Published Tuesday, April 4, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Writers on the street
[Beneath this article: "Notorious graffiti team wins legal round in court"]
BY PETER WHORISKEY
His tag is ``Pest,'' and one day last month he and his crew felt the urge to paint another wall. Normally, this would entail casing a neighborhood and returning after dark with spray cans. But no more.
Pest, like a growing number of aerosol artists, is going legal.
Faced with escalating anti-graffiti measures, he and other graffiti ``writers'' have begun seeking the consent of property owners before putting up a wild-style spray image. The writers often go door-to-door in warehouse districts, offering their work for free to businessmen who are alternately bemused and mystified.
The results are startling -- graffiti murals that are bigger and more accomplished than their illegal
forerunners. Legality gives the writers more time to paint, and, as a result, the colorful urban weed is
in full bloom here and there on walls from Hialeah to Coconut Grove.
In a small section of Overtown, in fact, there are 10 recently painted walls -- all done with the
owner's permission.
``A lot of people are being arrested and a lot of the bombing places [abandoned buildings] are
being torn down or fenced,'' says Pest, an art student in his late teens who asked that his real name
not be used. ``If it's a legal wall, it gives you time to do it and make it look nice.''
GOING LEGITIMATE
While legality takes some of the illicit charge out of graffiti -- no more furtive, nocturnal spraying --
doing it legally may be improving its appearance.
The legal works are not simply the quick scrawls that can be done, if necessary, in less than a
minute. They are multicolored productions that take days or weeks to complete.
A building near Northwest 11th Street and First Avenue boasts a trippy take on Alice in Wonderland.
The wall on a backlot production studio on Northwest 21st Street and First Place, done by a crew of
German and local writers, is a surreal chess board dominated by an ax-wielding queen.
And the wall outside a closed food store at Northwest 79th Street and Seventh Avenue is a riff on a
Superman comic book, with a crowd of blue faces in a huddled metropolis.
A comic book style banner over the scene reads: ``In a gloomy world of desperation and despair, a
group of new superheros emerges to brighten the future and bring hope to a society in decay.''
The ``superheros,'' it turns out, are the graffiti writers. Their colorful ``tags'' -- their graffiti nicknames
rendered in fat, distorted letters -- float over the grim landscape like Superman.
It's typical of writers to make that a crack like that at their own fame. They're only half-kidding. They
write on walls to be noticed. They also take it as a serious craft.
During a tour with Pest and Msix, a writer with a rival crew, their conversation ranges over who is doing the best work currently, how it was done and what kind of paint was used. Both favor close-cropped hair and baggy pants. Both are high school graduates. Msix has a real estate license.
GRAFFITI CRITIQUE
They discuss one of Pest's pieces.
``You like that one?'' Msix asks incredulously. ``The letters are too stiff.''
``Too stiff? What are you talking about? It was freestyle.''
``Too stiff,'' Msix insists.
Writers like Pest and Msix can look at a graffiti and determine whether it has been painted with American or German paint -- German paint tends to offer brighter colors. (It also costs more and must be ordered by mail.) They can identify the various qualities of spray caps, which give skinny or fat lines, and go by names like New York skinnies and German fats. They differentiate graffiti by
style, the two most current being 2-D and 3-D. And although ``bombing'' or the scrawled illegal tags,
are done quickly, they respect some such works as if they were fine calligraphy.
Moreover, Msix, Pest and others interviewed said they admired illegal graffiti even if practical constraints -- law enforcement -- led them to indulge only in legal graff for now.
Driving by the old Bobby Maduro baseball stadium, Msix noticed new illegal graffiti at least 50 feet up on a wall. Putting it there must have involved trespassing as well as physical danger.
``Look! Look at that!'' he said pointing up and stomping his feet.
``That is fresh,'' Pest concurred.
``That is so fresh,'' Msix said.
HISTORICAL ROLE
In the '70s, novelist Norman Mailer could write with enthusiasm: ``What a quintessential marriage of
cool and style to write your name in giant living letters, large as animals, lithe as snakes, mysterious as Arabic and Chinese curls of alphabet when . . . the heart is hot with fear.'' And during the '80s, artist Jean-Michael Basquiat, a.k.a. SAMO, rose to fame from his graffiti origins.
Today, the form apparently is flowering on the Internet. One of the best sites, www.graffiti.org, offers a long list of links for graffiti. But in art galleries, graffiti art is prominent only here and there, in a handful shows.
Even if some do consider it art, anyway, it's still a delicate proposition asking warehouse owners for their consent.
``We have to be careful about how we ask for permission -- we don't want anyone to freak out,'' Pest said. ``I say, `You mind if we do a mural out back?' I make sure I don't say graffiti because some people don't like the idea of graffiti. They like `mural' better.''
Indeed, some people see graffiti, legal or not, as a sign
of urban chaos and disorder. But many business owners seemed pleased by the appearance of the murals, which brighten the run-down districts in which they're found.
``Some city officials came and asked us not to allow them,'' said Ryszard Domagala, who owns an
air-conditioning shop and permitted writers to paint one of his walls. ``But I think it looks very nice. Why not allow them this freedom? They just want to exercise their art.''
GRAFITTI FELONY
Pest and Msix concur. And they agreed that no efforts to discourage graffiti will eliminate the work. In recent years, the state Legislature has made graffiti a felony for repeat offenders. Cities and counties have stepped up programs to ``buff,'' or paint over graffiti, as soon as it appears, to diminish the vandals' satisfaction. But Pest and Msix compared the urge to paint to ancient longings that can never be repressed.
``No matter what they do, it's not going away,'' Msix says. ``It's as old as hieroglyphics.''
``Yeah,'' Pest says, ``because even if they make all spray cans illegal, we'll just start using chalk. And
if they take chalk away, we'll find something else. It doesn't matter what they do -- graffiti will always
be here, legal or not.''
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Published Tuesday, April 4, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Notorious graffiti team wins legal round in court
BY PETER WHORISKEY
A crackdown on graffiti has yielded no more notorious a case than that of ``Crook'' and ``Crome.''
The arrest of ``Crook'' last year exploded into headlines and 6 o'clock news coverage. Describing the duo as two of South Florida's most prolific so-called ``taggers,'' the Miami Police led news crews to tape the arrest at a Biscayne Boulevard apartment. The young man whom police identified as ``Crome'' turned himself in a month later.
But the case that was touted as a blow against an epidemic scourge has, with far less fanfare, begun to fall apart.
The key pieces of evidence linking the two men, Michael Sakezeles and Anwar Kahn, to the work of ``Crook'' and ``Crome'' have been deemed by a judge as inadmissible, illegally seized from the duo's apartment.
Several photo albums and videotapes taken from the duo's apartment allegedly link the two men to their ``tags,'' or graffiti names. But the evidence was seized without an arrest or search warrant, said attorney Steve Logan, who represent Sakezeles. Logan also called into question the police efforts at publicity.
``The police apparently had time to call the newspapers and television before they went to the apartment, but they didn't have time to get something as basic as a warrant,'' Logan said. ``Now the state doesn't have any evidence.''
Assistant State Attorney Stephen K. Talpins said police received written consent from Sakezeles for the search. But Circuit Judge Roberto M. Pineiro ruled that Sakezeles did not sign the consent form freely.
``Three police officers charged into the defendant's home, opened the bathroom door where the defendant had vainly sought sanctuary, grabbed the defendant by the arm, dragged him to his living room and proceeded to read him his rights,'' Pineiro wrote. ``No reasonable person would have thought he might be free to do as he pleased.''
Talpins has appealed the ruling but declined to comment. During arguments, however, even Talpins, who has taken an aggressive stance in the prosecution, noted the community's ambivalence about the duo's alleged crimes. Is graffiti a nuisance or a delight for the eyes?
``I have discussed the case with other judges, with prosecutors and members of the community and, frankly, everyone is split as to where we should go,'' Talpins acknowledged. ``There are plenty of people that think 25 years of prison wouldn't be enough for him. There are people that think he should go out and paint the town -- literally.''