Art vs Vandalism

Is defacing a Banksy art or vandalism?

Well, from the US point of view, it is certainly a crime worthy of punishment from anywhere between jail time to fines in the thousands of dollars.

It has, therefore, not been a fruitful year (artistically speaking, or otherwise) for David William Noll, who either has a big issue with Banksy's works or, whose artistic creativity, in defacing Banksy's art and then posting it on YouTube, has not been recognised.

In April this year, American "artist" Noll was charged with a vandalising several Banksy murals in separate incidents in LA and Park City, Utah.

In LA, Noll was charged with felony vandalism for painting over two Banksy works. For those charges, he pled no contest and was given three years of felony probation and 60 days of community service.

Girl on Swing – one of the Banksy works in LA that was vandalised

Around the same time, Noll was also charged with a vandalising two Banksy murals in Park City. After Noll failed to appear for a court hearing to face charges of criminal mischief for defacing those pieces, a warrant for his arrest was issued in August. At that time, it was speculated that, if convicted, Noll faced as many as 15 years in jail.

At the beginning of this week, however, Noll pleaded guilty to defacing the two Park City murals, and, as part of a plea deal, will not face jail time if he pays $13,000 in restoration costs before a November sentencing hearing.

So, could it be said that it is not a crime to paint on a wall if it looks nice/is carried out by a famous artist? But, it is a crime to paint over the works of famous artists? If this is the case, how does this fit together with instances where owners of the walls adorned by Banksy works decide to deface them?The challenges with protecting Banksy works continue to mount, even though it doesn't seem like it's an issue to Banksy.

Source: Associated Press, 16 September 2014

Iconic artwork, graffiti tags and a distorting Lens

"Delacroix Liberty painting defaced in Louvre" was the headline of a recent BBC news item. The painting in question is portrayed above.  According to the article:

"French police have detained a woman accused of defacing an iconic Delacroix painting, Liberty Leading The People, at a branch of the Louvre Museum.She was held after being seen scrawling a graffiti tag on the painting, a Romantic masterpiece painted in 1830 to celebrate a French uprising. The museum in the northern town of Lens said the work might easily be cleaned but would be examined by a restorer. ...

The painting by Eugene Delacroix, which featured on the pre-euro, 100-franc French banknote and reportedly inspired the Statue of Liberty in New York, is being exhibited in Lens for a year.French media quoted unnamed legal sources as saying the graffito was a clear reference to a 9/11 conspiracy theory. ...

Just before closing time the previous day, a 28-year-old woman scrawled the 30cm (12in) graffito on the bottom of the painting and was immediately detained by a museum guard, France's 20 Minutes news website reported.

The work itself, which commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, measures 325cm by 260cm.

The mark may be "easily cleaned" but a restoration expert was being sent from the parent museum in Paris, the museum said in a statement.

No decision has yet been taken on whether the painting will have to be removed, the museum was quoted as saying by French broadcaster France 3.

The local prosecutor, Philippe Peyroux, told AFP news agency that the woman in custody appeared to be "unstable" and that he had requested a psychiatric examination. He added that the woman, whose identity has not been released, had a "French-sounding name ..."

Iconic? The parodic effect can be seen as far away
as Australia. See Saddami's Graffiti here

The painting's iconic status may have made it an attractive target for anyone wanting to publicise a 9/11 conspiracy theory, but there are better ways of getting a message across than defacing the original.  The painting is out of copyright and can thus be modified or otherwise exploited without the need to prevent others enjoying the original, as the examples above and below show:

Here's another contemporary take, this time
from Still Full of It

Exercises like this not only strengthen the ability of the original to serve as a reference point but attract copyright in their own right as original artistic works or emanations of the author's own intellectual creation. If the lady with the French-sounding name had imposed her graffiti tag on a copy and pushed it out on to the social media, with some prospect of it going viral, she might have achieved not only more publicity but more positive publicity too.

Art v Law in Singapore

Widely reported in the last week is the arrest of Singaporean street artist Samantha Lo, known as SKL0 or the Sticker Lady.

Lo is said to be responsible for stickers which started appearing around Singapore, on traffic light buttons carrying slogans including "Press for good luck" "No need to press so hard"  "Press some more", as well as for spray painting slogans on roads.  

Singaporean police investigated the stickers and spray-painted slogans after the same were reported by the Land Transport Authority, identified SKL0 as the culprit, and arrested her for vandalism.

Under Singapore's Vandalism Act, a person who is convicted of vandalism shall be punished with a fine not exceeding $2,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding to 3 years and shall be liable to caning subjected to the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 – although, Lo could not be receive the latter penalty as corporal punishment is prohibited for women.

An online petition has been set up (here) which calls for:

• the Ministry of Home Affairs to downgrade the charges against Lo to a more minor offence (with a lesser penalty);
• the Ministry of Communication and the Arts to recognise SKL0's work as art not vandalism; and
• the Ministry of Education to address how they can claim to expand the arts education in Singapore while allowing arrests of public art, and what message they are sending in their arts education.

Obviously it seems harsh, particularly in light of all the street art we see in London, Europe and the US, for Lo to be liable for imprisonment.  It also does not appear to be disputed that Lo was seeking to be artistic, rather than to vandalise Singapore's public places. On the other hand, Singapore's harsh laws are well-known. Lo would clearly have been aware of the position in which she was putting herself and accepted the risks. Some might question the wisdom of pitting art against the law in a country like Singapore.  

Source: The Guardian, Huffington Post