Matador’s Tom Gates goes off on the lameness of graffiti in Florence.
In what seems like less than a decade, Firenze’s famous beauty and charm has gone directly into the crapper.
The city has never been particularly effective at fighting miscreant ink but now it’s turned into a real doghouse. The markings are everywhere, even eye level on the walls around the Duomo. Alleyways and small streets are tagged dozens of times. Many large, wooden doors are blasted with paint. Signs are hardest hit, rendering bus schedules useless at many stops.
It seems like a great time to be a police officer in Florence. There are endless amounts of tourist photos to be taken, plenty of texts to be written and bottomless espressos to be sipped from tiny paper cups.
Cops in the city center socialize in circles, looking as if they might break out a hackysack at any moment. Bus and train station rent-a-cops seem to come standard with headphones and MP3 players. They all love to whistle.
Perhaps the police’s apathy makes Taggers work harder for attention. The words don’t support this theory though. They are banal tags, mostly names and initials.
There is no hint of artistic aspiration, like with the murals of Santiago or the clever Banksy’s that turn up in London. One can only picture 15 year old nimrods doing what 15 year old nimrods do; defacing and running.
It’s a frustrating thing, the lack of purpose involved in all of this. It makes the streets look like the set of a bad 1980’s rap video. There’s no “fuck the police” or political statement, no reason given for the defamation of centuries-old buildings. It’s just a bunch of crap spray painted on a wall.
One person seems obsessed with tagging the word “yogurt”, as many as ten times in a five block radius of The Uffizi. Another person has taken to simply dumping buckets of paints on ATM’s.
There is probably much that I don’t know about the war on graffiti here. Police squads that roam the street at night. Or perhaps a commission has been called.
Maybe the mayor isn’t taking 3 hour lunches and instead sits in his office, pining over how his city is being devalued. Maybe the tourism commission, whose Information Points are even tagged up, are not operating with blinders on.
Maybe there’s a master plan in the works to make Florence beautiful again, to make it look less like the inside of a toilet stall.
Or maybe nobody gives a shit.
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13 Comments... join the discussion!
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“Or maybe nobody gives a shit.”
That’s the point.
Anyway it’s not just Florence… Probably only Venice is a bit “cleaner”.
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yogurt.
That kills me.
I lived with a Graffiti artists ( he actually would do huge, amazing pieces ) and I was fascinated by his all consuming obession with scribbling his name everywhere.Getting up.
It meant everything. I think is was a need to be recognized, if only despised.
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Man, after spending a day in Valparaiso, Chile–the polar opposite on the graffiti spectrum–I have to agree. Florence looks like shit.
Seriously, check this stuff out:
http://kecia-chile-agosto2008.blogspot.com/2008/08/valpo-graffiti-art.html↵ -
I think the citizens of Firenze feel so hopeless after a decade or so of “non-contributing” immigrants over-running their city, that they just don’t care anymore. I think you would not find that the graffiti is being painted by the “local Italian boys”.
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Nice piece! I’m not sure if it’s so much about a need to be recognised in public though Josh. I also know a few graffers and if judged on the sheer number of tags they leave everywhere or some of the places they pick to do a piece, you could easily think they were just doing it to gain attention. But in my experience most graf writers only come out at night, and keep their work secret. Most tags are only known to a select few other graffers. It’s more about getting one over on the other guys in the graffiti scene in town by spraying the biggest most daring piece or tagging your name on the most corners and telephone boxes. BTW – I have to agree that it sucks when it’s done on beautiful old buildings…
As for Italy, i actually have to agree with the author in saying that “probably nobody gives a shit”. Italy is an amazing country for so many reasons, but it really lags behind most of the rest of Europe when it comes to keeping towns looking beautiful and doing things for the common good. But maybe thats part of the charm!
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I just got back from Florence, if you think the thousands of “yogurt” graffitis are obnoxious try going to Rome. Its bad enough to deface Piazzale Di Michelangelo but the Colloseum! Come on! It is everywhere BUT the Vatican. I think the natives have a very lax attitude towards it, I guess they figure that if the buildings have survived 600 years that they can survive graffiti too. From what I gathered it was a problem that the college students have with the “Police State” but I found that they are more liberated than anyone I know in the US.
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“There’s no “fuck the police” or political statement, no reason given for the defamation of centuries-old buildings. It’s just a bunch of crap spray painted on a wall.”
Who ever said graffiti had to have a political statement or reason? That “crap” spray painted on a wall represents a person. It’s that person saying “I was here, I bombed it”. That person is showing the world that he exists. I’m sure a lot more people have noticed YOGURT than your blog. Seriously, where the fuck were you in ‘82? And by the way, graffiti actually started in Italy, dating back to the Roman Empire. Go to Pompeii and you’ll find ancient graffiti.
Keep taggin’ Florence!
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Way to go for showing all the dirty parts in Florence. I was just there last month for a week, and I’ve gotta say.. That’s not all I saw there. sure, for the most part there was all this crap scribbled on the walls, but I’m sure you can across those huge murals at least in one part of your staying, correct? I rememebr finding this tunnel with mothing but wall to wall art,.. Yes, it wasn’t ”yogurt” (although I do remember seeing that one on a handful of the hundreds of pictures I took haha) But it was actual art. It looked pretty amazing. Next to that, there were these buildings, I’m not sure if they were abandoned or not, I didn’t check, but there were like floors upon floors or art.. Like the traditional graffiti walls beautifully combined with art, political messages,and beauty. However it was a shame I couldn’t see it too well since I came across this at night.. But I’m sure during the day the colours would have violently popped out you know? =)
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ESMI – this was over two weeks and really, I didn’t see anything beautiful. I’d love to feature some great art if you’ve got some. We have done this for many S American cities, where the graffiti can be an incredible experience, like being in a museum. I just didn’t see it.
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It’s quite true, though. Yogurt is making a name for him/herself, and I find it pretty awesome how it must feel to see your name all over the place. I mean, it’s not like Italy’s the only place where you find urban art, take New York for example,… It’s all over the place. I find them like little pockets inside the city where artists express themselves freely.. If anything, it gives reason for jealousy. Being from the US, I’ve greatly noticed the difference with law enforcement between the two places. And frankly, I think it’s awesome what they’re doing. These cops don’t complain about all the sandblasting and buckets of paint they waste their money on to clean up this art, right? They’d rather allow the city create itself. Hence the fact that they embrace such art a whole lot better than other countries do.
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Ho
Good News-I know who these worst artist are. I have proof and talked to the police and it will be taken care of soon. I live here and I love it and it makes me sad to see such damage. My thanks to florence for letting and American spend his youth in paradise. Before I leave Italy I hope to stop the graffiti not only here but in the rest of Italy with the help of an enraged public. I have photos of the vandals including RBC,ADR,Tapes,Yogurt and many more this is going to cost them hundreds of thousands Euros or years of work to repair this damage I don’t think the parents will be happy about this. These are children of Americans primarily who picked up this disease of graffiti while living in the states or military bases-they speak english perfectly. The cure will make the responsible to repair all past and future damage$$$$$$$$$$$$.Lou
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Wow! I would love to hear how this develops.
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