Driving home from the city centre on Saturday afternoon I encountered a stretch of nearly two kilometres of house fences and shop fronts, on both sides of the road, that appeared to have been defaced (my term) overnight.

I say overnight with some confidence because it’s on my usual route from work and the properties concerned are all nicely painted and well maintained.

On closer inspection it seemed there must have been at least two ‘artists’ involved since the ‘tags’ were different in style and colour.

In fact it looked to me like anyone with a colourbond fence or clean wall was fair game. Even the street signs had copped it, but funnily enough the signs outside two churches had escaped without mark – presumably some things are sacred.

Situated on a busy roadway it is hard to conceive that such a prolonged session could have gone un-noticed – no matter how early in the morning.

But whose responsibility is it to report these acts of vandalism and who pays for the clean up?

Most councils these days have policy in place and often have special crews to deal with grafitti – I quote an example from a NSW-based council website:

Council takes a number of steps to deal with graffiti

• Employs crews to remove graffiti on Council buildings and infrastructure such as pools and parks
• Undertakes graffiti and safety audits in affected areas when required and recommends appropriate actions
• Coordinates legal art projects to prevent graffiti
• Removes graffiti as soon as possible.

Graffiti on Council buildings

Council will remove graffiti on its own buildings as soon as possible.

Graffiti on personal property

Council is not responsible for removing graffiti on buildings they do not own.

You will need to organise for the graffiti to be removed at your own expense - there are companies who can remove the graffiti for you at a cost.

Preventing graffiti

The following strategies can help to prevent graffiti:

• Plant vegetation to help restrict access to walls or views into buildings
• Provide lighting - a well-lit area may deter vandalism
• Secure your property - make sure your property cannot be easily accessed by potential vandals.

Who gives them the ideas?

I know the internet gets blamed for just about every social ill these days, but this time there might be some justification.

I googled ‘grafitti’ - in fact I misspelt it. But in any case the No.1 result at the top of the search results was a website devoted to ‘creating’ grafitti  – complete with Google adverts (go figure) – see below:

The Graffiti Creator - Home Of Graffiti Art

Graffiti tutorials, news, forums, interviews, galleries, games and more.

All gathered on one site, The Graffiti Creators Mekka!

www.graffiticreator.net

Who sells them the aerosols?

I quote from Victorian legislation: “A retailer must not sell an aerosol paint container to a minor (under 18) unless the minor produces to the person a letter or statutory declaration from an employer stating that the minor requires an aerosol paint container for the purposes of his or her employment.”

Call me old fashioned but I can’t believe the extent of grafitti we see in our communities is all down to the handiwork of a bunch of 15-17 year olds.  And in any event this group has sorted out plenty of ways to purchase alcohol illegally so I’m thinking aerosols would be just as easy to acquire.

What’s the answer or, more to the point, what’s the real question:

It seems to me the basic problem with all forms of street art is that the ‘canvas’ used is always someone else’s property, i.e. not the artists’. 

Consequently, if the artwork negatively impacts the other person’s property the artist should theoretically (under our current legal system) compensate the real owner for his/her loss.

But if this were true, what about if the artwork increased the value of the property concerned should the property owner then have to pay the artist for their un-asked for grafitti? 

If you think I’m just trying to be clever here, I’m not.  In fact in London there is a famous street artist whose work is now considered so valuable his handiwork actually enhances property values.

Check out his website – and note the ‘political’ statement with the Aussie theme:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/images/landscapes/cansbuffer.jpg

To see more artwork:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm