Reader Todd Mecklem sent in a link to this story about German senior citizens taking to the streets in a graffiti art class. Highly relevant reading given the recent crackdown on street art here in Portland.
Berthild Lorenz is just one of a growing number of over-50’s in Germany that are learning graffiti and other forms of street art, encouraged by courses targeting older generations. Often grey-haired or bespectacled, with some participants as old as 80, they don’t exactly fit the profile of rebellious youth commonly associated with graffiti culture. And for most of them, it’s their first time wielding a spray can.
“Many older people regard graffiti as vandalism,” says Stephanie Hanna, a Berlin-based artist who has organized several graffiti workshops for older people. “But that is changing as people start to see that it has artistic value.” Indeed, in recent years graffiti and street art have enjoyed growing prestige. Works by the elusive British street artist Banksy now change hands for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
- Der Spiegel
In the 5 1/2 years I spent over in Germany – Wurzburg, Ochsenfurt, the Franken region, I hardly saw any grafitti at all.
It really wasn’t cool there.
The Berlin Wall was a good exception to this though.
I guess it’s all in the spirit in which the graffiti was created. A drawing of a butterfly, or: gang member title.
I’ve always felt that doilies and hard candies were underrepresented in street art.
“Guten Tag” indeed!
Todd, did you send in this article just so you’d be able to write that comment? I bet you did. Don’t lie.
That would be telling, Joneser.
Yeah, that wall looks really good. We should totally encourage that in the name of being tolerant or something.
You just know they found the few retarded old Germans with nothing to do to hold up as an example that the older folks are becoming more tolerant of grafitti.
Like maybe you’d find the next SAMO or Blanksy.
Just so you could have this wild headline “Old Germans Love Grafitti.’
Desperate.