Street Art

Ashley Hopkins

Editor’s Note: This article is based on the extremly robust Flikr Chicago Street Art Photography community, which has over 1,298 members, and 20,000 photos. Kay Frederick’s collection is here,  and she was a great help with the piece.

Not all art lasts forever, and in Chicago a piece you see on your way to work may be gone before you head home.  In the ecosystem of the city, street art is an endangered species.

No one knows this better than Pilsen resident Mike Paro.  Paro, 21, has been photographing graffiti and other street works for as long as he can remember and feels that too much money is being allotted to the removal of public art in Chicago.  He is one of many photographing the images before they are lost forever.

“The notion behind illegal work and interrupting public space is extremely important in today’s world,” he said, calling street art a social need.  “It’s always been an issue in Chicago, where you have this brown blanket over the city.”

That brown blanket may be Graffiti Blasters, a free service offered to private property owners for the removal of graffiti.  Since its start in 1993, the group has removed more than 1.6 million markings from the Chicago streets, making it one of the most popular municipal services offered by the city.  With 13 blast trucks and 14 paint trucks at their disposal, the service has become a frequent sight around Chicago.

While this may be good for property owners worrying about the depreciated values of their homes and shops, artists around the city have an entirely different opinion.

Local designer Nick Adam, 28*, of Ukrainian Village, thinks that so much money is being spent to bring “world class art” to Chicago that the city is neglecting the talented artists that are already here.  Calling Chicago “a city brimming with a talent that is fleeing to other cities for proper recognition,” he holds onto the belief that much can still be done to counter the ever-constant opposition to street art.  “To quote Sun Tao,” he said, “’It is the lack there of knowledge that precipitates the fall of a culture.’”

And according to Adam, the art scene in Chicago is only improving.  “All together Chicago gets a 6.5 and it’s moving up,” he said.  “That would be on a scale where one is low and equal to, let’s say, art inside Jewel, and where 10 is high and equal to, I don’t know, art inside of Copenhagen.”

Things may even be looking up for graffiti artists.  Kay Frederick, 38, an avid photographer when she is not working at a Chicago film production company, said she hasn’t seen the Graffiti Blasters once since moving to the Pilsen area in July of 2008.

“It’s interesting living in Pilsen,” she said.  “Right on the corner where I live there is a building that is constantly getting tagged.  And when I say tagged, I mean hard-core, gang-banger, tagged.”  Each day the building looks different depending on who “rolled through that night.”

While Frederick supports public expression, she does not necessarily feel that this sort of art should be protected.  Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, she was always interested in the city’s turbulent political system, which in turn got her interested in the political art featured throughout the city.  While she believes this work should be at the public’s disposal, when expression turns violent she feels it should be removed.

“I think it depends on what it is, if it should be allowed to stay up,” she said.  “You don’t want your kid walking to school where you see this blatant, territorial stuff.”

Graffiti Blasters Info