The ANTIGRAFFITIHIPHOP show was an event including a dance performance by Cross Level, a hiphop girlsband, and an installation by Kristofer Paetau with two fake wooden walls containing one (fake) graffiti painting and an overpainted graffiti which was replaced by two posters (the Antigraffiti manifesto hereinafter).

Quoted from THE ANTI-GRAFFITI FAQ:

www.dougweb.com/faq.html

Fundamentals:

The Truth Has a Way of Making Itself Obvious

The fundamental emphasis of any graffiti abatement program is the prompt removal of graffiti damage. The faster you remove it the faster the problem diminishes. Most successful programs have a 24 hour or less abatement rule. Cities that are serious about removing graffiti aggressively use their graffiti ordinances.

The difference between graffiti and art is permission.

Cleaning graffiti is hard work.

Cleaning graffiti is expensive.

Graffiti often damages surfaces to the point of permanently changing the character of the surface and the character of the neighborhood.

There is no such thing as a graffiti artist. Anyone who still believes that is a graffiti advocate that has an agenda.

Painting over graffiti damage is, in some cases, the only way to cover it up.

Framing graffiti with paint attracts the attention of the vandal on repeated occasions. When you don't match the color, or just paint over the tag, you invite a return performance by the vandal. The paint job looks terrible and so does your building! Take time to do it right!

Graffiti advocates consider any attempt to abate graffiti ridiculous. They threaten to expand their vandalism to new levels if you paint over their work.

Graffiti writers do turn their lives around and become productive, responsible members of society. When you can engage a vandal in conversation stick firmly to the truth that graffiti is vandalism. Once in a while a discussion like this can help turn someone around. Some of the vandals are indeed socially undesirable. Others are just kids with an attitude. Deal with the attitude and bring the kid back.

Parents are held responsible for graffiti damage. Moms and Dads: discipline, respect, and self worth are all learned at home. When you don't teach and reinforce positive traits in your children you may have to pay for it.

Vandals are held responsible for graffiti damage.

When vandals are caught, they are prosecuted.

Some vandals steal their paint.

Regardless of what you read at the Art Crimes web site, much of today's graffiti is indeed gang related (turf marking, drug oriented, or hate type) tag graffiti. Travel through any large communities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even my little town of Pleasant Hill and it becomes quite obvious.

Art Crimes is clueless. The number of persons actually interested in painting pretty pictures must be minuscule when compared to the amount of bad talent and gang graffiti out there. The gang vs artist debate is a smoke screen used to placate communities. Graffiti advocates want you to look the other way. The few who are not in gangs don't want you to feel concerned or frightened when a gang moniker or the tag from a violent crew appears on the power pole in front of your home. The graffiti advocate knows if you are concerned about the effects of graffiti, the "graffiti artist" down the street might get extra attention from the police. Tagging crews are a gang of sorts, since they are involved in illegal activity that can include theft of paint and markers from stores, violence against the public and other crews, as well as misdemeanor or felony vandalism. Graffiti vandals are indeed in gangs! Anyone who tells you otherwise is uninformed or is trying to deceive you.

Essential elements of a zero tolerance anti-graffiti effort are:

1) response time
2) wall-to-wall identical color matching, proven to reduce the odds of recurrence by as much as 900%, and
3) economics, the way your community decides to clean graffiti can reduce your community's over all abatement cost by selecting new technological advances in color matching. One major supplier of color matching technology is ProPaint Graffiti Systems.

You may never eliminate graffiti in your town but you can control it through abatement.

Coiled concertina wire (barbed wire) and huge rat guards protect freeway signs from graffiti vandalism in Southern, California. Ask the graffiti advocate if this ("tagging the heavens") really contributes to a beautiful community? Ask graffiti advocates if vandals falling from freeway over passes is part of the thrill. The vandal's relentless attacks on public property prompted this extreme action.

The anti-graffiti movement is a swelling grass roots cause consisting of persons in all occupations, socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds. We are conservatives, middle of the road, and liberals, of every color in the rainbow. We are not "right wing militia psychos" as one graffiti advocate characterizes us. We are committed to ending the tragedy of graffiti. We are fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. We are grandmothers and grandfathers. We are families and civic groups. We are volunteers and businesses alike dedicated to ending this madness we call graffiti. We are tenacious. We are relentless. We never give up. We know the difference between graffiti and art. We care about our community and the people in it.