All local building owners who've been affected by graffiti and residents interested in taking a stand against it are strongly encouraged to go to the Branch 23 Circuit Court building, 5555 W. Grand, this Monday, May 17th at 1:30 PM for the sentencing of Nathan Deluna, a prominent graffiti tagger responsible for 'VTC' ("violence against the city") tags along with CEEP (convicted Oct. 2009), REEFR, XTC, DTC, and WHUT.
More on Deluna can be found in this southloganpalmersquare post about a previous attempt to sentence Deluna a few months ago and a delay initiated by his lawyer. I became aware of the Monday sentencing from an email from the 14th District police. Much of Deluna's tagging has occurred in the 14th District which encompasses Logan Square and most of Wicker Park/Bucktown. The police are urging business owners to be in attendance at the sentencing.
Most recently I spotted a new VTC tag on the office of U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, 2201 W. North, which coincidentally appeared on the day, or perhaps it was the evening before the day, when Guiterrez was in Washington D.C getting peacefully arrested for protesting Arizona's Immigration Reform bill.
The VTC tag on the Gutierrez office building was promptly removed a few days later. Unfortunately there are many other tags in the area which are a burden to building owners faced with the task and cost of removing them-- often times these are struggling small business owners.
Recently a store in business for many years had a few thousand dollars worth of graffiti damage on its window and then then was ticketed for a false alarm because his motion detector set off the security alarm as the taggers were defacing his property, though when the police came there was no evidence of forced entry. The false alarm ticket was repealed but only after a court appearance wherein he showed the receipt from the graffiti removal. While the business owner took advantage of the WPB sponsored graffiti rebate reimbursement to cover about half of the removal costs, he was still out about $1000+ of his own money.
Over the past 14 months during my outdoor wanderings I've taken way too many pictures of property owners removing graffiti, in fact that's how I initially met a few of the Pipeline readers though I wish it had been under better circumstances.
I love the hypocrisy of this blog. Burn the tagger at the stake, but the vast majority of the garbage art I've seen here is a blatant rip off of street art. Should the tagger be punished? Of course- fines and graffiti removal. But if this guy receives jail time for what your dimestore artists shamelessly exploit, THAT is a far greater crime.
ReplyDeleteI love the fact you are calling the "VTC" tag and the others listed here as 'art,' and yes, a guy that is sitting in a Mercedes Benz or any kind of car with cans of aerosol spray paint and about to deface a small business owner's property with not art, but tags, should do some jail time, especially if it's not his first time.
ReplyDeleteDid you miss the part about the small business owner being 1) fined b/c of the motion detector false alarm that the graffiti artists intent on glass etching tags set off, and 2) having to shell 1K-plus out of his own pocket and no doubt dwindling profits (have you noticed all the small stores going out of business lately? or are you too busy shopping for spray paint in the burbs and buying hipster shoes at the new Nike store?) to remove the tags, plus all the paperwork no doubt required to submit for the graffiti facade reimbursement? AND then hauling as to court on an afternoon when he frankly could be trying to run his store?
Personally I love many of the murals in the area, as well as cut outs on otherwise vacant buildings, and have dozens of images from the aforementioned saved to my computer and often they are my screen's wallpaper, so for you to come here and insult this blog (which is not really a blog and just a place I store stuff that I link to from the weekly e-newsletter since i don't have the time or money to create a web site, here is a link to an issue where I interviewed random people about their thoughts on it: http://chicago-pipeline.com/2010/04/27/) is annoying as well as our assertion that I somehow promote the local dimestore artist community. You are more than welcome to submit a weekly art column on art that you deem to be worthy. Your deadline is Monday night. Frankly serving as the advertising sales rep, writer, photographer, editor, sometimes theater reviewer and whatever else I do on top of two other freelance gigs and managing a weekly meet up at a cafe, I'm pretty damn tired and sick of hipster bullshit backlash from those who consider spraypainting their initials on buildings that aren't those to be art.
shut up you dumb azz hoe we vtcrazy and we aint going nowere..run up get beat dat fuck up and robbed hoe..ap 1 vtc wck
ReplyDeleteya wck be locked the fuck up now. what you get for thinking youre tough shit. skinny little punk, go run your mouth in D10 and see where it gets you. go false flag yourself and get yourself killed
DeleteAnon, go back to whatever suburb you came from. Why don't you go tag in Winnetka? Or will mommy and daddy be too upset?
ReplyDeleteITS "VIOLATING THE CITY" !! God Bless America. GRAFFITI ARTISTS ALWAYS GETTING PUT DOWN BY IGNORANT REPORTERS. VIOLAtiNG tHE CiTY!!! NOt Violence against. THERES NO 'A' in VTC. DUH! They violate the city with their tagging and graffiti and whatever.
ReplyDeletenecro.
ReplyDeletedoes not matter, vtc could be 'victor the cowboy' and he would still be a douchebag TAGGER, not ARTIST. and hipster street art sucks balls too. but simply, "cant do the time... dont do the crime"
wicked is a faggot havin faggot sex in county
ReplyDelete