It's a rule of the circle of urban life: Lush forests of complex graffiti spring up wherever train systems enter the city. Or at least they usually do and not in Santa Fe (so far) as I demonstrate in this tour of the tracks, from Second Street to the South Capitol station.
How do you interpret graffiti, differentiate it from straight vandalism?
Must vandalism be recognized as a legitimate form of civil disobedience and nonviolent dissent?
Does freedom of speech trump property rights?
Does there come a point when a street artist's craft and creativity is so powerful that
the illegal work's survival is of more value than its legal sandblasting?
Or, is ugly just ugly?
I'm over-intellectualizing this. Whether you're a defender or an opponent, there's at least one small patch of common ground: Some graffiti is dumber than others.
REMEMBER:
tonight at the Brewing Co.
Santa Fe Reporter