A "tag" of my own...billboard Style

For those of who have been to San Francisco, you know that there are a lot of wall murals and graffiti all over the city. Some of them are commissioned and legal while others are done by the rogue artists who illegally spray paint where ever it seems fit. The graffiti culture is huge in big cities and many of them consider their medium just as important as other mediums. Artist's like Banksy have made careers out of grafitti installations in London and throughout the world. I noticed a specific space in SF that was asking to be used so I slowly started thinking about creating a "tag" of my own.

There was a billboard in Western Addition that every time I had seen it had either been blank (all white) or tagged by a graffiti artist that made a huge mural out of the blank canvas. I walked or drove past this billboard a few times a week and for months I was itching to make something of it...finally it went down.

At 11:30 one morning in the broad daylight I infiltrated the billboard with two friends, Rob and Krissy. Rob was there to help with the installation and Krissy was there to document. That day the billboard was consumed by a large spray painted mural that said something that I couldn't read, probably someone's street alias. Rob and I wore "onzy" painter suites so that it appeared that we worked for Clear Channel (the company that owns the billboard) and headed up the ladder with a bucket of white paint and rollers. This was a front so that no cops would get involved. We then painted over the tag that was there so that we had an all white canvas to work with.

A few interactions happened. While we were painting a man came up and asked how he could get a job painting for us. We told him we were a small company that was independently owned and that he should try Craig's List. He replied "oh that's a good idea" and then walked away.

The second man to talk with us was the owner of a building across the street from the billboard. He was mad that "our" company (Clear Channel) hadn't come to paint the billboard sooner and that he had been calling us for months to take care of the graffiti. Our response was "well, we're here now." The man shrugged, told us in a grumpy tone that it would be tagged again by tomorrow then walked away.

Spray Paint has never been part of my repertoire when it comes to making artwork...photography has. Thinking about how artists are essentially selling themselves and their ideas led me to think of a billboard as doing the same for a product or company and I wanted to combine the two thoughts. I was also thinking about the billboard as a presentation or gallery space for artwork so I decided that my tag would be one of my own 20x24 inch framed photographs.

The image depicts a house in Lake Tahoe that has a garage door carved into a landscape scene with Pine Trees, Eagles flying and an Elk. The subject matter of the image isn't as important, because the installation is more about the interaction of fine art and the billboard space. The frame was screwed into the billboard so that tearing it down would be cumbersome. I included a temporary phone number, in order to receive calls and record any dialogue that might be created around the piece.

Would someone tag over the photo that night? Would people think this was just another Clear Channel add? Not sure what was to come next we left and I decided that I would come back periodically throughout the next few days to see what came of it.

That night we went back to see if anything had changed. While we were driving past the piece we noticed a guy (mid 20's) with take out food in his hand looking up at the image. He quickly looked both ways, put the food down and skimmered up the fence towards the platform of the billboard. Unable to park quickly I drove around the block to find the first addition to the piece, a tag that had been done below the photograph.

As time passed, the space started to transform into other things and I slowly started learning the underground language of the graffiti culture. I had heard that if someone tags over the top of another tag or mural that it is a form of disrespect. In turn, I learned that if someone tags around your piece, then that is a way a showing respect and appreciation towards your work.

A few nights later, another artist who uses stencils to tag his alias, made three tags in red on the left side of the photograph and three tags in black on the right side. At this point I was extremely happy that other artists were essentially adding to the space and complimenting the overall aesthetic of the piece. This billboard space was becoming a collaborative. Another few nights passed and then an artist with the alias "Anti" filled the bottom corners with two tags.

The piece had a mind of it's own and turned into something that was never planned or anticipated. In the end the space turned into a collaboration between 5 artists of different mediums. No one ever met, no discussions between artists were ever made. A total of 3 graffiti artists put their work around the photograph which I think added to the overall aesthetic and impact of the work. As a lot of graffiti often does, this collaboration was finally painted over by an artist with the alias "CEAPS." Although the photograph was painted over, the frame was still embossed off of the billboard surface.

Keep an eye out for billboards that look a bit extraordinary. There is one being prepared as we speak...