On Friday, May 16th, the first reports came in of a commissioned Bridgeport mural that had been whitewashed by the city’s Graffiti Blasters at the order of 11th Ward Alderman James Balcer. The mural featured featured three CPD surveillance cameras, a crucifix, and a skull. Despite the fact that muralist Gabriel Villa had permission by the owner of Kaplan’s Liquors to create the work on an exterior wall of the store as part of a local arts festival, Alderman Balcer has insisted, until recently, that his actions were within the bounds of the laws concerning graffiti. So what is the difference between a mural and graffiti?
It depends on who's making the decision. The state and local laws are quite clear on the distinction though they have been applied in a less than transparent fashion.
The legal definitions of mural and graffiti are very similar except that graffiti is an unauthorized, and hence, illegal, public art installation. Murals, at their most legitimate, are street art sanctioned and funded by a governmental agency or community organization. In the Illinois Criminal Code, defacement of property occurs “when the person knowingly damages the property of another by defacing, deforming, or otherwise damaging the property by the use of paint or any other similar substance…” Chicago’s municipal ordinances employ similar terms when defining the crime of vandalism.
Illinois law allows for consent by the property’s owner as an affirmative defense for those charged with criminal defacement of property, meaning that if Mr. Villa were arrested for painting the mural, he could possibly avoid a Class A misdemeanor conviction, a $500 minimum fine, and up 120 hours of community service. Provided he was able to prove convincingly in a court of law that he did, in fact, obtain the liquor store owner’s permission to create the public artwork. However, an “affirmative defense” is slim legal cover for a muralist even if the work was commissioned by the property owner because the burden of proof is on the accused street artist.
Chicago city ordinances are more aggressive. They make no mention of a property owner’s consent when assessing a case of alleged vandalism. All vandalism cases are filed as quasi-criminal actions subject to the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, rather than the Criminal Code where the standards of proof are higher. If you’re convicted, there’s a $750.00 fine plus the cost of repair, and you may be incarcerated for up to 30 days or required to perform up to 1,500 hours of community service. While Public art is exempted from fees, permits and restrictions, there are almost no guidelines describing exactly what “public art” is or how to distinguish it from vandalism.
The law struggles with parsing murals from graffiti because, aesthetically speaking, they overlap in significant ways.
Modern graffiti was born out of the counterculture of the 60’s and 70’s, and it continued to be an outlet for the oppressed and marginalized during the proliferation of hip hop culture during the 80’s and 90’s. Mexican muralism also comes from a politically charged tradition, the 1930’s, when Mexican artists where trumpeting the Marxist ideals of the Mexican Revolution while stylistically attempting to reconnect to their pre-Columbian roots.
Both of these traditions thrive today on Chicago’s South Side.
In the largely Hispanic neighborhood of Pilsen, for example, Mexican muralism is ubiquitous. Though such public art is only tolerated under the law, it is celebrated by the community. On nearly every wall one can find a full spectrum of artistic expression, from the sacred to the profane. Only in Pilsen can twin cultural icons Betty Boop and Che Guevara occupy the same space in peoples’ daily lives.
Meanwhile, activist graffiti artists are tagging up the town with biting political insight just as they did throughout urban America in the 1960’s and rural Mexico in the 1930’s. Mexican muralist Gabriel Villa is only the latest Windy City iconoclast to set his sights on the Chicago Police and Mayor Daley’s South Side Irish stronghold of Bridgeport. A local tweeter spotted this sticker art tagging the Red Line (which goes through Bridgeport) earlier this month. It features the black and white mug shot of Bridgeport resident Detective Joseph Frugoli along side some strong words referencing an incident from the early morning hours of April 10th when Frugoli, driving drunk with a blood-alcohol level of .277, rear ended a disabled vehicle in the southbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway and killed the two young Hispanic men inside. Be it large, complex murals or simple, homemade stickers, public art of all kinds is self-consciously site-specific.
Alderman Balcer broke the law when he ordered the Graffiti Blasters to blast Villa’s mural without consulting the property owner first. Mayor Daley has acknowledged the wrongdoing. The irony of the whole episode is that if Villa had chosen to paint on a wall just a mile and a half away, on the north side of the South Branch of the Chicago River (map), his “anti-police graffiti” would have been just another mural in Pilsen.
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Len Kody
South Sider. Comics Writer. Daily Daley Contributor. Editorial Intern. More
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