Graffiti, No! Mural, Who Knows?

An Early Rumbling

On the morning of 3 December 2009, as Vancouver City Council considered its replacement Olympic bylaw, Councillor David Cadman pressed staff on the point of how art would be distinguisted from the graffiti to be dealt with in the bylaw. City staff referred to an existing mural program that requires a permit, with the comment that offenders would be advised of the opportunity to legitimize the art/graffiti. It seems likely that the Crying Room fiasco, looming on the near horizon, underlay this questioning. If so, a more nimble municipal operation might have nipped this public relations disaster in the bud.

 
Reporting on the Crying Room Takedown

On 11 December 2009, a Friday, news of City of Vancouver suppression of a public graphic erupted in the media. At the center of this attention was a varnished piece of plywood showing five black interlocking Olympic rings made into four sad faces and one happy face.

The Crying Room, a gallery at 157 East Cordova Street, displayed Jesse Corcoran’s work from September 25 until its forced removal on November 16. According to studio proprietor Colleen Heslin, thirty other exhibits mounted on the same spot since 2003 had encountered no difficulties whatsoever.

Marsha Lederman (Dec. 11) captured the essentials of the situation in three direct quotations. The artist offered this comment on his image:

The oppressive nature of the Games is what I wanted to capture and how the majority is suffering for the minority.

After receiving a notice about graffiti on his property, landlord Peter Wong was perplexed:

I called them [city officials] and said I cannot find the graffiti. And they said the sign is graffiti.

A city inspector cited the offending piece as “black graffiti tags on wood panelling covering a window.”

 
An Extremely Rapid Reinstallation

Corcoran reinstalled his plywood object (painting? graffiti? mural? sign? panelling?) sometime during the weekend – which means either one or two days after the story went public.

The process for this speedy reversal appears to trace to informal communication between gallery owner Colleen Heslin and Vancouver’s municipal Olympics czar:

City councillor Geoff Meggs told her he didn’t foresee any problems if she reinstalled the mural, so she felt it was safe to go ahead.   (Lederman, Dec. 16)

The City may have set out to save face by insisting on a technicality: the specific placement of the plywood object. Meggs described “a spot right adjacent to it [the original location] where murals are encouraged and permitted.”

Meggs added that city staff told him that the work of art could have been placed on that spot, but not on the panel at the front of the Downtown Eastside gallery.   (Smith; “Geoff Meggs calls removal”)

Meggs still failed to explain the bureaucratic alchemy that could so quickly turn verboten graffiti into an approved mural. The City of Vancouver web site indicates that the mural program aims to provide “a legitimate outlet for creative expression” while simultaneously “deterring further tagging.” In fact, “only locations with graffiti will be considered” for the mural program, and murals that incorporate “racial/religious/political acts or statements will not be approved.” (Note that this last restriction lines right up with Section 51 of the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Charter distaste for such propaganda!)

The existence of Meggs’s apparent power of decree in this matter never received due notice or comment. In this context, it should be recalled that one of the civil liberties improvements in the Olympic bylaw passed on 3 December 2009 was the elimination of City Manager Penny Ballem’s power of decree over City LiveSites.

The abrupt about-face of city officials on this embarrassment calls to mind a robotic tin soldier obsessively trying to polish away all blemishes while wearing holes into soiled fabric. At a forum on 15 December 2009, David McLellan (General Manager, Community Services Group, City of Vancouver) said that bylaw officers were “a little bit too zealous” and sent the “wrong signal.”

 
How the City ‘Blue Away’ a Mural Two Weeks Later

Reporter Bob Mackin came in first with the story of how, just before Christmas, the City painted over “graffiti murals outside an Olympic live site in downtown Vancouver.” (The terms graffiti and mural here begin to merge into muddy meaninglessness.)

An artist-painted mural, in place for more than two years, suddenly disappeared as a part of “regular maintenance” that – according to city official David McLellan – had no connection to the upcoming Games. Piling on the justifications, McLellan said it was a “temporary installation” that had happened “without the benefits of any permits”!

Follow-up after the weekend by Tiffany Crawford made McLellan look like a barefaced liar. The Olympic blue of the covering paint and the location adjacent to an Olympic venue had already rendered the action and timing highly suspicious.

Crawford’s Christmas eve interview with mural artist Milan Basic elicited damning confirmation. A connected friend had told the artist the paint-out was coming. This information led him to state: “I knew for a fact that it was deleted because of the Olympics.” Basic went on to tell Crawford that he expects “backlash from the Vancouver graffiti community.”

 
Postscript 16 January 2010 & 21 January 2010

The Georgia Straight has continued to report on the blue-out. The latest is that the wall has been stencilled with Olympic rings surrounded by text that reads: “With glowing hearts we kill the arts.”

Travis Lupick. “ ‘Burning’ Beatty murals extinguished,” Georgia Straight 44:2194 (7-14 Jan 2010) 27

Travis Lupick. “Anti-Olympic paintings appear on Beatty Street,” Georgia Straight 44:2195 (14-21 Jan 2010) 11

And now back to blue … with a ghost of the white resistance still showing through on the afternoon of 20 January, beside the Wet Paint signs taped up by Goodbye Graffiti.

Stephen Hui. “Anti-Olympic graffiti at site of removed murals gets painted over,” Georgia Straight [online] (20 Jan 2010)

 
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(In chronological order)

Lalo Espejo. “Olympic art freeze silences creative critics,” Vancouver Observer (11 Dec 2009)

Marsha Lederman. “Vancouver orders removal of anti-Olympic mural,” Globe & Mail (11 Dec 2009)

Charlie Smith. “Artist Jesse Corcoran says Olympic mural highlights suffering of the majority,” Georgia Straight [online] (11 Dec 2009)

Charlie Smith. “Geoff Meggs calls removal of Olympic mural at Crying Room ‘regrettable’,” Georgia Straight [online] (11 Dec 2009)

Richard J. Dalton Jr. “City criticized for ordering removal of anti-Olympic mural,” Vancouver Sun (12 Dec 2009) A7

Sam Cooper. “City demands removal of mural,” Province (13 Dec 2009)

Jeff Hodson. “Anti-Olympic mural returns,” Metro Vancouver (14 Dec 2009) 3

Bob Mackin. “Civil rights wound up?” 24 Hours Vancouver (14 Dec 2009) 5

Marsha Lederman. “Protest mural comes full circle, now back on gallery wall,” Globe & Mail (16 Dec 2009)

Rod Mickleburgh. “Olympic image being tarnished by events out of organizing committee’s control,” Globe & Mail (17 Dec 2009)

Charlie Smith. “Olympic rings on t-shirts?” Georgia Straight 43:2191 (17-24 Dec 2009) 43

Bob Mackin. “Cultural cleansing,” 24 Hours Vancouver (24 Dec 2009) 4

Tiffany Crawford. “Coating of mural in ‘Olympic blue’ paint angers artist,” Vancouver Sun (28 Dec 2009) A4

Mark Arden. “Olympics story has no legs [letter],” Vancouver Sun (29 Dec 2009) A14

Mark Avrum Drutz. “Mural lent interest to an otherwise dismal block [letter],” Vancouver Sun (31 Dec 2009) A12

Sean Bickerton. “City art commissars no better than vandals [letter],” Georgia Straight 43:2193 (31 Dec 2009-7 Jan 2010) 7