Very subtly put. Without going in to detail, and not in any way wishing to encourage any illegality of any kind, it will often be found that those who support the activity of such 'artwork', when confronted with same type (of attack) upon their own property, are the first to dial three 999's!
Even agricultural buildings in a National Park. It's a widespread societal issue, not just railways or transport.
Absolutely agree. On every train I saw whilst I was over there.
Not just the trains. Also bridges, retaining walls, station buildings, signalboxes, locomotive depots, etc. etc.
That's not a new thing, it's been going on for decades.
Graffiti on trains has been around for a long time, what changes is the TOCs tolerance of it.
Similar feeling here. I've noticed that the better the local art school the higher the quality of the graffiti in the area. Based on the price of spray paint and the quantities involved, I'd guess it's not a poor mans activity.
It's an unsightly mess and if l had my way the perpetrators would be sentenced to clean the damned stuff off themselves with minimal equipment.
Absolutely this.
The trouble is, you really can't differentiate between 'good' grafitti and the rest of it, as it's entirely subjective. It remains vandalism and criminal damage, that doesn't change based on the finished result or the identity of the vandal.
That's a good point. Why is so much of infrastructure designed and built in such boring colours and bland geometric forms? Road bridges in the south of France are a nice shade of blue, there are sculptures along the roadside. Even noticed the TGV line to Bordeaux has maritime motives cast into the concrete on bridges. Maybe artists should be involved in big projects much like the archeologists.
It's certainly an interesting point that where 'approved' artwork installations exist - e.g. the numerous station murals around the network - they seem to be left mostly untouched by the local yobs, which is a good thing but something that always surprises me! So yes, maybe we do need more of that.
Where do murals end and graffiti begin?
In legal terms yes, but in terms of artistic merit? In painting or sculpture, for example, does a work have more merit if it is commissioned than if it is pure inspiration?A mural is painted with permission of the owner of the thing it's painted on, graffiti isn't - that's fairly easy!