‘Tagging’, that controversial combination of vandalism and urban self-expression, made its way from the US to Europe in the late 1970s and has taken deep root there ever since. In the Paris area, where most of these photos were taken, cleaning up after taggers remains a significant expense: more than 4.5 million Euro (around USD $6 million) per year, according to one estimate.
What’s the CC connection? Well, Paris’ famous covered markets are serviced by a fleet of independently owned, small box vans and refrigerated trucks (many quite old) that serve as sort of portable warehouses to feed the market stalls throughout the day. Parking spaces designated for delivery are tight and limited in number, so to get a good spot one often has to get there the night before the market day. White truck sitting unattended overnight: tagger comes along with his or her spray can, and voila. The police do what they can, and persons caught tagging can be fined thousands of Euros for a single offense, yet the practice goes on.
Lowest of the low are those who mark their presence with little more than a hastily-scrawled signature. These are generally considered pure blight by anyone not a tagger themselves.
Peugeot Boxer, 10th Arrondissement, Paris
Peugeot Boxer, 12th Arrondissement, Paris
One small step up are the more ambitious characters who spell out their street names in calligraphy, in forms known as ‘bubble’ or ‘wild style’, among others.
Iveco Daily, Zone Industriel du Coudray, Le Blanc Mesnil
Mercedes TN/T1, 12th Arrondissement, Paris
Renault B80, 12th Arrondissement, Paris
Of considerably greater interest are the more elaborate mural-like works created by multi-member ‘crews’ and that may take several hours to create. Some of these are likely to be actually commissioned, or at least tacitly approved, by the vehicles’ owners.
Renault B70, 12th Arrondissement, Paris
Saviem SG-series. 12th Arrondissement, Paris
Toyota Dyna, Geneva
This is just a taste. Although I’ve long had an interest in photographing urban ephemera of various types, I’ve tended not to focus much on vehicle graffiti. If you want to see more, a pretty good treatment of the subject can be found here.
Postscript: if you happen to be in Paris and care to seek out some of this on your own, look to the side streets near one of the covered markets, such as the Marche d’Aligré in the 12th Arrondissement. Other possibilities are the gentrifying warehouse district near the Porte de Pantin, along the Boulevards La Villette and Belleville, and near the Canal de l’Ourcq, all in the northeast part of the city.
Well, I’m not driving my white Transit Connect to Paris anytime soon.
About 10 years ago I owned a white, 1992 Civic CX hatchback. I wanted to paint it to resemble one of these trucks but couldn’t find a book or magazine to show a body shop what I wanted. It’s probably just as well
Here in north Florida, folks were divided about a year ago on the subject of “tagging”. A local artist was painting Keith Haring-style drawings on public buildings and on roadside “furniture”, like utility control boxes.
that explains the white van i saw in paris in 2014 with all sorts of tagging on it. could not read the script style but between the words and the images it was quite busy and yes, i would call it art, at the same time. i have a picture of it around somewhere…….
_Some_ it is not only art but very good art at that .
No matter how good it looks , if you do it without permission on someone’s vehicle or property sans permission it’s vandalism and the perp oughta have his hands broken at the very least .
-Nate
+1 Or more seriously, put to work painting park benches & the like.
“Self-expression” is Special Pleading, a lame excuse for petty crime, and BTW most graffiti I see is unintelligible except to insiders such as gang members. Let taggers “express themselves” in solid monochrome.
Just so Neil ;
I’m old and grumpy so anyone who destroys my property gets harsh treatment , your way is better because they’ll maybe learn a thing .
I agree that old empty buildings etc. make for good places for budding artistes to practice .
Vandalisim OTOH , is bullshit specifically created to garner a negative response .
Now please : GET OFFA MY LAWN ! .
-Nate
I always found a huge disconnect with graffiti “art”, it’s either shitty scribbles like the first van(which is by and large the most common form) or elaborate bubbly multicolor murals, which are pretty impressive. I’m a philistine when it comes to art though, I think the stuff the “artists” scribble over is usually way prettier than the childish angst driven crap they draw all over it, whether it be an old bridge, a building or even a box van. I’m just amazed at how little graffiti has evolved and how long it’s endured, there’s nothing on these vans that looks any different than what I’ve seen footage of on subway cars in the Bronx in the 1970s
I should mention that when I was looking up info on the vehicles, it runed out that most of them could be as much as 15-20 years old (and the Saviem maybe early ’70s), so potentially some of the graffiti may go back a ways as well.
I think we can all agree that a delivery truck in Paris has a harder life than most.
The line between blight and art can be a fine one. It’s all vandalism either way. Though sometimes interesting results can come of it–my city found itself a few years ago with a disused bus maintenance depot, a large complex of several cavernous buildings. They decided to let local graffiti artists have free rein to paint the buildings, and some truly impressive murals evolved, and are still present (they’ve since closed the complex back up but they’re visible from the street).
I also never knew there was such a truck as a Saviem until now. Looks like a potential CC itself independent of the “decoration”.
What’s with the bikes leaning on the trucks or locked to the trucks? Those trucks look active, not abandoned. Is there a law that a truck can’t move until bikes are cleared? Or are the bicyclists trying for an insurance claim? Doesn’t make sense either way.
Maybe the bikes belong to the truck’s owners or friends and they all know the bikes are there. I used to lock my bike to my Caprice’s front bumper sometimes which also got varied reactions.
As far as I can tell, the trucks move infrequently, taking advantage of the unmetered parking spaces earmaked for ‘Livriasons’ (deliveries). They thus act as semi-mobile warehouses.
For example, if you look closely at the Saviem, the cab is completely filled with flattened boxes.
Regarding the bikes, the locals know that the truck is unlikely to move while the market is open, so they lock up to them.
Nice article and photos of somewhat pretty vandalism which I am going to now look up some more and those covered markets sound neat. Do you think the spray paint ruins the radiator eventually? In Riverdale Bronx the taggers/artists there would leave their mark on mudflaps, side view mirrors, tires, the roof, and sometimes the glass as well as license plates. U-Haul Trucks not parked within the Razor Wire ringed fence at the local place really got it bad.
France is an amazingly structured society, even when it comes to anarchist behavior, so there seem to be rules for this sort of thing. I can’t say for sure, but it seems like:
1. Commercial vehicles are fair game
2. Private and passenger-carrying vehicles are left mostly alone
3. Windows and mirrors do not get painted over
4. The more elaborate murals generally will not be messed with by taggers.
That is true, and well-observed.
My only misgiving is that, given that Rule 1 already applies, there is no solid reason why Rules 2, 3 and 4 should hold very long.
Rule 1 is the practical and moral equivalent of taking a crap on somebody else’s doormat. If that is viewed by society as legitimate and even commendable behaviour, then unfortunately I can’t see the logic of keeping a ban on taking a crap on, say, somebody else’s kitchen floor as well.
Therefore I think it’s only a matter of time before some (cough) artist endowed with that kind of brains and moral fibre, going down a street with no available commercial vehicle in sight, looks around him and goes “hey, what a nice private passenger vehicle / window / mirror / elaborate mural, let’s scribble all over it!”. And it will be hard to object to this line of reasoning (short of course of the excellent “Get offa my lawn” rule which should have applied in the first place).
Love tagging, the dynamics are incredible.
I would much rather see this “street” art than some corporate
billboard.
They should evolve their art, spray paint the billboards white 🙂
I take photos of trains here in the US and am amazed at some of the quality of the graffitti. I saw an autorack that had a really good painting of MLK on it that from 100 feet looked professionally done. The “artist” must have had a long time. It actually looked BETTER than the statue that they put on the DC mall
that tag has a lot of history
These people are thieves and vandals. They should be publicly flogged. That would be better than if I got to them first if the did this to a car I owned.
I could see myself actively commissioning someone to do this to a tired old plain white cube-van if I owned one.