The
so-called "Halls of Fame" in Hamburg
Naturally, there is also a relatively large number of
surfaces on which legal spraying is possible in Hamburg. Many people confuse
these with genuine "halls of fame".
"hall of fame" hardly signifies a space of fame where
only the best are authorized to paint, but rather legal surfaces
where anybody can go ahead spraying, as long as he finds a free
space or is convinced that his quality is so good that he can
cross out somebody else.
Nearly all greater walls have writers or crews, who have legalized them
at some moment in time, or who take care of them for such a long time
that only these writers can give the license to spray. Anyone with a
longer experience in spraying on legal walls knows, how fast the owner
can change his mind and the surface becomes illegal again.
In fact
specially Hamburg has a long tradition in this. Great legal "halls of
fame" like Glomm or Pein & Pein who helped the old school to really go
at it legally, turned illegal as the rubbish and tags grew excessively
in the neighbouring streets.
Later on single writers or crews took care that under their
responsibility chaos at and around the place were avoided.
A good example for this is the Stelling wall which was legalised
at the end of the '80s by one writer and where my crew TCD and
myself could create large murals for years on end.This wall
especially was under the control of police and the city authorities,
who had to authorize any paintings. It was situated directly
at a big intersection of important cross-roads in Hamburg
which thousands of motorists passed by each day, and it would
have been an ideal place for publicity. But the police feared
it would distract the motorists too strongly. So they refused
any such demands from the big companies.
We were very happy that our pictures were considered not dangerous for
the traffic and could plan and realize many big murals in regular
intervals.
If other sprayers wanted to work there, conflicts would be avoided by
prior discussion. It was self-understood that cans and rubbish were
taken away, be it only to avoid that children or toys could cross the
newly created pieces.
The Altona School is another example for large
murals which were meticulously elaborated. The gymnastics hall served
as exercising ground to a graffiti course early in the '90s. When the
course finished, it was used by Hesh, Panik and Skena for further
spraying. Time and again the pieces were crossed without authorization
by others.
The concierge watches more and more as to who sprays there and
also the director watches the tags which get more numerous every
day. A number of times he intended to delegalize these surfaces.
After all, there is enough illegal space to fool around.
DAIM |
