Something strange and beautiful and a little bit illegal is happening in Albuquerque, New Mexico. An artist calling himself Rainbow Warrior has been creating rainbows in the most unexpected places by spilling paint down the sides of abandoned buildings. Ordinary citizens love them, but the police aren't so happy.
It's understandable that there's controversy around a project that succeeds in blurring the line between graffiti and public art. One of the most visible rainbows is on the Anasazi, a high-rise office building which has been deemed 'unsafe for human occupancy' after construction on the building was halted, with no plans to continue. The artist contends that his work takes urban eyesores like this building and raises them to the level of art:
The building itself is already kind of in a weird standpoint. It was in the news. It's just this ugly, eyesore, half-completed building that's been that way for years. I think because it was already in people's minds, they saw this ugly building with these ugly connections. I chose that one because I've been looking at it since they stopped construction and I knew it was going to be just another building in Albuquerque that was going to sit until it fell apart. I chose it because it already had some attention, and some negative attention, and I wanted to direct that negative attention and show that sometimes something ugly can be beautiful, too.
And he defends his work, and graffiti in general, as something that elevates and enlivens urban landscapes, rather than taking away from them.
Street art really saves a lot of people who are down in their lives and on their luck. This is their one and only outlet. Plus, you get an immediate response from people. A lot of times it's just, look at that graffiti on that freeway wall. But maybe the graffiti on the freeway isn't the ugly thing, maybe that's not what they're angry about. Maybe they're angry about how for the last 10 years you've been driving through this prison freeway with these big ugly gray walls and it just took the graffiti to point out the ugly that was already there.
What do you think? Art? Or graffiti? Or maybe a little of both?
More Info:
• An interview with the artist from Alibi magazine
• Citizens of Albuquerque respond to the Alibi magazine piece
• More rainbows on Plenty of Colour and the Nuart Art Festival
• Rainbow Warrior's Facebook Page
via Plenty of Colour
(Images: 1. The Fibe Squad via CMYBacon and Nuart Festival, 2. Street Art Utopia)
5 Online Services to Save Yourself a Trip to IKEA
Nikki’s Sweet and Cheery Print Studio
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Sprout Side Table
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
Art.
It's beautiful!
I think it's a beautiful sight to see..abandonded eyesores holding up a rainbow..it can only bring a smile to those who see them. Of course 'it's a little bit of both'.
IMHO, it has nothing to do at all with graffiti: It's street art.
I think they are lovely. made me smile
Love it!!!
I think it's beautiful. If it's abandoned and the art adds to it so much the better!
Art
Art always has had a strata which is a little maverick...
I love the rainbows. They are subtle and beautiful and understated, and they do make you smile. (I would be royally pissed if they appeared on my house without permission, though.)
But most graffiti I have seen is self-aggrandizement in the form of "autographs", and that I just consider vandalism. I honestly don't think some of those plain grey concrete freeway walls are all that ugly by themselves. (Especially fairly new, sculptural underpasses, etc.) If you want to decorate them, then don't scribble, do something more aesthetic and universally appealing, and I'll buy in. Like rainbows...
Public art is usually on public property or private property with permission. While I do like the rainbows, I don't think it's fair to the property owner to have his/her property changed without permission and have to incur costs to have it removed. Isn't that the definition of vandalism?
Art! It beautifies, not annoy. :)
Approving this encourages more people to take "public art" into their hands, which then can be chaotic. Not to mention in abandoned buildings, it can be very dangerous too. Doesn't this article also say that the building was deemed to be "unsafe for human occupancy?" I think the rainbow is beautiful, but there must be a better plan for public art than this.
They are beautiful, subtle, enhance the abandoned buildings, and make me smile. I love them.
Yet, we have to have laws to curb vandalism and trespassing. Who draws the line between vandalism and art, and where is it drawn? In many places, those property owners would be liable for any injuries incurred by the artist.
I honestly don't have an opinion on this because every time I try and form one, I have a hypocritical counter opinion that negates why I am for or against this. It's complicated...
Even solutions are problematic...
- Ask before you do it? Then it's not as interesting or surprising...
- Only do it to abandoned buildings? Broken window theory, not really fair to the neighbours of those abandoned buildings...
- Public property? City pays to clean it up, and it won't be around for long...
- Here in Toronto we have designated alleyways where artists can paint the garage doors and walls. But artists don't stand out, they simply blend into the mass of spraypaint.
Anyway, bottom line is that I hope to see more of this, hopefully at nobody's expense.
Vandalism by another name.
Do not equate graffiti with art.
Do I think it's pretty, yes. Would I like it done to my home; not without permission. Where do you draw the line? My perference of what I consider art may prove vastly different from others. Remember, to clean this up may involve tax dollars. Is this how you want your taxes to be spent when police officers and fire figthers are being laid off?
Developers continue to destroy our inner cities by abandoning buildings by the block. The cities belong to us all, so in a very real sense letting the infrastructure go is as much a statement as what lots of us middle class white folk call "graffiti." In a society that largely ignores what's going on in the urban core for the sake of IKEA and other sprawly garbage, my guess is that putting some color of your own onto a surface is a way of proving (if only to yourself) that you actually live there.
@jsenpai, so you are the arbiter of what constitutes "art"? There are taggers who consider themselves -- and are treated by the well-heeled and uber-connected in the Art World-- as graffiti artists. You like these rainbows, so you call it art. To say that it "elevates the surroundings" in some nebulous way, is self-validating snobbery. Would you change your opinion if the rainbows were accompanied by unicorns? How about if the dripped paint was gang colors? Would that meaning ruin it for you?
If it's a mark on public or private property and is done without permission, it's vandalism by definition. Any further meaning is added by the viewer.
This has to be another AT bid for hits.
Art. I love these. They would lift my heart every time I saw them. This is an entirely different animal than the kind of tagging that disfigures and 'uglifies' just for the sake of making a mark.
What makes this Art, I think, is that it causes viewers to see the world differently. There's a shock to the system that rearranges the world for a moment causing us to rethink things we never question - like buildings abandoned as unsafe with out being completed.
Art _should_ be revolutionary.
Love it...makes me want to move to NM even more!
At first glance, i thought the photo was of light being refracted and broken up onto the building by a prism somewhere. That would have been much cooler! It would come and go depending on the sun and would not deface property that belongs to someone else.
I agree that it's pretty but I also think it's wrong to trespass, deface property even if it's abandoned, and to risk injury at the expense of another party. Illegal and wrong. There are other ways to produce art that surprises and delights in unexpected places.
There's one of these here in Los Angeles.
http://statigr.am/viewer.php#/detail/258695814276028933_2729965
I didn't like how Dulcibella's car looked, so I threw a can of brown paint on it. It make her rethink something she had never questioned, and it _was_ revolutionary.
@rural and rueful
This discussion is what makes it art. You are welcome to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree with you.
I agree with @ducibella, who said that things like this cause us to stop and think. The rainbow dripping down the side of a building is new to me. I clicked on the post because I was interested in what it was about. I would have been delighted to see this in real life.
I agree that tresspassing and vandalizing is wrong, but that doesn't mean it's not art. Artists do all kinds of things that are illegal for the sake of their art.
If he has permission, it's wonderful. If not it's criminal. I love public art, but I cannot support graffiti, no matter how lovely. After all, many of the eyesores I've seen scrawled across private property were likely very beautiful in the "artist's" eyes. If he asked my permission to do this to my building I'd likely say yes. I might even pay for it. But I'd want to be asked in case I had a reason to decline.
@carrotsticks. See, that's the crux of what I was saying. The meaning is added by the viewer. You say it makes you stop and think. All I think when I see it is, "Oooh, what pretty colors". Even without the controversial element of trespass, that doesn't add up to Art for me.
I find surfaces that are aggressively covered by graffiti after graffiti -- surfaces with a context, such as the Berlin Wall after it was broken but before it was dismantled, or the odd alley or parapet that has been adopted by many as a canvas -- more deserving of that title. They are a conversation. They evolve. They express points of view, and the interactions of those viewpoints make the meaning. This Rainbow Bright stuff is, in my opinion, static and ultimately no more than making pretty.
Did those on the "graffiti" side read the linked article(s)? Interesting stuff.
Responses to "waste of money" argument:
"If the building is in limbo, why would you spend taxpayer dollars to remove something that people find beautiful? Shouldn’t the majority of the people get to decide if it stays? Why are we spending millions and millions of dollars painting the ditches? Graffiti removal is part of Waste Management, and they’ll go into a ditch and walk over a couch, past a homeless man and over some broken bottles to buff over some graffiti. Why not pick up the couch, sweep up the bottles and feed the hungry? That’s what we should be focusing on, not painting an arroyo where dirty water is washing into our rivers and polluting our water supply."
"This artist's work is an inspiration—we should be praising him with public applause. ... Arrest is merely another example of the misappropriation of public dollars used under the myopic auspices of APD and Waste Management. This artist is bringing something beautiful to our city—this is not graffiti, this is not defacement of property—art is not a crime."
"APD wasting resources to track down the most inoffensive public artist around? Sounds like par for the course, and absolutely wrong-headed. Why don't we spend money taking care of ACTUAL PROBLEMS? This city has plenty."
Also, the sign saying “this building is unsafe for human occupancy” was only put up AFTER the rainbow drew attention.
I think the police need to find something better to do - this guy's not hurting a thing and is probably improving the value of these otherwise non-useful buildings. I laughed at the uptight comments that call this "illegal and wrong" - what should be illegal is taking up valuable real estate building unsafe eyesores in the first place - this guy's doing everyone a favor.
Oooh love it!
I have to look at the Anasazi building everyday, I work across from it. It’s a sad, sad building in great disrepair. Looking at it, it would pain me to think about who may have gotten taken in the scam on this building (I remember the condos being sold on the GAAR without being completed). Years later it sets abandoned, an ugly reminder of those who cheated and stole and left our downtown area just a little bit worse for wear. When the rainbow appeared, it put a smile on my face, because it was pretty and interesting (how does one get paint to drip so perfectly down a building of this size). It made me forget, at least briefly, of the buildings past…then new tagging appears on the building and I am just that much more disgusted by the whole thing. The rainbow gives my heart some hope that maybe someday, someone will be able to do what they say they are going to do and make this building into something; businesses, homes…SOMETHING! There has been talk on this, articles written on it…but nothing has happened yet. All I have to hold onto is that rainbow.
The Alibi just wrote an article on the building a couple of months ago, take a look…
http://alibi.com/feature/42225/Crimes-of-the-Anasazi.html
@rural and rueful,
It's fine if it's not to your liking, but I think that the creator's intention was to elicit some sort of emotional reaction. My reaction was not like yours. I did not see Rainbow Bright and unicorns, but I did see something bright, that made me look at the buildings differently, and that seemed somewhat natural to me.
Without trying to define what art is, I think we can both agree that vandalism and art are not mutually exclusive, which is what your earlier comment read like to me. I understand that you don't think it's art, but you shouldn't discount others' points of view. You were just as authoritative as @jsenpai who's viewpoint you attacked.
i live in albuquerque. you can come vandalize my home anytime Rainbow Warrior.
It's spilled color spectrum arranged paint; not a "rainbow" and like it or not, NOT the paint spiller's property. Sorry, it's not "stealthy art" it's stealthy vandalisim even if many here want to assert a degree of visual color appreciation. You can clap and ooh and ahh when someone does that to your boring all black car or plain beige house.
Yes, it'd be ideal if these buildings were maintained, vibrant and alive, but like it or not, that's the owner's business; not some self appointed sneak in the night rainbow vandal.
@carrotsticks: Attacked? Hardly.
i just got excited, finally a post on AT about my own town! i honestly love it, it's pretty and i love driving by them everyday.
of course it's vandalism.... and art. that's the point. rebellion through art. (btw, the building's are abandoned, so what harm is really done? If it was a brand new building in use, I can see people getting upset, but abandoned, condmened...come on now.)
@Bee for Brian
XDDDDD
@TRISSI makes the most sense in general...he/she sees this herself..and what she says is the reality...period...'in my HUMBLE opinion' : )
Whoa!!! Now here's some really brazen vandalism:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/war-chalk-arrests
http://www.phillyburbs.com/my_town/doylestown/teens-cited-for-drawing-on-the-street-with-chalk/article_b1526f52-7140-5369-938f-a6b6d612a40c.html
it's art. no question. cops have to say they don't like it because that's their job. and just like in the legitimate art world it's really easy to tell the posers from the real thing.
Rich people are allowed to assault our eyes with the garbage they leave behind when their "projects" fail, but a commentary expressed beautifully by one of the people assaulted is a crime?
All of the above.
Makes me smile. I think you have to look @ the intention. Vandalism is usually done to deface or ruin- clearly not the purpose here. When I was 14, I was on a trip to Hamburg, Germany & one night "vandals" spray-painted smiley faces all over the city. I was enthralled & I still smile thinking about that (I'm 35 now).
I think they should catch him, kiss him, and buy him a bucket of paint.
Controversial, indeed. While these rainbows are beautiful, this person is defacing someone else's property, which costs money to rectify. In the case of publicly owned buildings, the costs are recouped in taxes, often at the expense of important things like education. And for private property, the business involved will likely raise their prices. No one really wins.