An artist known as “Stab” is guest curator for a show of graffiti and graffiti-inspired art at DB5K Gallery in Fells Point. (Sun photo by Elizabeth Malby / May 6, 2008)
Barry Heintz pulls the trigger of a powerwasher to blast away the last vestiges of an eight-foot-long and two-foot-high sprawl of graffiti in a Mount Vernon alley. He has already blasted it with a chemical mix called Taginator Graffiti Remover and scrubbed at it with an ordinary push broom. When he’s finished washing, nothing remains but a few small patches of white underneath a crumbling windowsill.
Heintz, maintenance supervisor with the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, may be graffiti’s worst enemy. But many others in the city consider it art.
Just a mile and a half from the alley where Heintz attacked the unsightly black and white name, the DB5K Gallery has an exhibition showcasing famous graffiti “writers” and the movement’s progression over the decades. Prices in the Foundations of Style Writing show range as high as $1,000, and on opening night, a dozen pieces sold.
Graffiti is a strange hybrid. Across the country, people vilify it as vandalism indicative of neighborhoods in decline; others laud it as urban art worthy of museums. This year alone, Baltimore will spend nearly a million dollars to keep streets and alleys pristine. Meanwhile, DB5K in Fells Point is selling writers’ signatures, or tags, drawn on everything from torn pieces of paper to stolen street signs, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington has incorporated large panels of graffiti into an exhibition about hip-hop’s influence on portraiture.
[Via:www.baltimoresun.com]
