San Francisco hitting up graffiti vandals with costly civil suits

By C.W. Nevius for the SF Chronicle
August 21, 2015 Updated: August 21, 2015 5:16pm

Everyone knows how difficult it is to stop the graffiti tagging epidemic in the city. First, it’s nearly impossible to catch anyone in the act. And if cops do, a criminal case in the courts often results in minor consequences, like a few hours of community service.

A walk down virtually any graffiti-tagged street in the city tells you criminal charges aren’t having much of an effect.

So, San Francisco is changing the game. We’re making it personal.

In an innovative and clever legal maneuver, the city attorney’s office is asking the courts to treat the city like any other property owner and allow it to sue for damages to pay for graffiti cleanup. It makes for some odd phrasing when the complaint says, “Plaintiff is . . . the owner of real personal property in San Francisco, consisting of Muni buses.”

But that’s how San Francisco has filed a civil suit against a woman officials say is an infamous serial tagger. The city alleges that Cozy Terry (her real name according to the complaint) tags as “Coze” and is responsible for 28 separate acts of vandalism on city buses. In all, the 41-page complaint lists 58 cases of tagging and adds up the cost of cleanup and repair. The total should get the attention of graffiti scofflaws.

“It is at least $53,788,” said Jill Cannon, one of the two deputy city attorneys who is making the case. “I don’t know what her assets are, but if we get a judgment we will seek to collect.”

Banksy's offical site, with a map: http://www.dismaland.co.uk/map/

Rumors collected at the Daily Beast.

Dismaland is the name of Banksy’s gloriously subversive theme park that is heavily rumored to be opening this weekend—that is Friday, August 21—in the UK. Pictures of its mysterious construction in the seaside resort town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England, began surfacing online late last week.

According to the Bristol Post, the amusement park is being billed as a “sinister twist on Disneyland,” and includes a pink dystopian version of the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle, a horse-like sculpture, an S-shaped gas tanker [Mike Ross's Big Rig Jig from Burning Man], and various other oddball attractions. The mammoth structure(s) is being built at the Tropicana, a 10,200-square-foot lido site that’s been abandoned since 2000, and the area’s reportedly been closed off for the past several months under the guise of a Hollywood film shooting there called Grey Fox. The construction site had signs reading “Crew Notice Grey Fox Productions” put up around it to distract onlookers, and the so-called film project claimed it was produced by Charles Roven’s company Atlas Entertainment—behind the upcoming Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice—and directed by Declan Whitebloom, whose representative denied he was in Weston-super-Mare according to The Daily Mail. Banksy’s representative Jo Brooks could not be reached for comment.

10 years after his graffiti campaign, the artist known as Borf paints a new life
By Rachel Manteuffel :: August 13 (Original Washington Post article)

Read about Borf's arrest and sentence here.

John Tsombikos, 28, 10 years after his campaign of graffiti and cryptic messages covered the city. (Roger Erickson/For The Washington Post)

The artist previously known as Borf, though that was never his name, is 10 years older than he was when his whimsical, mysterious graffiti campaign in Northwest Washington got him adored and despised and incarcerated.

He’s 28, sort of. He lives in New York now. He won’t say where, exactly. He says that’s irrelevant. He says he does no work that would compromise his anti-corporate, anti-authoritarian principles, but also refuses to say how he supports himself or whether he lives in a place his parents own in Manhattan, as some records suggest, or if he is working some sort of soul-numbing day job, the kind he publicly sneered at, to support his painting habit.

He also won’t let you take a picture of him. You can only shoot his art, but not him. If he thinks you’re trying to sneak a picture, he turns away or holds a hand over his face. He’s reluctant to talk about what his art means, but in the end he will blurt something so revealing that it explains just about everything. He will hate these paragraphs if he reads them.

<<<< Yoda on paper in Paris; photo by Anna

France (thanks Anna)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/France

Stephane Moscato (just one)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/European_Artist…

Chicago (just one; thanks Brent)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/USA/Illinois

>NEW< Mig Kokinda (TX)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/USA/Artists_USA/Mig-Ko…

X-Sacto
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/USA/Artists_USA/xsacto

CK1 (just one)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/USA/Artists_USA/CK1-Cal

In Media
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Stencils_In_Media

Mostly Oakland, CA
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/USA/California/East-Bay

Eclair
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Artists_…

fnnch
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Artists_…

HAR2UNG (just one)
www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Artists_in_SF/H…

Lay It On Thick (just one)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Artists_…

Todd Hanson
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Artists_…

Haight Street, SF
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Haight_D…

The Mission (thanks Josiah)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/The_Miss…

Valencia St. (thanks Josiah)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Valencia…

[From Stencil Archive: At what point is public art part of the problem of gentrification? When is corporate manipulation and intrusion too much for a community to bear? Can public art be created without thinking about the environment, the wall it is painted on, and the community in mind? What are the limits of making money for one's art as opposed to the created pieces being part of the problem of massive evictions and migrations of lower-income and working class populations? These questions have been stewing for months now, and there is surprisingly little writing on these issues. Megan Wilson, co-curator of the Clarion Alley Mural Project, pushes back and contemplates these sometimes blurry lines between selling out and paying  the rent. Below is an essay she wrote that touches on some of the above questions. For a much better version, with photographs and links, please go to stretcher and read the original. Thanks, Megan, for allowing a repost of this important angle on some of the behind-the-scenes manipulations that are going on in the condo-boomtown that is San Francisco.]

The Gentrification of our Livelihoods: Everything Must Go…
by Megan Wilson

Preface: When I began researching and writing The Gentrification of our Livelihoods in early March 2014 one of my primary interests was the impact that the collaboration between Intersection for the Arts and developer Forest City’s creative placemaking 5M Project is having on the existing communities that have invested in and called the South of Market home prior to the tech booms. Having worked with many community-based organizations within the SoMa community for the past 18 years, I’ve had deep concerns about the development’s impact for the neighborhood and its impact on the future of Intersection.

However, I would not have predicted the announcement that Intersection made on May 22nd to cut its arts, education, and community engagement programs and lay off its program staff would come as soon as it did. What began as a reflection on the shortcomings of creative placemaking as a tool for economic development and its implications on gentrification and community displacement has become a cautionary tale for arts and community organizations to question and better understand the potential outcomes of working with partners whose interests are rooted in financial profit.

4 Activists Arrested for Chalking “Save the Animals”
by WILL POTTER on JULY 28, 2015
in TERRORISM COURT CASES (Green is the New Red)

(<<< An example of activist stencil chalking)

Four animal rights activists have been arrested for allegedly writing political slogans on the public street using sidewalk chalk.

The four were arrested in Beaverton, Oregon, and face charges of harassment, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct.

The chalking was done as part of the growing “No New Animal Lab” campaign, which aims to stop the construction of a new underground animal experimentation facility at the University of Washington.

Eclair Bandersnatch: Street Artist for the Snowden Age
Annalee Newitz, Gizmodo

Walk pretty much anywhere in San Francisco’s SoMa, Haight or Mission neighborhoods, and you’ll see one of Eclair Bandersnatch’s glittery stencils, often featuring “Saint Snowden” or Chelsea Manning. We talked to Bandersnatch about bringing art, tech and politics together on the streets.

Bandersnatch has been stenciling San Francisco streets for several years, and her subjects run the gamut from Godzilla to ladies who look like they’d be comfortable at a 1920s party along the Barbary Coast. Her vision is uniquely San Franciscan, mixing internet politics with a queer sensibility — and heaping dose of humor.

And ever since Snowden began to tell the media about the NSA’s secret surveillance plans, Bandersnatch has been turning the Snowden Age into street art. Here’s our interview with her.

Giz: Why are Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden important to your work?

Eclair Bandersnatch: My work? They’re important to my life! And they should be important to everyone’s life!

Now Experts Are Issuing Warnings About Sunburn Art

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 16, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Sunburns are painful and potentially cancer-causing, but that hasn’t stopped them from becoming an increasingly popular means of artistic expression.

Experts are now speaking out against “sunburn art,” a new social media trend in which people use stencils or strategically applied sunblock to create a do-it-yourself temporary sunburn tattoo on their bodies.

Participants then take pictures of their creations and post them on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The trend is worrisome enough that the Skin Cancer Foundation has issued an official position on sunburn art, warning of the health risks associated with tanned or sunburned skin.

“Sunburns cause DNA damage to the skin, accelerate skin aging, and increase your lifetime skin cancer risk,” the statement reads. “In fact, sustaining five or more sunburns in youth increases lifetime melanoma risk by 80 percent. On average, a person’s risk for melanoma doubles if he or she has had more than five sunburns.”

Dr. Deborah Sarnoff, senior vice president of the Skin Cancer Foundation, said that people tend to underestimate the health hazards of sunburns.

The ultraviolet rays in sunshine or, for that matter, in the rays emitted by tanning beds, damage the DNA inside skin cells, making them more apt to turn cancerous, according to the American Cancer Society.

Further, the risk is cumulative, Sarnoff said. The more tans and sunburns a person receives throughout their lifetime, the more likely they are to develop skin cancer or melanoma at some point.

How Shepard Fairey's arrest provides a new look at an old question: Is it art or is it vandalism?

By DEBORAH VANKIN AND DAVID NG (LA Times)

Shepard Fairey has never been one to play by the rules — and that's par for the course for someone in a street art community that exists on the cultural margins.

Or does it?

The L.A.-based street artist and graphic designer, best known for his 2008 "Hope" poster timed with Barack Obama's presidential campaign as well as the "Obey" image seen on posters and T-shirts worldwide, was arrested last week while passing through customs at Los Angeles International Airport. Authorities there noticed that Detroit police had issued a warrant last month related to two counts of malicious destruction of property.

Fairey, 45, had been accused of putting up posters, without permission, on private and government property in Detroit. But once he was in custody in L.A., Detroit police backed off: They declined to extradite the artist.

"In terms of graffiti, it's not as high as a murder or rape or something," Detroit police Officer Dan Donakowski said Monday, a day before Fairey surrendered to Detroit police and was quickly arraigned and released.