bullying and the gay teenage suicide epidemic sweeping our nation. Wojnarowicz's work was created 20 years ago, but as we have seen so recently, his words are still very relevant. I'm also pretty sure that any person growing up LGBT or questioning can attest, anti-gay bullying is nothing new to the community. But finally, there's some major action going on to spread the word that It Get's Better.

In his post Green called for the Museums that have Wojnarowicz's Untitled (One Day This Kid…) in their permanent collection to place the piece on display immediately in order to engage the public with this honest depiction of growing up gay in America. Apparently, none of the five museums Green listed have placed this work on view yet. However, the amazing people at P.P.O.W. Gallery who represent Wojnarowicz's estate are doing their part to use the power of art to effect change in our communities. The above piece Untitled (One Day This Kid…) is now available for download through this site. As Wojnarowicz's said in his book Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration, “bottom line, if people don't say what they believe, those ideas and feelings get lost. If they are lost often enough, those ideas and feelings never return.” So read it, print it, post it, share it. Because sharing is caring, and in this case it might just help save some lives.

We weren't there to witness this for ourselves, but Mission Loc@l reports that “The Unemployed Man” was at Dolores Park this afternoon showing off both his new graphic novel and his package.  The Huffington Post has some excerpts for your amusement (of the book, not the bulge).

(pic by Mission Loc@l)