For years the plywood boarding up the unoccupied storefront at the northwest corner of Honore and Milwaukee was prime band-poster space. Then a couple weeks ago the wall was covered with a large-scale graffiti piece. The painting showed a cityscape with one word on each building: it can happen anywhere, the message read. A big-bosomed cartoon woman stood demurely off to the side; next to her the word axe was written in a familiar angular style. At first glance it just looked like bad art with a confusing, vaguely sexist message. But if you looked closer you noticed a black bullet-shaped can in the bottom right corner and the words THE NEW LONGER-LASTING AXE EFFECT. The piece was an ad for that nasty Axe body spray for men.
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In 2000 the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance giving the city the right to remove graffiti from private property without a waiver from the owner–Streets and San just leaves a notice on the building giving the owner five days to argue that the graffiti shouldn’t be removed. The Give Graffiti the Brush program gives community groups free paint to cover graffiti in their neighborhoods.
According to its Web site, Critical Massive “specializes in artistic urban media and innovative promotions.” Its logo is a stencil on top of a messy dot of spray paint, which reflects their Graffiti Media strategy, a “unique and high-impact form of outdoor advertising [that] appeals to the urban/hip-hop lifestyle segment” and “appeals to the core emotions of today’s urban-style youth.” Dodge Magnum, M&M’s, Snapple, Reebok, and J. Lo’s perfume, Glo, are among Critical Massive’s clients; right now, by my count, there are two other graffiti-style Axe ads in Wicker Park (both on the 2300 block of West Division), though Noah Shapiro, the owner of Critical Massive, won’t confirm how many ads they’ve done in the city or where they might be found.
Marszewski explained to the police that he’s constantly painting over graffiti at Buddy, where he’s the head organizer, and at Maria’s, his mom’s bar in Bridgeport. “[The cops] were flabbergasted that I felt it was OK to clean this up,” he says. “Every time I tried to express my opinions, they said it was private property.” He says the Critical Massive guy threatened to file a complaint against him and filled out a form on the spot. According to the Chicago Police Department’s office of news affairs, the police have no record of any complaint.
The jet-set-chic easy-listening band Brazilian Girls performed in a big white tent in the empty lot next to the club. Husky-voiced singer Sabina Sciubba is the Angelina Jolie type: so voluptuously sexy it’s almost gross, and possibly evil. In the back of the tent a guy painted messy impressionistic portraits with long brushstrokes, and makeup artists airbrushed stars on people’s bodies. My friend Phoebe asked one of them to paint cleavage on her. The artist seemed kind of weirded out: after dusting some bronzing powder on Phoebe’s breastbone she called it a wrap.
