Graffiti

I took this picture when we were wandering around London when we first got here. This is the first example of bad street art that I saw. This tagging is more vandalism then anything else. It doesn't contribute anything aesthetically significant, make any social commentary, or beautify the street in any way. This is just a rude way of getting your name out there and is just very unnecessary and shows that someone doesn't have much pride in where they live. There is graffiti covering both of the mailboxes clearly from different times and no one has done anything to clean off the tagging that was already there.

This is another example of bad street art. This occurred in Trafalgar Square because of protests on Saturday. You can clearly see "Fight Back" written on the lion, and there is more graffiti with similar sentiments covering other parts of the square. Although I consider this graffiti to be vandalism at least it is social commentary and definitely gets a point across. Unfortunately this sentiment was achieved by destroying an important monument and takes away from people's enjoyment of the square.

Both the above and below photos were taken of street art graffiti in Soho. I would even love to have the one below on my wall, I've always loved this photo of Albert Einstein and I like it even better since its been adapted to this format. It put a huge smile on my face when I saw this. This is the kind of street art that I really like and can actually contribute to the surrounding area. It isn't just someone tagging their name or vandalizing a billboard, it is actually creative and pleasant to look at. The size of the art is even more impressive and the way it is laid out on the booth couldn't have been easy. You could say the same thing about the street art above. I'm still not completely sure what it is a portrait of but if I had to guess I think it might be DeNiro from Taxi Driver. This one really makes an impact and an impression. It is a powerful image and it is so cool seeing pop art taken and adapted in this way.