I consider myself to be a "Graffiti" artist, however, I keep my art on skateboard decks, canvasses, and sheet metal. I am angered and saddened by the fact that the Railyard gallery's July 4 show, Special Delivery, got the gallery a one-way ticket out of their warehouse space. It absolutely astonishes me that, instead of fighting graffiti as it is on the STREETS, these officers had nothing better to do than target a publicized event, housed WITHIN a building, and accuse the artists and gallery owners of being involved in illegal art done elsewhere on public property. I ask: WHERE IS THE PROOF???? Where are the photographs backing up the link between the artists and the illegal pieces???

It is high time for illegal street art, and MODERN GRAFFITI-STYLED art to be defined and divided. Modern art changes, grows, developes, ebbs, and flows. Police Bureaus nation-wide need to accept the fact that illegal graffiti, gang-related or otherwise, is what they have a right to fight against, NOT Graffiti-Inspired art shown in a gallery. Galleries are for artistic expression and dissemination, and regardless of the art style, it is done legally and does not deface public property. At most, they should have fined the gallery for the piece on the outside walls, and moved along. There are much more stringent issues that the Police could be focusing on, rather than squashing a form of artistic expression and freedom of speech

Is the gallery responsible for the actions of an artist outside of the gallery? What if we showed an artists work and they left the gallery and shoplifted? Should I be kicked out of the building? We did not do anything wrong, but we were targeted by the graffiti abatement hit squad ...Why?....because of a legal art show. They did not like the art.....These artists all had permission to paint on my walls inside the building and above my roll-up door. If some one illegally painted elsewhere find them. Why would the graffiti squad be on site to serve an illegal eviction? They made a major mistake. They harassed our landlord with calls weekly. Saying she was going to be fined for any graffiti in the city if she doesn't kick us out. We were then told the "city" wants our walls to be painted ...inside... the building??? This doesn't even make sense.........

So I guess this is all ok. No this country has turned most things upside down and backwards these days. America has awakened and this shit won't last much longer. The cigerett Nazis, the cell phone Nazis, wildlife inviromental Nazis, you don't speeks up until they come after you. The problem as history shows is nobody speaks up until they come after you, the only thing is nobody is left to help you because they are all gone and you didn't stand up to help them, freedom disapears for us all when you let them take it away from a few, and few more, and a few more, pretty soon they come for you

@ #5, its a bloody good thing there are no spelling Nazi's:)

yes, if they can get away with this, it is like saying a landlord has grounds to evict anyone for doing something illegal outside his or her home. thats fucking scary and ridiculous. what if bob runs a red light? now he is also homeless because he broke the law out on the street. is that what its going to come to? i mean really, think how stupid that sounds, but if there are no lines drawn then when is it going to stop?

^^ We already live in a police-state. Wake up people

This is some petition-worthy stuff right here. If PPD can't sufficiently link the illegal graffiti to the perfectly legal art-show inside, they have no right to chase these tenants out of their building. I wonder if there's a pro bono attorney who would be willing to take this matter to court. This sets a really shitty precedent and a bad example for a city that thrives on art. I don't like to think about where this might go in future.

Is this enough of a legal issue for the ACLU to get involved?

Dogs pee to mark their territory. Humans alter a mundane environment to make you look again and form a second opinion of what you would otherwise have passed up. Both may be illegal but the latter is beneficial to society. To bad for the police who are charged with upholding the law because it only takes a couple of seconds to pee, but art can take hours.

People are too attached to surfaces... everything in life is temporary. Street art, or as I like to call it, city beautification, is one way of celebrating the imperminance of life. At least that's what my eyes are doing when I stuble upon clever graffiti. I would recommend watching "Next: A Primer in Urban Painting" if you would like to see a fresh perspective on this. This quote by Mr. Leary at the beginning of the film gave me a small orgasm:

“The twenty first century is going to be global -
it’s going to break down all the national
and geographic borders.
And it’s going to be timeless,
in the sense of the enormous spectrum
of information that the world will be
sharing.
We are also going to discover our youth
in the twenty-first century.
When I say it’s going to be global and timeless, I mean that it’s going to be
sending out signals
that will be recognized
by anyone on the planet earth right now,
and also for those who think back
to the beginning of cave art
when young Paleoliths
were putting art on walls”
- Timothy Leary

BTW the "Art in the Streets" show @MOCA was frieking amazing! I think I only blinked a few times. It was quite interactive, with lots of videos, history, and relics related to street art. There was a huge turnout...