Spud takes aim at Mayor Ford in Toronto graffiti show
Toronto’s war on graffiti opens a new front on Thursday when Spud, one of the city’s most visible graffiti writers, takes his art indoors for a show of new works centred on the war’s commander-in-chief, Mayor Rob Ford.
The show, called Censored, at the Don’t Tell Mama gallery on Ossington Ave., is a full-sized exhibition of Spud’s work, indoors and on canvas for the first time. The medium may have changed, but the message has only sharpened, he says. “Let’s just say it’s all art with the mayor in mind,” Spud says.
The gallery won’t release any images until the official opening Thursday night (you can check out a video at Toronto.com), but Spud’s exterior body of work offers some not-so-subtle clues of what to expect: a wild-eyed Ford caricature in neon blue. A writhing wormlike creature fitted with Ford’s head.
“Let’s just say it’s all art with the mayor in mind.” SPUD GRAFFIT WRITER
Calls to the mayor’s office were not returned, but gallery owner Paolo Dalla Rosa said the gallery received his RSVP immediately. “It apparently conflicts with his schedule,” he laughed. Whether the mayor appears or not, Dalla Rosa says the show has a greater intention than sticking it to Ford. “We’re here to say that this is a legitimate form of art, by a very talented artist,” he says. “We don’t condone illegal activity, but that shouldn’t delegitimize what Spud and others do as art.”
Being illegal, though, is an important part of street art. “Part of the idea is that we don’t ask permission: we just act out of passion,” says Spud, who won’t divulge his real name and when he appears in public as Spud, it’s with a mask.
Spud wasn’t the only local graffiti artist to join the battle when Ford first made a public display of his mission to rid the city of what he saw as bothersome defacement. Within days of launching the initiative Ford had become an unintentional street-art superstar: A writer tagging his works “DMC” festooned alleyways with a maggot-like creature bearing the mayor’s laughing face, and completely covered the back entrance of a Queen St. business with an amorphous, flesh-toned hive replicating dozens of Ford-like creatures within.
Ford-based works have become so ubiquitous, Spud says, that he and several other graffiti writers are helping to produce a documentary on the work and the war itself, called Between the Lines.
Graffiti culture has always thrived on its own illegitimacy. Nonetheless, the past decade has seen an upsurge in the form’s acceptance as mainstream and legitimate. Banksy, the British graffiti prankster, has become perhaps the most famous artist of any kind in the world and certainly one of the wealthiest: his works typically sell for millions of dollars.
Spud says he wasn’t seeking fame when he started his assaults on Ford’s policy. As the Ford administration started hitting local businesses with orders to remove graffiti — in some cases, graffiti they not only tolerated but liked — property owners started to turn against writers they had previously supported.
“He started this war,” Spud says. “What did he think, that no one would push back?”
As for the gallery show, Spud says he’s not sure what its impact will be. “I haven’t really thought about the grand plan,” he says. “But I like controversy. It feeds the fire.”
Just don’t expect to see him at the opening. “Or I might be. You’ll never know,” he laughs. “I’ve got 10 body doubles, like Saddam Hussein.”