These polys are like bloody children. Why the hell would you refer some one to the cops because of that if its not for some bullshit political mileage. Fair enough he’s stuffed up but so what you don’t have to get the cops involved.

Could become a little delicate if (God forbid) Pratt became Minister for Police after the next election.

This is what is listed on the TAMS website for Murals and Legal Graffiti sites.

http://www.parksandplaces.act.gov.au/__data/assets/file/12499/official_mural.xls

obviously what is needed here are more police and a zero tolerance approach to vandals.

Dunno Shauno, if the Prat has willfully committed property damage, surely it’s a matter for the police to investigate.

I’m inclined to agree with you, Ingeegoodbee – if Pratt were police minister and this happened “on his watch”, you can bet he’d be baying for blood and bemoaning the loss of all the “local sporting club’s hard fund raising work”.
Live by the sword….

Pratt by name lol

What I like most is news.com.au is reporting that the artist is asking for an apology – Pratt can not be happy about that.
This is what is listed on the TAMS website for Murals and Legal Graffiti sites.

http://www.parksandplaces.act.gov.au/__data/assets/file/12499/official_mural.xls

jr – I think that is just a list of commissioned/sponsored murals – there are plenty of legal “aerosol art” (Perish the thought I call it legal graffiti – an oxymoron) sites around canberra that are not listed in that .xls file.

The list of legal “Sites” that may or may not have sponsored murals can be found here!

Enjoy !

Pratt wouldn’t even confirm he’s going to apologise to the artist!

I call a witch-hunt!

Its amusing though and the irony of it all if thats the right word lol. The guy who is advocating a police and fascist state is about to get busted by the cops.

I’ll see your witch hunt and raise a Spanish Inquisition

Thats funny. Does this mean he has to help re-paint it?

Prat by name, prat by nature…

surely it should be up to the sporting club to call the cops, not Stanhope

Planet Rupert, gives it to him here

This guy is a complete knob. What a useless destruction of great piece of art. For what? The disgruntled old person vote?

Seriously, what was he thinking when he was scrubbing off the paint? “Oh this blank concrete wall looks MUCH better. It really spruces up this storm water drain. You know, I think we should invigorate the public spaces of Canberra with more blank concrete walls – they’re fantastic. Mental note – I must contact my dominatrix tonight and book another session – I’ve been a bad boy, I’m a dirty little miscreant, I need rules and punishment… I need my botty punished!!”

JJJ ran with this on their news this morning.

what a complete and utter wanker.

Twit.
It makes him look very very slack to have not even looked up the local graffiti laws/boundaries etc before rushing into his huge media stunt/graffiti crusade.

pratt did the right thing.

thet the daubings of some ‘artist’ can be mistaken for vandalism on public property is not entirely unusual.

its because some of the weaker softheads have caved into blackmail of ‘if we dont legally paint a commissioned mural then ’someone else’ hint hint will illegally grafiti it anyway…’.

pratt did the right thing and i would contribute to a fund to raise cleaning materials if he plans to get out there again this saturday.

i think the majority of canberrans who are tired of juvenile demented daubings littering the streetscape would agree.

it is typical of the stanhope govt that they would pay for and approve of these demented daubings.

It’s typical of a muddled old reactionary that they assume that their personal bandwagon is supported by the majority (natch, the Silent Majority).

Admit it, Pratt’s a goose and he cocked up good and proper.

that the daubings of some ‘artist’ can be mistaken for vandalism on public property is not entirely unusual.

Especially around the National Gallery during the school holidays.

what a tard. This guy is obviously out of touch doesn’t realise that graffiti is the art of the younger generation. The artwork he scrubbed out was not offensive and brightened up the dull concrete around it. With the publicity this has received, does he really think that spot will stay blank for long?? He should worry less about graffiti in Canberra and worry more about deading himself.

shauno – would normally agree with you, but in this case, i’m quite happy for my taxes/rates to pay for the cop’s investigation on this one he was trying to score points when he did this clean up and invited the media…and it backfired….the fact that he still denies that he made a mistake is more evidence to just how much trouble the local liberal party is in if this is all the talent they can muster. bonfire – this guy wants us all to do national service if he could have the power to do it. hitler started out just a knob too and what got him to where he was was people who thought like him – and were allowed to vote.

well done jgangsta – you just jumped the shark.

caf – im sure you want all the walls of your home vandalised – or is it just the walls of peoples property that you dont know that you would like vandalised ?

im sure you represent the silent minority – most peopel i know dont care for their property to be vandalised.

i also wonder if the resources the afp put into finding out the villain in this horrendous case of graffiti removal, are the same level of resources they would put into the other acts of vandalism that occur.

What a clown. While the Labor government isn’t particularly impressive, at least they’re better than the Liberals.

bonfire: Wasn’t it you that was just complaining elsewhere about someone assigning views to you that you don’t hold, then arguing against them? Right, so please don’t do that to me either, kthx.

I love the double standard compared to Aiden Bruford (sp?). Bruford defaces property and is forced to resign, Pratt does the same and won’t even apologise and.

That should end:

“and he’s in elected MLA rather than just a junior staffer.”

Well, having been elected makes it a matter between him and his electorate rather than him and his boss. But I’ll happily concede the irony.

Getting back to Bonfire’s point, if a would be vandal put out multiple media releases and then invited the media to watch the vandalism I expect they’d get very much the same sort of police attention.

As much as John Stanhope is a knob – this is why the ACT cannot have a Liberal governemnt.

Pratt’s dangerously unstable and shouldn’t be in the liberal party let alone being in government.

Bonfire is always good at confusing emotion/opinion with pure fact.

It was a legal piece of work – it was defaced illegally – by a politician – Thats the facts.

Your juvenile demented daubings as you describe them are in my experience applied by people between the ages of 25 to 40 – yes 40.

Why does art have to be within your limited perspective and not that of the wider community.

People think that people do their aerosol art to be naughty and piss of cops/citizens etc – but they do it as a form of expression – as is all types of art.

Do the world a favour and take your blinkers off.

Sue you may not like it – and you are entitled to that – but its still art.

Meant to read sure you may not like it – proving I am human and RiotACT needs a pay per use edit button.

You know with all the idiots in ACT Gov at the moment it makes it hard to work out who to vote for next year. Clearly not voting for liberal. The greens are frustrating and Labor have made everyone pay more.
I can’t understand how Pratt still has a job. This latest stunt is just a piece of what he’s done. One of his favourites is making up stories about the Police. ie, scared to walk in Woden Bus INterchange, local shopkeepers afraid of antisocial behaviour etc. He seems to be just playing with the media. I suspect the Media are the only ones benefiting from it too.

Frankly I was only surprised that 18 comments went by before bonfire put a comment up reflecting his well-established views on graffitti more broadly. I think that particular argument’s been done to death already though hasn’t it?

So putting artistic merit argument aside, it strikes me that the substance of this matter is that Pratt went off half-cocked and demonstrated poor political judgement – by any reasonable measure.

So Sue (bonfire) going by your standards it would be ok for me to walk into the national gallery with some paint stripper and wipe out anything that I don’t believe is art??

And bonfire, “defacing” storm water drains is categorically different to defacing private property like someones house. I am 100% against that, but I am 100% for increased art in public spaces.

Graffiti is good for cities.

Any chance of seeing before and after shots?

oh yes its all so imaginative and creative.

its not.

its derivative and apes a culture (the bronx in the 80’s) that has nothing in common with our society – unless you are such a dunce that you just suck in the also derivative advertising memes that are broadcast to our youth.

i see from the softheads that think graffiti is ok, that those memes have worked – clearly very little independent analysis or decision making on individual taste has occurred. you just roll with the right on culture, because you are intellectually so vapid that its easier for some third party to decree to you you own sense of taste.

i fear for our youth. that they regard this rubbish as being in the same category as williams, nolan or smart.

apropo of this – i cant recall any ‘graffiti’ depicted in a jeffrey smart work.

now while i dont pretend to be an art critic, ive wandered through a fair number of galleries and museums on every continent (except the antarctic) and looked at art from pre-history up until today.

i am still mesmerised by roam floor mosaics and fir the ct readers who saw the article on aenid on the weekend, ive seen that fkoor mosaic at the bardo in tunis – its one of thousands they have. and thats a gallery worth a visit by anyone.

i also put my money where my mouth is and have a small collection of mainly australian works, with a few i picked up overseas.

i guess this is no different to when you are a teenager and you put up picassos melting clocks poster, except that the price tag goes up.

so i reckon i know what is art and what is graffiti.

the demented daubings by untalented people, who are competent mimics of a passe fad are nowehere near the standard that one could consider ‘art’.

the fact that it is a criminal act to spray graffiti also indicates that.

once again – i think pratt has done the right thing and i hope he keeps it up.

roman floor mosaics

Melting clocks is Dali.

“…its easier for some third party to decree to you you own sense of taste.”

Ummm…. Hate to say it Bonfire, but isn’t this exactly what you’re doing? Trying to tell others what their sense of taste should be?

Speaking of museums in other parts of the world. When I first visited the Louvre museum in Paris I was struck not by the magnificent art works but by the absolute rape and pillage that must have gone on in the past to gather up all the treasures from other countries. lol

Graffiti is the art of a weak and immature mind.

my 2c’s -
1. It s freaking storm water drain. A spray painted wall is far more appealling in my mind, than rusted bikes, shopping trolleys and the odd drowned housepet/entree.

2. I always assume that those who criticise the art of others (me included) generally have no idea what they are talking about.

you still haven’t answered my question – if I believe something is an illegitimate piece of art, do I have the right to go and scrub it out?

Take the subject out of it (graffiti), and what you have is a local politician who is keen for a high profile, and latches onto law and order type issues to try to get approval.

Whatever you think about graffiti the fact is that he rushed into this without taking 5 minutes to find out the background to the issue.

He then (mistakenly) broke a law, destroyed something a local group had fundarised for, and now isn’t apologising.

It doesn’t make me think he would run the ACT well.

well in government he’d have more staff to check stuff for him…

Does that inspire more confidence?

that he didn’t check to see if was a legal piece of work is bad enough, but to offer no apology at all is disgusting.

so you’ve been to a couple of galleries abroad, have bought things you like as art; this makes you an expert on art and graffiti?? get a life, bonfire.

no-one has commented on the stupidest thing (prattest thing) our venerable mla did, that is daubing over a mural that (bonfire’s expertise aside) seemingly had at least some artistic merit in favour of those blatantly ‘urban terrorist’ tags and scrawls of ‘f*** off’ and other erudite slogans that deface public spaces.

what a pratt.