Lets face it, DC’s aesthetic value is often lacking. The architecture of our nation’s capitol is positively insipid. As visual spectators to these barren lands, we are bored out of our minds. Thankfully, underneath this goading exterior is a lively, unrestrained culture of citizen art. The stencil you find beneath your feet as you walk down Connecticut Ave. in Dupont, the sticker behind that street sign, the rainbow of colors from piece after piece as you ride the metro. There are people in DC improving our urban landscape, appropriating public space. We are here now to point out the best, the worst, the most hilarious, disgusting and intriguing graffiti, stencils, culture jams, wheat pastes, interventions, and experiments littered throughout Washington.
Usually, the expected mode of interaction between street art and its onlookers is visual. Because street art is often found in physically inaccessible but visible locales, the extent to which an observer can interact with these pieces is limited. Graffiti often becomes part of an all-encompassing urban art gallery: look, but don’t (or can’t) touch. We say, down with passive spectatorship! Seize the opportunity to participate in this concrete art space! Respond to and interact with our engineered environment! Have you hugged a bridge pylon lately?
Also, don’t let it be lost on you that this is primarily an overwrought excuse to don ridiculous clothing, get dirty, physically and legally endanger ourselves, and most importantly, shamelessly self-promote while taking pictures of our h-o-double tee friends. (We are looking for more hott friends. Please respond).
This week: A look into the despair our urban detritus incites.
Location: Silver Spring, train tracks.
Style: Fatcap, Blockbuster, Wild, Stencil
Artists: CBKool, Soma, Kpasa, Borf
** Next Week: The Best of DC Bathroom Graffiti
Got some dirty walls to share? Tell us where we can find the best toilet-stall graffiti in the city: dirtywallz@gmail.com
All photos: Heather M
Request: cute girls posing with the “Your Head It Simply Swirls” tag in the Rock and Roll hotel toilet bowl.
August 26, 2008 at 12:08 pmi guess that interview at MDCCCXI with michael went well.
this idea has a massive amount of potential (and would more so if this town had more *quality* mystery artists leaving their work around the city like in amsterdam, but that’s a tall order, nordberg). hopefully we will get to see more of this. please keep the cute girls in the future pics as well. and maybe get joel or dakota or fitsum or etc. to shoot? mmk, thx.
August 26, 2008 at 12:27 pmAll these locations look like they would smell like pee.
I hate graffiti.
August 26, 2008 at 12:31 pmi hate graffiti only when it is on a private home or building, or when it is in a residential area where it is just some asshole tagging. on the walls of a railway underpass or in an abondoned industrial area? fine.
August 26, 2008 at 12:37 pm-o +a
August 26, 2008 at 12:38 pmKudos for the reference, but I think Kris Kross deserves to have their name spelled correctly. “And it’s somethin’ I will never ever ever do again.”
I agree with eddie — I think this definitely has the potential to be a cool feature…
August 26, 2008 at 12:56 pmCOOL
DISCO
DAN
that should be a bottle of Mo’ on the bottom pic
August 26, 2008 at 2:09 pmRoad trip to Philly? They gots murals everydamned where.
August 26, 2008 at 3:10 pmMontreal has rad street art. Gardens and swimming pools are drawn on sidewalks and amazing murals on their public buildings. LOVE IT.
August 26, 2008 at 3:14 pmMy favorite D.C. graffito is this cartoon skunk holding a sign that says “No sleep till Brookland.” Betcha can’t guess what neighborhood it’s in. I don’t remember the exact address, but I think it’s somewhere on 13th St NE as you’re walking south. I have a picture of it on my cell phone but I’m zoomed in close so I don’t know what’s around it.
August 26, 2008 at 7:20 pmthat girl is way sexier than KPASA.
August 27, 2008 at 12:05 ami love it.
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but.
As for the statement, “The architecture of our nation’s capitol is positively insipid”, you must be joking.
What of the French Mansard style rooves that top two and three story houses down by Union station (near 4th and H NE)? What of the amazing Hungarian style (yet boarded up) enchanting old boarded up building at the intersection of New Hampshire and S Streets NW? The gleaming postmodern polyhedrons of K street? The amazing streamline moderne (precursor to art deco) architecture popping up down by the Georgetown Law School (2nd and Mass …quadrant I believe is NE)? Dig a little deeper, byt, byte into it.
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Meanwhile keep up with the good love for Vibrancy and Color splattered across the boards of this multifaceted town we call home…
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xoLOVExo Smash
I’ve been there before! A wall was just painted on the back of a building at 9th and L yesterday afternoon - heading down 9th, it’s on your right hand side right at the entrance to Bladgen Alley. There isn’t that much room to step back, though, so you might want to go a touch wide on the lens.
August 26, 2008 at 11:05 am