Witness: Cops target Cabbagetown muralists
July 24, 2008 at 5:15 pm by Mara Shalhoup in NewsThe week after two taggers and the man who attacked them reached a peaceful resolution over the highly charged issue of how much graffiti is too much in Cabbagetown, tensions in the neighborhood flared again.
This time, it was Atlanta police who cracked down.
At around 2:30 a.m. this morning, muralists with an out-of-state art collective called Trust Your Struggle were putting up a mural in the Krog Street tunnel when four patrol cars responded. Police put an abrupt end to their painting, according to witness Dawn Smith.
About an hour earlier, the artists, who had come to Atlanta to do a free commissioned mural at West End’s Omenala-Griot Afrocentric Museum, arrived with Smith at the Cabbgetown bar 97 Estoria. At the bar, Smith and several other patrons mentioned that the muralists should paint something in the tunnel, which is widely perceived by graffiti artists and Cabbagetown residents as a “free space” for graffiti-styled murals.
“Neighbors, people from Estoria all gathered around” to watch them paint, Smith says.
Within 15 minutes, Smith says, the cops arrived. “They proceeded to harass and threaten to arrest people,” she says. “It was really this tense standoff.”
One of the onlookers, Angel Poventud, says everyone was taken aback by the police response. Typically, the city has been tolerant of graffiti in the tunnel.
“It was kind of overkill, and silly,” Poventud says. “We were trying to explain to the officers that that’s a free paint zone.”
Though both Smith and Poventud say no one was arrested, the incident illuminates the challenges that Cabbagetown faces while trying to decide whether to encourage or crack down on graffiti artists who’ve used the railroad wall flanking Krog Street as their canvas.
Earlier this month, the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association painted over some of the graffiti art, angering some residents of the funky, artists enclave. The neighborhood group then decided to form a steering committee to get community feedback on how to best encourage artistic expression along the wall.
Send to a friend:
August 14th, 2008 at 4:15 am
Its about time something is being done …
August 14th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Yea right Trust Your Struggle is a person who likes art LOL …