Graffiti

France seems to have a problem with graffiti. (Actually, we have noted this problem in other countries in Europe as well.) Disaffected youth apparently express their angst by spray painting everything and anything. On a recent trip to Nice, a retirement destination for the very rich, I noticed that even in this chic-chic town, every door was covered with graffiti. Given that European cities are usually quite beautiful, the graffiti is particularly unfortunate as it detracts substantially from the often beautiful cityscapes.

Down the canal from where we live is “Port Technique,” an area where they repair the boats that ply the waters of the Canal du Midi. There are many large cement walls surrounding Port Technique on which street artists practice their craft. While these walls suffer from the more vandal-type graffiti, they also offer a much more artistic type of graffiti that I enjoy very much as Marty and I bicycle through Port Technique each day on our way to work and school. The walls are dynamic, with the art work changing overnight.

This afternoon I met a couple of the artists in the process of painting. They told me that the art-type graffiti was legal in Port Technique, as long as it was not viewable from the Canal. Apparently the artists decide whenever they feel like it to paint over another person’s wall. Often they repaint when the vandal-graffiti types have defaced a particular picture.

The artists I spoke to told me that the walls would probably change a lot this week since it is school vacation. To capture some of the graffiti art before it changes, I took some photos for you. I also included a few examples of the vandal type graffiti to give you an idea of how ugly and pervasive it is.