Towering over his tagline
Is grafitti art or vandalism? This artist says it depends on the intention
LAST week at our local pub, Giles, while chatting to Andy Rice, marketing guru and “living legend” (this young guy walked across and said, “Please can I shake your hand Mr Rice – you are a living legend…”), Andy asked me if there were any street people in Soweto. I know there are numerous little spaza shops along some of their roads; but whether they are entertainers, limpers or any other manifestation of street people, I don’t know. I think I should go and have a look.
THE GRAFFITI GUY
IF PROSTITUTION is the world’s oldest profession, graffiti is a close second. It has existed since time immemorial; with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire – for immediate visual confirmation of the Roman connection, watch the graffiti scene in the movie, The Life of Brian, on Youtube (shades of, “I read it in the papers, so it must be true…”).
Werner Redelinghuis, 35, is, among other things, a graffiti artist. Before I can, he asks what was going to be my first question. “Is graffiti art or is it vandalism?” Well?
“In my book, it depends on your intention,” he says. “I paint what I consider to be art – who can decide what is art and what isn’t? I believe I am adding value.” I don’t think it is quite as simple as that, but it is difficult not to be impressed by his earnestness.
Before I discuss with him the finer points of being a graffiti artist, I ask about his background. “I was born and spent my early childhood in Randfontein,” he says. “Then we moved to Krugersdorp. My mother was a cashier on one of the mines and my dad was a banker.”
After high school, Werner attended Vega College, where he obtained a degree in Creative Communications. “Then I went into animations – I was the guy who did the animations for the Verimark ads. Like the one where a fat woman gets skinnier. That was me.”
After a few other jobs, which he found would last a year or two and then the company would get rid of him, he says he decided they couldn’t handle his ambition. So, with two friends he started an animation company called Cool Your Jets, only to be “booted out” by them. “I was the third guy in a two-man business,” he says wryly. Apparently, the company is still running, and he is still friends with his erstwhile partners.
I ask when his interest in graffiti began. “The graffiti started in high school in 1998. I didn’t really fit into the art system. I thought it sucked.” He tells how the art teacher called his parents in and complained their son was refusing to conform, because he insisted on painting his elephants pink instead of grey.
“Around then my mother brought me a book from Germany on graffiti and I immediately connected with it.”
He laughs and says, “So it was because of my mother that I started graffiti. Interestingly, she would drive me around town and I would tag and then jump back into the car.”
“What is ‘tag’?” I ask.
“A tag is like a scribble, a one-liner – every graffiti artist has one – your calling card, your graffiti signature.”
Werner’s tag is Tower, which is all he SHAKESPEARE & STREET PEOPLE: I got this message from Marion Wilkins from the German school: “Some pics from our amazing, inspiring and humbling experience with Dorothy’s Johannesburg Awakening Minds group (their official name). Our kids loved them! What a unique experience!” It would be great if some other schools studying Shakespeare used them.
PHILOSOPHER PAPY: I received this in an e-mail from Denise, guardian angel to a ever paints. “I don’t leave messages. Just versions of my tag.”
“Why Tower?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “It’s a bit like when you fall in love with a girl. There is no actual reason. I just knew it was what I wanted.”
I ask if it gets boring writing the same word repeatedly.
He gets all animated and says, “Oh gosh, no! You must never run out of ideas – that’s what keeps graffiti interesting. You must never lose energy or become stale. A true graffiti artist chooses one name and stays with it.”
He says at school they had a graffiti crew called the F**ked Up Kids (FUK). “We were typical rebels; we would smoke weed, then number of street people: “I spoke to Papy earlier who said he’d called you as well. Seems like he’s become very popular with even more people phoning him to congratulate him again for being in the article this past week.” He did call me to thank me. What a gem.
ARMLESS GEORGE: Tells me he was recently at Baragwanath Academic Hospital to be measured with a prosthesis for his arm. It amuses me when we meet, because we fistpump; which means I bang my fist against his scarred stump. A year ago, there wasn’t enough money on the planet for me to do that. Now it is just like shaking hands with a mate – weird. walk through the city and paint on buses and buildings, although I would never paint on churches or on private residences.”
Interesting: a graffiti artist with a conscience.
He continues, “And we painted trains. We would sneak into Braamfontien and other rail yards around Johannesburg. I got arrested a few times and even shot at. Fortunately, I was never hit, but one of our guys was. He was a kid of 16 who was famous for his painting exploits in Cape Town. Eventually his mother got tired of bailing him out of trouble, so she sent him to live here.
“Of course, he joined us and would come on our little excursions. Anyway, one night a rail guard shot him in the leg. He had to spend some time in hospital, but in the end he was fine.”
“What was the outcome of your arrests?” “The first time they caught me, they cuffed me to the front of the train and left me there for the day. The second time they threw it out because they didn’t have any solid evidence. The third time was real trouble. I went to court for a year. At the end the prosecutor came and spoke to me. He wanted to know why we did this terrible thing.
“It turned out he had the same surname as me, and when I spoke to him in Afrikaans and apologised profusely, he agreed just to fine me.”
“How much?” I ask.
“Forty thousand rand, but then no criminal record and no jail. My grandmother paid it and I had to repay her.” He shakes his head: “It was pretty harsh.”
“Did that put you off doing graffiti?” I ask.
“Oh no,” he smiles, “the adrenalin rush is like a drug. The one time we snuck into a train yard and painted a carriage around a guard who was sleeping in it. We watched him the whole time while we worked. As we were done, we shouted and woke him up and then ran. He came out shooting. It was weird; I could hear the bullets coming.”
“When you see graffiti around town, can you tell who did it?”
“Yes. Even it is one of the new guys, whom we call ‘Toys’.”
Werner then mentions some famous graffiti artists. “Locally there is a chap called Rasty, who has been around longer than me, and a guy called Dekor_1. And there is a famous dude in Australia called Soffles. Of course, then there is the famous Banksy in the UK (who) can get up to £50 000 for a commission from galleries and wealthy folk.”
I ask him if there are any black graffiti artists. “We were the first to have black guys in our crew, when we had FUK. And there was one quite large crew of just black artists. But I do think it is a white privilege thing. When you are struggling, you don’t really have time to indulge in such pursuits, while us ‘rich’ white kids always seemed to have time on our hands, it was easier for us. I mean, my mother, as I told you, helped me do my graffiti by driving me around. So, no, there are a few, but not many.”
When it comes to paint, he uses a product called Montano from Spain and Germany. “It is specifically made for graffiti,” he says. “It is high quality paint – the local stuff is a waste of time.”
Werner gives graffiti workshops and does team-building exercises using the medium of graffiti.
“You can teach people techniques, but you can’t show them how to be original – they have to be that.”