The much admired legal fire brigade graffito by Jamie and Steffi Scanlon on a pillar of the new Main Bridge in Lohr will, as is well known, disappear in the foreseeable future. It impressively shows a burning car and advertises the fire service, but is to be removed like all other graffito works on the bridge piers by the next building inspection on July 31, 2023, at the request of the Würzburg State Building Authority (we reported). The city of Lohr had mistakenly granted permission to paint. After a bridge has been swapped, responsibility lies in Würzburg. Some observers wonder whether the last word has really already been spoken. Our media company spoke to the affected and other graffiti artists.
Brit Jamie Paul Scanlon has been on the scene since 2009 and is known as the JPS. The 44-year-old has been painting since childhood and, after ups and downs, has found his home in Lohr. He describes his art as street art and his works can also be found in Spain, Norway and the USA. With the help of his wife Steffi, he realized the graffito for the Lohr fire brigade. “It’s a shame that it should be removed, for the fire brigade and for the people of Lohr,” he says. But it always happens that a work is “lost” because it is removed or the building is demolished.
Painting over a work of art, all of our interlocutors agree, is not an option. The two want to continue to work closely with the fire brigade and hope that a larger and permanent wall can be found to continue to advertise volunteers.
“Put a smile on your face”
Scanlon emphasizes that he paints “not because of illegality or rebellion”, but “to put a smile on people’s faces”. Illegal painting has consequences that you have to be aware of. But there are people who are not primarily interested in art, but in rebellion and destruction. He found the idea of ”Walls of Fame” like in Lohr and Marktheidenfeld, which could be legally painted after consultation with the city, expandable.
If you are known, people would also offer you a wall, but “a public wall where we can let off steam is always welcome,” says the artist. The subsoil is of secondary importance. Bumps made the work difficult, but could also be included.
Jakob Steigerwald from Partenstein has also painted on the pillars. Legal, organized through the Lohrer Jugendhaus. The 18-year-old is aiming to study at an art college and enjoys working in a team, in the crew. His main focus is writing. He has already made a name for himself in the Main-Spessart district, was involved in the Marktheidenfeld mouse graffito and implemented the Christmas tree graffito there. “I don’t understand the removal of the front and back,” he says, wondering whether that is power politics, whether you want to set an example to deter.
Illegal painting is out of the question for him. To avoid difficulties, he even inform the police if he is painting on legal surfaces. If angry citizens called there because they suspected something illegal, they would be appeased immediately.
“Important Art Form”
Nadine Bernard was born and raised in Lohr. She started painting in the youth center there in the 1990s. Mathilde Lembach and Heinz Schwaiger put their heart and soul into motivating the young people and bringing painting out of illegality. Painting the pillars was allowed at the time after consultation.
She has pursued her hobby with a focus on writing “for many decades with passion,” as she says. It was not until autumn 2021 that she painted together with Jakob Steigerwald in Marktheidenfeld and Lohr am Lohrbach. The 38-year-old art teacher even wrote her master’s thesis on the subject of graffiti.
She is currently the head of the education office of the city of Würzburg. It is important to her that legal spaces continue to be available so that “this creative and important art form can also be lived in the future and help shape the cityscape.”
Graffiti
Even in antiquity if there were wall paintings, pictures and messages were carved into walls and stones. The modern form of graffiti originated in New York in the 1970s. At first, markers and felt-tip pens were used, but gradually aerosol cans became the norm. “Style-writing” and “street art” are the best known forms of graffiti today, which can also be found in the area of distribution of our media company. The boundaries are not clearly defined, so there is some overlap. On the one hand it is about writing, that is letters and numbers in the broadest sense, whereby the artists often use a “tag” to represent their name or pseudonym. There are also messages, statements and greetings. On the other hand there are objects, ornaments and patterns, if art is to be presented and discussed in public space.
The originators the mostly colored, artistically drawn and sprayed works recognize each other by their style. You work alone or in a crew. The size of the works varies greatly from tiny “stencils” to extensive wall paintings. Cities like Lohr, Marktheidenfeld and Wertheim provide walls for legal painting. This is done in order to give the mostly young artists a field of activity and a meeting place and thus to avoid illegal painting. Permission to paint is given on request.
–
–
