Ha'aretz on Israeli Street Art
Seems Ha’aretz has suddenly taken an interest in grafitti:
During the day, they protest against the separation fence, globalization and trafficking in women. After 8 P.M., when the city inspectors’ last shift ends, they continue their fight in the streets – with a stencil and spray paint.
Is there any possibility that an artist like Jean Michel Basquiat, a New York graffiti artist who became the darling of the 1980s and 1990s art scene, could be discovered on an Israeli street? There is no way of knowing, but clearly, street art has become popular here in recent years, increasingly making its presence known in the public space.
Full story.
Do you think it’s wishful thinking to believe that, with all the Jewschool stickers I’ve slapped around Jerusalem & Tel Aviv, this reporter saw my post on Israeli street art and got the inspiration for the story? That would be nice…
[Update] Here are some photos of some of the stuff I’ve been doing around J-Town… Apart from the Orthdox Anarchist emblem and the phrase, “Stop Abusing Torah”, my new thing is crossing out the çé (“lives”) in ëäðà çé (“Kahane Chai”) — which is spraypainted everywhere around Jerusalem — and replacing it with îú (“is dead”). Bet my sister will love that… Here’s what my man Seven did to another one.
What I find most interesting about the street art in Jerusalem is that most of it is intensely political, and so, what happens is that you wind up with political discourse taking place upon the walls of the city. Take a recent experience of Seven, for example. While strolling through Gan Sacher the other day, he saw the words “Kill Arabs” written on a sign. Taken aback by this, he thought, how could I detourn that? He looked around the park, and noticed all the litter strewn about and said to himself, “Who the hell do you think cleans this shit up?” And so he added three letters to yield “Skilled Arabs.” Naught but two days later, Seven returned to find that someone had blocked out his letters to return the message to “Kill Arabs.” And so it ensues…
“my new thing is crossing out the çé (“lives”) in ëäðà çé (“Kahane Chai”) — which is spraypainted everywhere around Jerusalem — and replacing it with îú (“is dead”).”
I LOVE IT!
Yeah John Brown loves death. You should have seen his costume at the JATO masquerade ball on Saturday night. It was utterly tasteless: suicide bomb-vest, kuffieh, fake-pregnant belly. Yuck! (The event has become nothing more than a gross-out contest in recent years if you ask me.) Anyway, I really think it’s too bad you guys choose to celebrate Rabbi Kahane’s murder for kicks. Although the pro-death Hamas charter makes Kahane look like Ghandi I doubt Mobius would alter Palestinian martyr posters with a big, snarky “SORRY NO UNDERAGE VIRGINS”.
But why is that exactly?
mobius- you will notice that some of the racist kahane graffitis might have swastikas next to them. there was an initiative of leftist activists to spray swastikas on kahane graffitis. the message is very clear, and more importantly – this is the only way the authorities actually take the initiative to erase the graffiti (both the swastika and the kahane graffitis).
i was walking on the outskirts of mea shearim last month and i saw that near where someone had written “ein aravim ein p’guim”, someone else had crossed it out and written “ein medina, ein p’guim” — do satmar chasidim do graffiti?
Jews spraying swastikas on the name of a dead rabbi who was murdered by one of the orchestrators of the first World Trade Center bombing, after a dedicated, if controversial, career battling neo-Nazis. Cool!
I am currently in Tel Aviv and saw one of the jewschool stickers on Shenkein. And of course I took a picure of it. very cool.
the reason why ppl write ‘kahane chai’ is cos the weak government wont approve of their views. being a democracy israel should give recongnition to ‘kach’, ‘kahane chai’ etc. regardless of their views they should be able to voice their opinion.