When I left Switzerland at the end of the 80s, it was spotless. You would see locals washing street signs when they were not waxing lovingly their Volkswagen Golfs.
I did not come back for several years but when I did, I was really shocked to see all the graffiti/tags all over the place.
What happened?
When I asked my family then they were just being apologists. Some would say it was beautiful art pieces or a welcome way for the youth to express themselves. In my eyes, it is total garbage, it is a visual aggression, and I would try to stop anybody doing it.
Are those made by kids? How do they manage to get spray paint?
What is the trend right now?
Is the practice as bad or on the decline?
What are the authorities' position and what are they doing about it?

I would have to agree with you regarding the negative appearance of Graffiti. I believe the big problem is the more you crack down on it the worse it gets. It is now recognized as a legitimate art form (see "Banksy") at least when done legally and like most things, the more you suppress it the more people want to do it.

Some graffiti can be absolutely stunning. I walk through Rote Fabrik just to look at it. The difference is Rote Fabrik is artwork, sometimes funny, sometime satirical but usually excellent. The stuff on the trains is tagging which comes from gang culture in the US (staking out the territory of your little "club") and if there is any drawing at all it is crudely obscene.

I left Switzerland in the early 90's for a few years. There was no graffiti then and when I came back it was the thing I noticed first - walls covered in paint. There's no excuse - none - for covering private property in paint and it makes my blood boil when I see historic stone buildings defaced by meaningless scribble. It's vandalism pure and simple. As for being "street art", the Banksy's of this world are very thin on the ground. 99.9% of I see what I see are just "tags" - nickname equivalents of "kilroy wos 'ere".

It used to bother me, but it seems that the graffiti artist are getting better and have finally evolved from constantly tagging (if I ever meet KMH.......), which I see as the same action as that of a dog p1ssing on every second tree.
There is some great rt work on the walls in and around the Rote Fabrik, by international artists no less.
The best work, imo, is on the little outside bar. Although alot of great work was lost in the white-out action.

Frankly I always thought that such things were never allowed in Switzerland up until I saw some very spectacular graffiti spreading meters long nearby our block of flats. There is an underbridge passage for bikes and pedestrians with concrete walls of good 500 meters in length which attracts the kids with boomboxes and cartoons of spray paints. They hang around there regularly and respray the walls almost every two weeks with new "creative and evil looking stuff". These guys seem to be not even disturbed by presence of passersby constantly busy with their art assuming the bridge is their own gallery. I only feel sorry for the old man who must be a community public worker and he tries to wipe a paint out of all the visible signs on the bridge which also get covered in process.
What can I say? Perhaps hadn't it been for these kids to express themselves in similar form of art, we might have seen them occupied with much worse kind of stuff.

The graffiti in Zürich is some of the best I've seen anywhere. There are a number of places that you can some really good work - Letten, Rote Fabrik to name but two.

That said I don't care for it much when it's effectively vandalism (side of trains for example), regardless of how good it is.

I've been told that I play the bouzouki quite well.

I think I shall play it tonight from midnight to dawn, just so I can express my artistic instinct.

It's art, right?

where about is that? ever considered this to be a official spot, a "hall of fame"? otherwise no way you could hang out there regularly. in SWITZERLAND, land of rules...doesnt go together, right?

it has to be a legal spot.

well... if you think that Zurich plastered much with graffiti, you have never been to Berlin, Leipzig, Copenhagen, Prague... Zurich is clean and sterile in comparison! a train ride through grey, made of ugly concrete fabric sites, fencing walls, junctions, road and train bridges i find much more interesting to look at when they are painted. its a visual pleasure overkill when i get to basel and all the way from Pratteln i see these big murals.

id say rather put up your words against the unpleasent out of home media spoilers, the blow-ups, city light posters etc. to get you to do what the industry likes most: buying, consumption!

We live right next to the railway and the noise has recently been taken care of by means of constructing sound barrier concrete wall which up until now has been completely white and unspoilt. So far so good...

Do let us know when you get a busking permit, maybe we can do the artistic Rote Fabrik tour, enjoy your music and then have brekkie at the Ziegel ;-)

I do enjoy some of the graffiti, but rather on places where it is intended... I'd be furios if somebody just re-painted the walls of my home or old buildings...

Tags don't even deserve a mention (apart from this)...

Not sure where I stand on this. I'll have to get back to you.

Who is Puber???

That's perfectly suits description of the place I do not wanna be...

That's more like it.

Are you also the kind of person who thinks that Skating is Vandalism?
Actually Grafitti (or Spraying) is one of the 4 pillars of Hip Hop and used to be an integral part of this sub-culture back then.

But flow is right, cities like Berlin have way more Grafitti but then again it seems to fit. What would Berlin be without them?

this thread is so old school!

Another reason to loathe it.

I have wondered this too for a long time....

I also saw some people with very creative tatoos covering large part of their bodies. Perhaps doing it to themselves is less of the harm than painting public places.

I think it's important to note the difference between street art and Graffiti.

I have no time for "Tagging". However, I do agree with Street Art.

For instance..


Before


After. (by Above)

Vandalism is vandalism, but I think that little pieces like this do an awful lot to bring some diversity to urban life.

While Banksy has made it big in the last while, he is by no means the only street artist out there.



(By Victor Ash)



(Aakash Nilani)

Easily my favourite


(by Seeder)

While I agree wholeheartedly with Nev that
and I think those little beggers should be strung up, I think that street art has a place and should be encouraged. Without it, we would never have had this:

(by Shepard Fairey)


As I said before though, Tags are just vandalism

Frankly, I cannot catch a diffference between upper two pics... What's improvement there, same devil to me!

I have always been asking myself this question since there are so many young talented people. Why wouldn't they try to enter some kind of painting contests and exibitions to demonstrate their skills instead of public edifices...