Street Art ‘Shouldn’t be Privatized,’ Say Protesters Who White-Out Famous Graffiti

Atlanta, Georgia woke up today
to find Krog Street Tunnel, perhaps the city’s most famous location
for graffiti, painted over with a dull gray. Was it censorship by
the man, a crack-down on people’s self-expression? Nope,
it was anti-profit protesters.

This weekend is a masquerade ball that’s open to the public, but
tickets cost $50-$100 dollars. Graffiti artists “staged the protest
because they said they were offended by how the party planners were
using their art as a backdrop,”
according to a local news station.

“We’re not going to give away this art for free to somebody who
is trying it make money off of it. Street art, public art, should
be free for all. it shouldn’t be privatized,” an unnamed organizer

told another local station.

An street artist who goes by “Catlanta” wrote a snarky
Facebook post:

The Krog Masquerade hopes to bring out the art loving
residents of Atlanta to the Krog Street Tunnel on Saturday. We had
a similar takeover of the tunnel last night with impassioned
Atlanta arts lovers, and all of the sudden, their whole crew is
throwing shade our way. What gives, brah? You love our art, but
don’t want to listen to our opinions?

To what extent Catlanta, who
sometimes uses
copyrighted characters in his art, is opposed to private
enterprise is questionable. He gives away some art for free, but he
sells some, too. And he’s leveraged the public display of his art
for enough fame to work with the Ted Talk organization.

One of the only pieces of writing on the wall this morning was
“#KrogIsNotForSale.”

However, It’s not clear why this particular event irked
activists. The art-covered tunnel has been in movies, music videos,
and even inspired a
symphony – all profit-driven ventures.

Also the organizers of the Krog Masquerade state on their website:

A portion of proceeds will be donated to the Georgia Lawyers for
the Arts – a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance
and educational programming to artists, arts organizations and the
Georgia Foundation for Public Spaces. This enables us to
provide financial scholarships, awards, educational programs, tools
for artists as well as maintain sponsorships for our various
events.

Residents and fans of the iconic tunnel have taken to social
media to
express their thoughts. Some think the act was empowering to
the artist-protesters, others think they cut off their noses to
spite their faces.