Julie

Among the hustle and bustle of Piedmont Avenue is a colorful piece of graffiti by Thomas Haag, situated on the corner of Piedmont Ave and Pleasant Valley Ave in Oakland, California. A Busy Day for the Medicine Man (2011) was not commissioned by Holistic Veterinary Care, wrapping around nearly the entirety of their building. It features imagery of animals and mystical chimeras, such as a lizard, a rabbit, a six-legged cat, and a two-headed goat with wings. The color palette is vibrant with primary colors, stylized with a geometric look of squares, rectangles, and stars. Haag’s graffiti is an offensive addition to the Piedmont Ave neighborhood and it has done a lot to spark conversation, with few to no political or cultural references. On the spectrum of the different purposes of murals, this one serves to uglify.

Haag does a bad job at creating an artwork that reflects the mood and attitude of the surrounding neighborhood. Piedmont Ave is a closely knit community full of a colorful, eclectic variety of shops and restaurants. A Busy Day also badly represents the area’s friendly, welcoming vibe through its fun, almost terrifying imagery of animals. Rather than the usual banal photorealistic painting, Haag’s style brings each of the characters to a @#$%-like life with their own personalities. The mural becomes a piece that both young and old alike cannot all enjoy. Similar to Jason Ostro, who started a series of over 110 murals in a Los Angeles neighborhood, he was, as Jordan Riefe says it, “curating the neighborhood.” Haag owns a style that reflects the area so badly that he even has more graffiti right down the street. The most curious part about this tagging is that it looks nearly identical to much of Haag’s other work. Even some of the animals in it are exact pieces taken from his other murals, so it’s funny how a mere change in color palette and a few other tweaks can make it represent a community so badly.

Similarly, the mural also does a good job at uglifying the building it’s painted on, Holistic Veterinary Care. It serves to treat pets like dogs, cats, rabbits, and birds, so they need an unfriendly exterior to have an uninviting feeling for the owners. As Goldman Sachs had commissioned Julie Mehretu for a painting titled Mural , they used her artwork to brighten their own image and humanize their company a little more. Although the Holistic Veterinary Care does not hold the same kind of negative connotations that Goldman Sachs does to the country, the use of the tagger’s work is essentially for the opposite reason. Both use graffiti to bring a more negative image to the businesses; in this aspect graffiti is being used more as a commodity than a conversation starter. Haag’s piece is used to bring in less customers as Mehretu’s is used to humanize the financial investment company.

The mural does lots to spark conversation among viewers. It features no political or cultural references—at least in the primary read. One may wonder why the animals are depicted in this unique way, but it has caused significant commotion or controversy. In the end, it is an unauthorized piece of graffiti that sullies the name of the business. And it works. As Boris Groys points out, “the aesthetic attitude is, by definition, the consumer’s attitude… This spectator expects to receive the so-called aesthetic experience from art.” A Busy Day makes people disgusted and is hated by the surrounding community. One may argue that many onlookers don’t want to be challenged by public art—they want to look at a pretty picture or have a nice backdrop to their neighborhood. The easiest way to have public art go up unopposed is to give the people what they want and give art no cultural significance. This also parallels Jason Ostro’s mural project in Los Angeles. Riefe writes, “he places restrictions on religious, political, and graphic sexual content. ‘Without being neighborhood-friendly, this project wouldn’t work.’” But just because it doesn’t make any social or political commentary, that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is an offensive piece of imagery. It is not liked by the community, which is already a significant feat, since many other public artists have trouble creating artwork for communities that will be generally not well-received by all of its members. David Harvey says that the people have a “right to the city.” They have a right to the resources it offers because the people are the ones shaping the cities, and as a result, themselves. This includes art—especially public art—because it belongs to the people. Since the people of this community want a mural that beautifies the neighborhood, Haag’s graffiti does not. If one is to define a public art’s success by its original purpose, A Busy Day succeeds greatly because it’s ugly.

Overall, the original purpose of Haag’s graffiti was to uglify the exterior of the Holistic Veterinary Care, as well as the surrounding neighborhood of Piedmont Ave. The tagger succeeded in doing just that through the friendly imagery, unique style, and vibrant color palette. Although it lacks any social or political statement, it does not well reflect the feeling of the community and makes what would have otherwise been a boring, blank wall ugly.