Last Friday, I was wandering the streets of London without a care in the world. Well, that makes it sound a bit too random and whimsical, I was actually walking home from an exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery (was intending to do a post today on it, but haven't really got much time, so I'm doing a less serious one). And on the billboard that usually displays festival bills with bands called things like Horsemeat Disco, I happened to glance at two of my favourite singers' tour posters displayed next to each other! What joy! The union of glorious musicians! However, there was a twist...
GRAFFITI!!!
Yup, someone with a hundred tons of imagination and zero of environmental respect has gone and defaced RiRi and T-Swizzle, putting my love of music and graffiti head to head. But which do I love more?
DEFACEMENT #1: RIHANNA
Imaginative Street Art Rating:
The sheep is a bit random here, not quite sure what it's supposed to be symbolising, if anything. It's just like someone's doodle, that can be done elsewhere than Rihanna's head. But the "Art Is Trash" slogan is a different story. At first, it obviously seems like hate against Rihanna's music, but it seems to me as though, because it's Ri's own speech bubble, it's HER rebelling against conventional art and doing her own thing. Relevant, truthful and most importantly, not hateful. Overall, I give the art 7/10, with marks deducted for the probably mean and profane thing previously stuck over Rihanna's face.
Disrespect To Music Rating (N.B. The higher the mark, the more disrespectful to music):
If you look at the white sticky marks around Rihanna's face, it's obvious that there's been some poster there before. Maybe it was an ode to Rihanna, or maybe it was condemning here for life, or maybe it was totally irrelevant like the sheep. Either way, it was stuck over Rihanna's face, which loses marks, but the artist had the respect to take it down, which adds them. The slogan will add marks, and the sheep will lose them, and that brings the disrespect total to round about 6/10.
DEFACEMENT #2: Taylor Swift
Disrespect To Music Rating (N.B. The higher the mark, the more disrespectful to music):
If you look at the white sticky marks around Rihanna's face, it's obvious that there's been some poster there before. Maybe it was an ode to Rihanna, or maybe it was condemning here for life, or maybe it was totally irrelevant like the sheep. Either way, it was stuck over Rihanna's face, which loses marks, but the artist had the respect to take it down, which adds them. The slogan will add marks, and the sheep will lose them, and that brings the disrespect total to round about 6/10.
DEFACEMENT #2: Taylor Swift
Imaginative Street Art Rating:
Less interesting, this one. Just some band wanting to advertise by sticking their poster over Taylor's face (I made the picture a bit bigger to show exactly what the poster was). There's so much more you could do with this poster: dip-dying Taylor's hair pink, drawing murals on the fence in the image. Just sticking a picture over a fellow artist's face because your band doesn't want to pay for an ad slot is NOT funny, NOT clever and most importantly NOT imaginative. I'm generous, I'll give it 2/10.
Disrespect To Music Rating (N.B. The higher the mark, the more disrespectful to music):
Where do I start? Hate against Taylor, superiority, it's all here. Not least zero respect for Taylor's personal desire to display her face. Maybe they could've stuck it on the fence or the grass or something, but the face? It deserves 10, but I'll give it 9/10.
So overall, what were the ratings?
ISA: 4.5/10
DTM: 7.5/10
Apparently, my love of music prevails over that of graffiti...
-DP :)
The only graffiti I like are the artistic ones, the kinds permitted by the city to paint such beautiful or artistic drawings. And that are clean. Maybe the people who did that to Rihanna and Taylor Swift were joking. who knows.
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