Colourful signs of life out of the spray can
"Bunte Lebenszeichen aus der Sprühdose", Wolfgang Görl, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22./23.06.1985
Strange creatures inhabit the shores of Lake Starnberg. Not far from the district town’s train station, near the railway tracks, you can spot them: a gentle-eyed, round-headed, lemon-yellow monster with a friendly demeanor, a wrinkled potato nose, and mouse-like teeth; and its neighbour, a grumpy octopus, its venom-green tentacles burrowing into the sandy ground. A few meters away, a jug-eared comic figure grins foolishly into the landscape.
Their territory is hardly a biotope. Barren, unadorned warehouses, relentlessly paved parking lots, and railway tracks form a backdrop with the charm of an industrial zone. Yet, it’s precisely here that these odd beings thrive, frolicking with a penchant for the bizarre and vibrant, a testament to their creators’ imagination. These creators are very much of this world—mostly young people devoted to an art form (or, as some say, mischief) that has already found its way into galleries in some places.
Whether they belong in galleries is, of course, debated. Graffiti—the name for these fantastical wall paintings—need the gray walls of cities. In their best forms, they are subcultural contributions to urban design. The bare, cold concrete wall or the sterile, pristine facade is seen as dehumanizing and is “rehumanized” through spray cans. At least, that’s how the sprayers interpret their work. Naturally, this artistic reclamation of lifeless concrete jungles has urban origins. But the spray-and-brush movement has long since spread to rural areas, with graffiti artists—and those who consider themselves as such—leaving their mark in villa landscapes, garden cities, and farming villages. In the Starnberg district, many a community could tell you a thing or two about it.
"Scribblers"
Of course, mixed into the complaints of municipal spokespeople are some major notes that surprisingly praise the colorful spray art. “These are half-artists,” says Peter Hohenwarter, the treasurer of the recently graffiti-stricken municipality of Feldafing, for example. Naturally, this is his personal opinion; when spoken with the voice of a civil servant, the judgment sounds different: “These are scrawlers.” And Hohenwarter would be a poor treasurer if he didn’t also consider the wallets of these freely producing spray artists (or scrawlers): “One must spend at least half an hour working on a piece. Elsewhere, they’d get paid for that!”
He’s not wrong. In Munich, sprayers with mysterious names like “Magic” or “Cheech” now take on commissions like any honest craftsman.
Apartments and businesses, once beautified by traditional painters, are now, in the state capital, occasionally colored by graffiti artists. In the Five Lakes region, however, they still spray under the cover of darkness, as these unsolicited wall scribbles, no matter how well-executed, undeniably constitute property damage. The hub of this underground art in the district is evidently Starnberg. Candy-colored pop lettering, audacious comic figures, and garish ornaments adorn bridges, walls, and facades in the district town. As any S-Bahn commuter knows, the warehouses at the station are as vibrant as a Mickey Mouse comic; a building near the slaughterhouse now sports the “rap” slogan “Hip-Hop,” and the railway underpass on Josef-Jägerhuber-Straße has been labeled by sprayers—lacking better ideas—with oversized letters spelling “Graffiti” and “Concrete.”
City spokesperson Gerhard Dix comments calmly on the signs on the wall: “We will likely only respond with a complaint if there’s a case of public nuisance.” It remains unclear at what point a “nuisance” becomes public; it’s certain, however, that these cheerful wall paintings have already sparked plenty of private frustration. Popular wisdom has a saying ready from the endless repertoire of good manners: “Fools’ hands smear tables and walls.” That such wisdom aligns perfectly with the cleanliness obsession of the economic miracle society, which sprayers view as tyranny, seems irrelevant to the heralds of public sentiment.
Self-righteousness on both sides. On the one hand, facades of beautiful old buildings are defaced with spray paint—comic-style graffiti at Starnberg station shouts “STOP IT”—a treatment these structures truly don’t deserve. The lack of originality in inane slogans and endlessly repeated phrases competes with the monotony of the concrete walls they cover. On the other hand, upstanding citizens, for whom order is paramount, react with the aggressive outrage that has always been the philistine’s response to anything out of the ordinary. They feel provoked, whether by modern art, purple hair, or graffiti.
Ironically, this reaction only lets the sprayers get under their skin even more. Graffiti are meant to provoke. What citizens hold dear—the regulated, standardised, life managed until the grave—is satirically skewered by the sprayers: “Better alive than normal,” reads green lettering on the walls of the underpass at Stockdorf station.
To those familiar with the scene, this sprayed Stockdorf quip is nothing new. Slogans like this can be found in cities across the country. By now, numerous publishers have discovered these anarchic aphorisms, dubbing them a “new literary genre” (as one preface claims) and filling books with them. This hasn’t done the scene any favours. Now any spray can wielder can draw from a seemingly endless repertoire of pre-made slogans without having to muster the slightest original thought. And when you read, for the thousandth time, the demand “All power to the imagination” at Stockdorf station, you wonder if those invoking imagination aren’t just uninspired copycats whose creativity doesn’t extend beyond parroting old phrases. You’ll search in vain for original ideas on the walls and facades of the district. And quietly, you find yourself agreeing with the privately expressed opinion of city spokesperson Dix, which, in its simple wisdom, states: “If you’re going to do it, at least make it something worthwhile.”
That the question of graffiti quality now also occupies academia may only surprise the uninitiated. Nearly two years ago, a prestigious conference took place in Berlin—among others, the sociologist Jürgen Habermas spoke—whose theme, formulated in doctoral jargon, made it clear that the colourful spray can phenomenon was being examined with utmost academic rigor: “Messages from the Can: Berlin Graffiti between Enlightenment and Apocalypse.” Brilliant minds like cultural philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (Critique of Cynical Reason) noted in the “new graffiti” an “individual-centered occasionality” that draws on pre-Enlightenment traditions. The art world, too, has long taken notice of graffiti art. Graffiti exhibitions are now a staple in the programs of top galleries in cultural hubs across Europe and America. It can even happen that a sprayer must answer for their art in court at the same time their works are being showcased in a renowned gallery—as occurred in New York, the metropolis of graffiti art.
No Political Slogans
It’s hard to descend from these heights back into the lowlands of Starnberg’s spray-paint landscape. Still, what was noted at the Berlin conference applies in the Five Lakes region as well: the overtly political slogan is “out.” While sprayers in the early 1970s focused on topical political issues (think Vietnam), the new generation of sprayers shuns political mottos, even meaning itself: “Pink Pank” glows in pink-red neon letters in the underpass at Mühltal station, “Stop it” declares a sprayer at Starnberg station, and “Graffiti all over” proclaims the writing on a Gilching house wall. Nonsense wherever you look. The blatant political slogan, as you hear in the scene, still smacks too much of “collaborating with the system”; only those who abandon all meaning take seriously the radical rejection they strive for.
At least the Starnberg sprayers have succeeded in that. The colourful comic images at Starnberg station and the slaughterhouse seem to aim for nothing more than cheerful splashes of color on bare walls. Their aesthetic model is the work of New York’s rap and graffiti scene. For about fifteen years, graffiti fever has been rampant in the North American concrete megalopolis. Graffiti is originally the art of Black and Latino communities, the underdogs in “God’s own country.” In these vibrant images, the Hispanic-American love for bright colors merges with the everyday sensory impressions of advertising, television, and comic worlds. The lifestyle that the local scene shares with the American subculture, despite all differences, is reflected in the rhythmic chants of rap music, the robotic movements of breakdance, and the comic strips of the new graffiti movement. It’s bizarre, loud, excessive, and expressive. Comic language and imagery are well-suited to convey this vibe. It thrives on exaggeration, the rejection of nuance, and unrestrained abandon, always teetering on the edge of madness. Its expressions are provocatively simple and shockingly direct.
Yet, this is precisely where Starnberg’s works diverge from their inspirations. Starnberg’s graffiti feel tame, harmless—mediocre copies by mediocre talents.
New York City spends $6.5 million annually on cleaning defaced trains and buses, funding special police units, and other measures to combat graffiti fever. By comparison, the measures taken by local municipalities here sound far less dramatic. Slogans on public buildings, as long as they don’t cause the aforementioned public nuisance, are painted over during routine renovations.
Only S-Bahn trains, which—following the New York model—are eagerly redecorated by sprayers, are immediately taken out of service by the MVV for costly cleaning. The railway is strict on this, because graffiti spread like a plague: where one appears, another soon follows. But it’s also true that every freshly painted-over graffiti wall will soon be illustrated anew. Even the railway is at a loss. According to the Federal Railway’s press office, every spraying incident on railway property is routinely reported, but perpetrators are rarely caught. “Write about it,” the railway spokesperson urges, “that we urgently need the public’s help.”
We won’t disclose Thilo M.’s real name to the Federal Railway. The student has been active as a graffiti artist in the Munich area, though “only twice,” he insists. The district’s graffiti scene is not unfamiliar to him. He was inspired by a book about “the Zurich sprayer,” Harald Nägeli. The Swiss artist, whose spider-like creatures brought some life to the sterile sheen of the banking city, was sentenced to nine months in prison without parole for repeated and ongoing property damage, and ordered to pay 200,000 Marks in damages.
The harsh penalty imposed by the Swiss judiciary on Nägeli’s art did not deter Thilo M. “What he aimed to do convinced me,” he says. Nägeli’s protest against a culture of “clean freaks” resonates with Thilo M., and, like his role model, he strives to incorporate the form of the wall, a building corner, or a facade into his artwork. A few random spray strokes won’t suffice, and the criticism is ruthless. Nägeli, his inspiration, states: “It’s about quality. Stupid slogans and bad pictures annoy me too, especially when people imitate me.”
The Thrill of the Forbidden
If it were merely the allure of the muses, so many young people wouldn’t be caught up in spray fever. The thrill of the forbidden plays a role, sometimes also the desire to stand out in the group. And ultimately: “It feels good to stand in front of a sprayed wall and know, ‘I did that,’” says Thilo M. The sprayer marks the city, the neighborhood, the street with traces of their existence. In dreary concrete landscapes where they feel their identity is slipping away, they leave a sign of their presence. “I spray, therefore I am,” reads a famous Munich graffito, a playful riff on Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum.” A quiet joy, a discreet pride, may fill the sprayer when their work suddenly shapes the streetscape, when heads turn toward their graffito, when their efforts are noticed. Confident spray artists now sign their works. The Starnberg comic-style graffiti are signed by “LEE” and the duo “B.R/S.P.” The cryptic words “Tango” and “Hartmann” sprayed in the Feldafing railway underpass on Pöckinger Straße are credited to a certain “Ray” and the “Jet Set of Feldafing.”
Municipal administrations are at a loss for how to curb this colourful activity. Overly strict measures by authorities might not even be appropriate, as some urbanistically questionable concrete walls aren’t eyesores because of the graffiti. The municipality of Gauting may serve as a model. Town hall spokesperson Josef Mader attributes the fact that the town has been largely spared by graffiti artists in recent months to the efforts of an active art association, which channels the creative urges of young people into organized outlets. The lesson: those with a canvas don’t need a wall.
You feel like Robin Hood
"Du fühlst Dich wie Robin Hood", Thomas Aders, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 08.10.1986
Teenagers only use their aliases, senior prosecutors and police prefer to remain unnamed, passersby wrinkle their noses or show amusement, press spokespeople talk of a “huge mess,” artists speak of fresh expression, and cleaning companies see profit: it’s all about graffiti.
According to the magazine Das Parlament, the term “graffiti” is increasingly broadening today. While in Italian (“sgraffito”) it originally referred only to “inscriptions scratched into walls,” such as the culturally significant ones in Pompeii, it now encompasses all sprayed and painted writings and drawings.
The vibrant cradle of spray art emerged about 15 years ago in New York, and soon it was time for cleanup crews: action in Manhattan. “Taki 183” was the first “writer” in 1970 to spread his “tags” (stylized signatures) from his own neighborhood across the entire city. A New York Times article from July 1971 made him “famous” and graffiti infamous. Hundreds of youths, armed with markers, set out to emulate “Taki 183.” A competition ignited, where quantity initially mattered, but quality soon took precedence. By 1972, the first “masterpieces” (pieces) appeared—large-scale tags adorned with “characters,” “designs,” and symbols. The cost of graffiti removal in New York was $300,000 in 1970 but skyrocketed, reaching a grim record of $15 million eight years later. Afterward, efforts were reluctantly scaled back: a Sisyphean task with rags and buckets. Bare surfaces, like Kojak’s bald head, became rare in New York.
"In Munich," says Georg Schrattenecker, head of the youth welfare office, "there have been isolated graffiti for many years. But it really started about two to three years ago." The Graffiti Lexicon (P. Kreuzer) can date the beginning even more precisely: late 1983, with the cinema premiere of the insider film Wild Style at Munich’s "Leopold." After that, the first "tags" appeared on Bavarian walls, followed by a stronger influence of New York in the state capital with breakdance, rap, and paint. The first groups ("crews") also formed, such as "The Force," which, according to the lexicon, was one of the best European groups. Particularly "Blash" and "Loomit" stood out with their individual "style." The group existed until the summer of last year. Before that, its members were extremely active.
One person who isn’t displeased with this development is Tilman Steinke, managing director of the Munich branch of a large German cleaning company. The approximately 1,500 individual contracts, mainly awarded by the city’s building department, add up to an annual volume of about 250,000 Marks. Nevertheless, more money is earned from graffiti in northern Germany; Hamburg and Berlin are home to the most concrete painters: finally, a clear north-south divide again.
The specially developed anti-paint agent is left to soak for ten minutes by Steinke’s team, after which the defaced surface is sprayed off with hot water under pressure. Cleaning one square meter costs 50 to 70 Marks, as Steinke notes and others grudgingly admit.
Among those others are not only the head of the building department but also Manfred Adler and Xaver Martin, press spokespersons for the Federal Railway Directorate. "In addition to the total costs of around 100,000 Marks so far," says Martin, "one must keep in mind that the S-Bahn trains, which are particularly popular for being fully painted, have to be taken out of service for one to two days. And the cleaning is not only expensive but also far from environmentally friendly." Beyond removing the unsightly, it’s primarily about preserving something essential: advertising space.
Helmut Steigerwald, managing director of the software company "Bit" on Arabellastraße, considers two-thirds of all graffiti to be poor and thus vandalism. But what he thinks of the other third was proven when, after moving into the "terribly bare rooms," he invited six renowned writers and equipped them with about 200 spray cans. Over one weekend, almost all the walls were "painted," and the colleagues moved back into their old rooms as if they were new offices—so great was the difference. "But soon we got used to the colors, and today we’re all happy. Graffiti is just nicer than any other decoration," says Steigerwald. And what was particularly positive was that the employees could choose the motifs. A glance from the screen, and the surfer is in the Caribbean, the motorcyclist on a winding track. The young artists received about 200 marks per wall, in addition to significant material costs, and after press articles, further commissions between Hamburg and Vienna.
Such "legal" commissions have been increasing lately, but according to "Cowboy 69," "Sonic," "Magic," and the others gathered at Marienplatz, they are far from sufficient. "It’s like an addiction, man," says one, "you have to go out at least once a week at night and do a good piece." The gathering, initially quite cool on the hot square, gets heated after the question of what it feels like to see their finished work. They all shout over each other and can’t help but laugh with delight: "You have the color, the shape, and pure aesthetics. You spray your piece on the train that travels through the whole city, and you know: I did it. It’s like complete, total satisfaction." If something legal is commissioned in Munich, the 15- to 18-year-olds say, it’s surely not writers who get the job, but "stinking normal school classes."
Puzzle Work for the Police
They always carry a broad-tipped "tag" pen to immortalize themselves on concrete and plaster, on paint and steel. These barely legible scribbles, which always include the artist’s name and are so well-practiced that they’re done in three to four seconds, trace back to the original form of graffiti in New York and are the real point of contention for critics.
Considered beautiful by few, the "tags" serve only to make the tagger’s name known. "It’s not even about the audience, just the pure self," says ‘Toy,’ one of Europe’s great writers, who’s been at it since 1983. "That’s why I stopped doing it a while ago."
Instead, he prefers to create large, meaningful pieces, "to give these poor people in the concrete desert a good picture and joy. Sure, I do it for myself too—it’s an incredible adventure, you feel like Robin Hood—but I also always think about the people who’ll see the piece the next morning."
Such reasoning seems incomprehensible to the police. They strive, with a specially formed task force, to catch the youths. As one member of the group says, catching them in the act is the rare exception. Instead, they piece together the statements of all suspects like a puzzle, and especially during house searches, many addresses come to light. "You wouldn’t believe what we’ve found during house searches! Up to 100 spray cans and countless Edding markers. And that’s exactly the problem!"
The officer refers to the secondary crimes that graffiti spraying drags along. Indeed: How is a 15-year-old supposed to buy 50 cans, each costing over ten marks? He calls it, with a technical term, procurement crime—or, more simply: stealing. "Not only the damages of several million Marks in Munich alone should be mentioned in the newspapers, but finally also the inevitable theft." The goal of many conversations with the writers and painters, he says, is to deter the youths from illegal activities. He’d prefer they spray on legal surfaces, like the warehouses at the flea market on Dachauer Straße. The press, in his view, unfortunately too often stands behind the "vandals" and seduces youths with headlines like "Spray, and you’ll be famous." "That’s a distortion of the facts," says the investigator, "because you don’t become famous, you become a criminal."
Currently, there are more proceedings against the mostly 15- to 19-year-olds than ever before, summarizes a representative of the public prosecutor’s office: about 50 against known perpetrators and far more against unknowns. While the civil side deals with damages, the prosecutor ensures the state’s interests are upheld on the criminal side. According to § 303 of the Penal Code, anyone who unlawfully damages or destroys another’s property is punished with imprisonment of up to two years or a fine.
Spraying or "tagging" falls under vandalism. Juvenile law provides for educational measures or disciplinary actions. The chief prosecutor: "Usually, work orders are imposed, which can exceed 100 hours; for trainees or workers, fines are more common. For repeat offenders, detention of up to four weeks can be imposed, and in more serious cases, juvenile imprisonment." Parents can only be held liable for damages if neglect of supervisory duties can be proven, which almost never happens.
Against ‘Toy,’ according to his statement, investigations lasted one and a half years. By the end of the trial, there were about 600 investigation files and a damage volume of around 40,000 Marks. He reached a settlement with the MVV, under which he had to pay 4,500 marks. He got off relatively lightly, he says, but in the future, he’d rather stick to legal things. He was one of those who sprayed the "Geltendorf Train" in March 1985, at night and in minus 10 degrees. It was the first "whole train" in Europe, as the Graffiti Lexicon also notes. The graffiti composition was 53 meters long, and cleaning the train cost around 6,000 Marks, according to Manfred Adler from the Federal Railway Directorate. Today, he asks homeowners with large white walls if he can gift them a piece for free.
Below, he immortalizes not only his name but also his phone number. This has already led to many good commissions. Ten square meters cost around 1,000 Marks (expenses plus labor). But often, he sprays for free. "The most important thing is the fun; and I still have to spray a lot. I have tons of ideas in my head."
Georg Schrattenecker, head of the youth welfare office, would like to see more suitable spaces provided for the youths by the city, the MVV, factories, or advertising companies. He sees graffiti as an expression of artistic talent. "In the past, it might have been about protest, but today it’s mostly about colorfulness and expressiveness; we could all think a bit more relaxed about it."
Art or kitsch, vandalism or beautification? In any case, graffiti can no longer be dismissed today; it’s a sign of the times and will continue to stir or amuse minds. The question remains: "Can spraying be a sin?"
