Street art vs. vandalism

There's a fine line between the two... don't you think? I have seen some pretty amazing street art here and in other cities that I have lived in. There are massive spray-paint murals in NYC and before it was shut down, 5 Pointz in Queens was a museum of sorts where street artists could hone their skills in an environment where they were allowed to do so.... well, by appointment, you couldn't just rock up and start painting.

Pieces were routinely painted over and new artists were brought on board as well. If you were thinking of heading out there to check it out in Queens don't do so because it doesn't exist anymore. The building was demolished in 2014 to make way for a new development of some sort.

The point of all this is that there is a very distinct difference between vandalism and "art" in my mind and the other day I found a great example of this.

It is located at a bus stop near the beach in Da Nang, Vietnam and while the original tag was decent, it isn't really that great. All the other tags that have come since then are trash and the "signature" on the original indicates that this was made by someone who isn't even from here and is likely from Korea.

The biggest problem that I have with it is the fact that this is public property and this means the "artists," even the original one who didn't do terribly (but still isn't very good) certainly didn't have permission to do this.

There are loads of places around this city that I have encountered where the artists are allowed to do what they are doing and their pieces always end up looking better because, I presume, they don't have to be worried about getting arrested.

I love street art, but hate vandalism... and this bus stop is the perfect example of where that line gets crossed.