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San Francisco Graffiti
- wumms 8mo agoWould have looked further, but scroll wheel finger cramped. Keyboard nav would be great.
- kg 8mo agoEnabling the browser's scrollbar would also be good.
- defrost 8mo agoAs a suggestion, * Orientation - some images are sideways, * Option to walk through by date order, and by location ... There is an audience for the time ordered flux of images on particular sites (at least in Australia).
- ghuroo1 8mo agoI like the concept, wish it was a vertical scroll with some safe margins between each picture (also to give them more stage time and removing the noise/distraction from many pictures stitched together)
- s_dev 8mo agoFascinating, I do love street art and tastefully done graffiti. Some of it is obnoxious. I think it does add to the character of a city e.g. New York, Berlin, Montreal, Paris all have some amazing work etc. I submit Irish Graffiti I see here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Graifiti/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Graifiti/ Though I think displaying these things as a map is more useful: https://streetartcities.com/cities/sanfrancisco https://streetartcities.com/cities/sanfrancisco There is a an Irish artist called Dan Leo and I have bought lots of his prints. https://www.danleodesign.com/ https://www.danleodesign.com/ so they are dotted around my office and home. I think they're great! He does animals and I love the style, clean lines and bright colours, they remind me of US football team logos.
- Gigachad 8mo agoI'm probably the minority where I don't mind any graffiti, quality or not. As long as it isn't horribly offensive or impacting the functionality of something (over signs/glass/etc). Think I just prefer the look of a wall covered in even shitty tags and pasted posters over a completely blank slate. I particularly love seeing peoples stickers about.
- kromokromo 8mo agoI agree. It feels like people are actually living there, in contrast to sterile, corporate glass/concrete.
- fleroviumna 8mo ago[dead]
- jasonkester 8mo agoI live near Paris, and it's a shame to see this sort of thing on every surface here. It's so easy and effortless to trash the look of a place, and so much effort and pain to get it back to a presentable state. It just seems hopeless trying to stop it. Sure, you can point to examples of graffiti that don't look all that bad, and I imagine some examples can even be considered to improve the look of a space. But taking this site as a random sample, the "good" ones are a vanishing minority. For every subtle Invader mosaic high on a building, you get dozens of effortless name tags that just wreck the look of a place. Adding frustration is the fact that there's no way to effectively dissuade people from doing this. You don't want to fine, jail or otherwise ruin the lives of thousands of kids to get them to stop. You just want them to stop spraypainting shit. It's really the only example I can think of where I'd support some form of corporal punishment. Catch kids in the act, 20 lashes in the town square to convince them not to do it again, then set them to work with a wire brush until they can demonstrate that it's back to the state they found it. Even still, I can't imagine it would really do much to dissuade. It's a shame.
- rimbo789 8mo agoI like graffiti - even random tags over blank walls because it’s a sign people are truly living and breathing in a space. As long as there have been walls there has been graffiti. Spaces without graffiti are artificial and antiseptic.
- bigDinosaur 8mo agoGraffiti on things like trees (e.g. in urban parks) is awful and trees are the opposite of artificial and antiseptic. The main problem with graffiti is that most of it is made without thought or consideration, and that never ends well.
- direwolf20 8mo agoYes, I think they should avoid covering other works of art, nature, information signs, and windows. But blank space should be fair game.
- senfiaj 8mo agoI wish there were more of this: https://stfu.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sf-graffiti/69642_mobilePic1752437240233.jpg https://stfu.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sf-graffiti/696...
- metalman 8mo agoIf graffiti changed anything it would be illegal. It's ok
- direwolf20 8mo agoIt is illegal. It gives the population the idea they have the right to alter their environment, and that's dangerous.
- readthenotes1 8mo agoAlter other people's property. Agreed, that is a dangerous concept
- direwolf20 8mo ago*in ways that don't harm that person
- bigstrat2003 8mo agoNonsense. The owner almost certainly doesn't want someone's "art" to adorn his wall, and will then have to pay to restore the wall to its desired condition. That is material harm done to the building owner.
- direwolf20 8mo agoYes, and if I don't like that someone left a fridge outside on the kerb for $20, I have to pay someone to remove the fridge. That doesn't mean my rights were infringed upon.
- readthenotes1 8mo agoThe kerb is your town's property, no? Why are you paying?
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- InMice 8mo agoCool, but why lay out the images in such an annoying way? Whatever happened to simple, functional photo galleries? I miss them.
- guerrilla 8mo agoIt works great on mobile. That's more than I can say for most things.
- InMice 8mo agoTurn your phone to landscape, does it sitll work for you? Or are you stuck viewing only the top half of the images and unable to scroll down. Side scrolling in portrait is not my opinion of working great. It does work to view them at least. Youre trapped in a vertical scroll, no way to get back to the beginning but scroll all the way back.
- Jon_Lowtek 8mo agoon desktop i had to click on the small black area between two pictures before scrolling with left/right arrows became possible ... very bad UX
- greeniskool 8mo agoHaving a bit of a cultural shock at how English doesn't have a separate name for the "cruder" graffiti (such as tags) vs the more socially accepted street art. The former is typically called "pichação" [1] in Portuguese, and I was taught this distinction when learning about modern art movements back in elementary school. [1] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picha%C3%A7%C3%A3o https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picha%C3%A7%C3%A3o - I recommend looking into a machine translated version of the Portuguese Wikipedia article, as the English Wikipedia article reads far more biased
- garbawarb 8mo agoIs "street art" not the name? Like how "comics" are low but "graphic novels" are respectable.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- kingkawn 8mo agoEnglish does, and definitely invented it before the rest of the world caught on to this culture. Try watching “Wild Style” from 1983, documenting some of the earliest beefs between the types of graffiti artists. Portuguese speakers did not invent this distinction. Throw ups are the quick ones and Pieces are the long ones.
- rconti 8mo agoGraffiti is the catch-all, but "street art" vs "tagging" have pretty clearly distinct meaning.
- pimlottc 8mo agoThere are terms within the scene - tag, throwie, piece, burner - but they are not generally known by the wider public. https://www.kmuw.org/beautiful-city/2014-08-04/what-were-talking-about-when-we-talk-about-graffiti https://www.kmuw.org/beautiful-city/2014-08-04/what-were-tal... https://www.instagram.com/p/COrxyrCMkOx/ https://www.instagram.com/p/COrxyrCMkOx/
- JKCalhoun 8mo agoSome of these are great. I expect the mundane "wildstyle" tagging on train cars but have been surprised a few times to see trains roll through town with much more complex graffiti. I'm happy to see examples of some of that more artful work in this post. If you've seen the film, "Brother From Another Planet" you might look at graffiti a little differently as I do. :-)
- mvellandi 8mo agoThis collection is a bit ordinary and unremarkable. There are many great large format, new/used print books on street art
- tieze 8mo agoThat is arguably the point. They are taken from the SF city website and are placed in arbitrary order. I personally love this unfiltered take. There's more to get from these than just aesthetics, precisely because they're not curated.
- walthamstow 8mo agoAs an aside, the Financial Times (yes, that one) did a great interview a couple of years ago with prolific London graff artist 10FOOT. The comments were predictably howling with rage and injustice ("he's a criminal!!", says employee of cartel laundry HSBC), but I enjoyed it a lot. https://www.ft.com/content/45a184ee-b7d9-4c16-b1c2-71def32ccf98 https://www.ft.com/content/45a184ee-b7d9-4c16-b1c2-71def32cc...
- xnorswap 8mo agoHe is indeed incredibly prolific, anyone taking a train around london will recognise 10FOOT. But he is not an artist, he literally just tags 10Foot in what could be described as looking like it was done with a marker pen. something like this is very typical: https://ldngraffiti.co.uk/graffiti/writers/flash?pic=152931&piece=152965&filters=%7B%22authors%22:%5B117721%5D%7D https://ldngraffiti.co.uk/graffiti/writers/flash?pic=152931&... I enjoy good graffiti, but 10FOOT does not fall into that category.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- walthamstow 8mo agoYour link describes him as an author or writer, which is a kind of artist I guess. I'm not bothered about the nomenclature.
- seasnake 8mo agoThe articles describes him correctly as a writer, writer is the term graffiti artists refer to themselves and others as
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- threethirtytwo 8mo agoBeautiful and disgusting at the same time. It’s vandalizing public property in the same way that human shit vandalizes a lot of public property in SF. I don’t know which one is worse. One can be beautiful, the other is done because he has no choice. For graffiti I’m in support of lashing or whipping the people that do this. It’s effective in Singapore. But then we lose all this great public art.
- direwolf20 8mo agoIf they're not covering windows, signs or art, what is being vandalized? A blank slab of concrete performs its function equally well no matter the color.
- threethirtytwo 8mo agoBro a lot of these aren’t beautiful quotes. Gang signs, immature shit from kids who do most of this stuff. Some is beautiful art most someone just signed their name.
- Ylpertnodi 8mo agoAt what age would you suggest whipping or lashing kids? Would you personally be prepared to do it? Or, the owners of the property Should it be public lashings, or pay-per-view, or witnessed only by a select group of people, you place your trust in? If it's a caught female, can men whip her? How would you phrase the job application? I see a few flaws in your idea. Does Singapore still not allow males with long hair?
- threethirtytwo 8mo agoIn Asia it’s done as young as 5. Maybe that’s why they’re ahead. > If it's a caught female, can men whip her? Yes. Men and women are equal. Your question implies you are sexism. Do you believe women are superior to men? > How would you phrase the job application? Whatever term they use in Singapore. > I see a few flaws in your idea. Does Singapore still not allow males with long hair? There’s tradeoffs for either idea. San Francisco is covered with human shit while Singapore isn’t and you can get whipped for shitting in the streets. Remarkably in both systems not very many people get whipped. Nearly zero. Because the possible consequence is what enforces the rule, not the actual consequence itself. As long as people know they will be whipped, they then act in ways that will prevent the whipping from happening. In the beginning a few people will be whipped but that number will drop dramatically very shortly.
- rib3ye 8mo agoI’m the early 2000s I worked as an assistant producer on a San Francisco graffiti documentary featuring several of these artists https://youtu.be/7Ub8uRFzUCQ https://youtu.be/7Ub8uRFzUCQ
- brcmthrowaway 8mo agoWhy did you leave San Francisco?
- rib3ye 8mo agoI didn't.
- mergy 8mo agoLasercats that was briefly on the old theatre on Divisadero remains a favorite. This was like 15 years ago. https://mergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/xndqw-full.jpg https://mergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/xndqw-full.jpg
- themark 8mo agoI scrolled pretty far and didnt see Borf in there. Was that Web 2.0 ?
- comrade1234 8mo agoWe have places in Zurich where anyone can spray (I'm sure most cities have designated areas like this) but they still come out into the neighborhoods and do it. Its usually in areas with poor refugee/subsidized housing but the people doing the graffiti are local young swiss, making areas where they don't live shittier.
- bigstrat2003 8mo agoWell yeah, of course they do. Contrary to what what some in this thread are claiming, the modal graffiti isn't self expression or a yearning for freedom. It's tweaking people's noses by altering the property without permission. You can't do that on a designated spray area, so those people have to go into the neighborhoods to get their jollies by pissing people off.
- voidUpdate 8mo agoThe thing that really gets me about graffiti is that you don't own the canvas. It's just vandalism. If you're commissioned to do it one someone else's wall, I'd call that a mural instead, and I see quite a few aesthetically pleasing ones around. Why can't you paint on stuff you actually own, instead of making it someone else's problem? You might as well just shit on someone else's lawn and say it's fine because it's art
- Ylpertnodi 8mo ago> You might as well just shit on someone else's lawn and say it's fine because it's art. Are you referring to 'tagging' (putting your, or your gang name on something)? I agree. Referring to well-crafted, or political (think banksy), images, i agree less. Unless i don't like the image/style then it's only lawn-worthy.
- socalgal2 8mo agoI don't agree with the political graffiti either. See imgur as where this leads. imgur used to be interesting images. Now it's 90% images of text as political statements. The site is effectively ruined.
- voidUpdate 8mo agoI do mostly dislike tagging, but even if you paint Starry Night on someone else's wall, that's still vandalism
- rib3ye 8mo agoIf a graffiti artist believed shitting on a lawn was art, they would, but they don't. The problem and solution are similar to OSS: The problem: the artists have something to say, they want as many people as possible to see it and use it. The solution: make it free, and put it where as many people as possible can access it. Yes, I just compared graffiti to github.
- voidUpdate 8mo agoIf there were community areas that were designed for painting, that would be totally fine by me. A big wall that is painted white, maybe with some ladders nearby if that doesn't violate health and safety rules, and tell people to go nuts. Though you would potentially get a lot of disagreeable content, but I suspect that they would quickly get overwritten anyway
- deadfall23 8mo agoI did a similar pet project about 12 years ago called Graffiti City. It was very simple map that displays pins where reported cases of destruction of property with paint, aka graffiti art, throughout the city of San Francisco. This uses public data available at data.sfgov.org.
- asveikau 8mo agoI'm surprised to see so many anti-graffiti comments here. Some of these are crude or ugly (and I'm aware that this is subjective), but a few of these are really good and don't deserve a citation. Meanwhile this thread is SCANDALIZED that there is GRAFFITI (clutch your pearls!). It really goes to show the ongoing slide into total conformity that is the tech industry. I remember when tech had more of a nonconformist, countercultural bent, but it has been dying for quite a few years.
- browsingonly 8mo agoI don't know anyone in tech who enjoyed watching gangs mark their territory with tags in their neighborhood.
- asveikau 8mo agoSometime in the last 30 years I realized the "gang territory marking" thing is mostly made up and basically not to take anyone seriously when they say this.
- browsingonly 8mo agoI lived it when I lived in West Oakland. Tagging, violence, hell a neighbor was shot in the face in front of her family over a gang beef. I'm still exposed to it now working with people reentering society after being incarcerated. You haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years, perhaps because you only circulate with people just like you in insulated echo chambers. I can tell you from having lived it: tags are not funsies and diversity and inclusion. They are male-cat-pissmarks-on-the-wall from gang members establishing, defending, and expanding turf, and they are unwelcome for very good reason.
- asveikau 8mo agoGang enhancements are mostly a falsehood that cops and prosecutors use to get heavier prison sentences for racial minorities and to justify their budgets. Also, you seem to have mixed up prison gangs with street gangs in this latest comment. The former are pretty different from the latter. You also have mixed up the general concepts of crime and violence with somehow proving a gang. The idea that gangs are fighting for turf is very outdated. Even 30 years ago it was exaggerated. But today, after 30 years of falling crime rates, it's especially ridiculous.
- molsongolden 8mo agoScraping these from the city violations DB was a cool idea.
- jameslk 8mo agoI wish I could say this evoked a nostalgic feeling, but having lived in SF, the literal memory that came to mind immediately seeing these is the repulsive smell of urine and the sight of dirty, trash-laden sidewalks. While graffiti itself could be viewed as artistic expression on its own, I liked looking at some of it, in my mind it seems so often correlated with decay
- toephu2 8mo agoFor a small business owner, graffiti is an unconsented, recurring tax that provides zero ROI for the neighborhood. In SF if you own a business that gets tagged, you have X number of days to clean it up yourself otherwise YOU get fined.. the city does nothing to go after the criminals. They only go after law-abiding tax paying citizens cause that's where the money is.
- rib3ye 8mo agoThis site scrapes the city efforts to document who is doing "how much" damage/art. Once they catch an artist in the act, they will use these archives to recommend a punishment. But your point in valid - San Francisco likes graffiti.
- guywithahat 8mo agoDid he argue SF likes graffiti? I don't think he does, and the people living in the city certainly don't. These are criminals tagging buildings, and city officials who either don't care or are too busy with other things. I'm not aware of anyone who actually lives there who likes graffiti, and logically there's no reason anyone should. If someone wanted a mural they would have hired a real artist to do it.
- rib3ye 8mo agoHe's arguing that the authorities aren't doing anything about it, and the reason is, (going out on a limb here) SF residents are sympathetic to the renegade artistic expression argument.
- nerdsniper 8mo agoBut not sympathetic to corporate expression via renegade spray-painting. (Justin Bieber, now ASAP Rocky) https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-city-attorney-going-after-illegal-Justin-6723893.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-city-attorney-goi...
- boblawbomb 8mo agogenerally speaking- it is frowned upon by people in graffiti communities to tag peoples homes, cars, private property etc. This doesn't really cover "mom and pop" business'. Not justifying it per se, Although I am more on the favorable side of graffiti.
- gabrieledarrigo 8mo agoOld time graffiti writer here. There's nothing so wild, anarchic and energetic than painting illegally on some surface without any permission.
- fox4587 8mo agoDid you see the fish on pavement? Looks like it took great skill to get the shadows right. I've got goosebumps looking at them!: https://stfu.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sf-graffiti/138709_mobilePic1615312262242.jpg https://stfu.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sf-graffiti/138... It's unfortunate that the city threatens to fine the owner of the property: https://stfu.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sf-graffiti/138707_mobilePic1615312237681.jpg https://stfu.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sf-graffiti/138...
- jakobnissen 8mo agoSure there is. You can go around beating random people op. Really gets your juices flowing! I mean, since we’re apparently endorsing crime now.
- roughly 8mo agoThere was an article that came through here a little while ago describing the process by which commercial property owners and banks collude to keep storefronts boarded up and vacant because otherwise they’d have to adjust the loan terms or take a loss somewhere, but sure, go off about how the graffiti artists tagging the boarded up windows are the ones making the city ugly.
- y-curious 8mo agoIt’s all Banksy and “wall art” til you get an ugly stick figure drawing sprayed on your storefront/door. Also commercial property owners doing bad stuff and vandalism are not mutually exclusive bad things
- project2501a 8mo agono "fuck /u/spez". I'm disappoint.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- HotGarbage 8mo ago[dead]
- thoughtpeddler 8mo ago> "Just because I'm smiling, doesn't mean I'm happy" -TrustyScribe I love street art.
- thegrim000 8mo agoA thought experiment I like is to image a city of the future. Imagine we get our shit together and survive another 1,000, heck, 100,000 years. Close your eyes and imagine our most advanced cities, 100,000 years in the future. What does it look like? Do you see graffiti in your vision? I definitely don't see it in mine.
- mothballed 8mo agoI see machines/AI doing almost all the production and heavy lifting. Most urban streets have a brothel, a bar (not necessarily alcohol), a couple art/cultural clubs, something for repairing/dealing with transport. No one pays much mind to the physical view of the street because they're communicating/experiencing most of it through augmented reality of some manner.
- mlmonkey 8mo agoJust drive north on 19th Ave, between, say, Brotherhood Way and Sloat, and look at the fencing on your right. Keeps getting filled with grafitti.
- FAFOAlex 8mo ago[dead]
- w10-1 8mo agoIt's nice, and a lot of work, to gather this from the city. Many thanks! But because it's just a stream, the only interaction is to browse, which can be mind-numbing. It would be interesting to sort by image vector, to find tags from the same person, to locate them on a map, to mark and share favorites, etc. Graffiti raises a host of social issues; features that concretize that could be helpful.
- woodpanel 8mo agoI like that the pictures are taken by government employees instead of the graffiti writers themselves nor by fans of graffiti. Because of that the pictured artworks look much less nice, and the images can capture what 99% of the artworks actually provide to their surroundings: dismay, disregard, and a constant reminder that urban anonymity is a moloch that you can enjoy watching from a coffee shop’s window, while it pisses in a baby stroller.
- thot_experiment 8mo agoGreat to see some of my friends work up here. It's nice to be reminded of why I love this city so much.
- zombot 8mo ago> city inspectors documenting graffiti violations Because grey fucking concrete walls are so much better than colorful entertainment.
- cypherg 8mo agothe sheer lack of knowledge of the graff scene on HN isn't surprising in any way but wow there are so many idiotic hot takes in this thread hahaha. I've been writing graff for over 20 years - it's something the average civilian mind could never comprehend. Graffiti has existed almost since the beginning of civilization; it's primal, it's raw. Doing graff is one of the most human activities one could partake in. It's also one of the most pure art forms to be conceived. All of that is true and most graff writers are horribly toxic and terrible humans (most but certainly not all).