By Dan Goodman

 

Street art is awesome. It turns a wall into a public piece of art, free for everyone to enjoy. I was intrigued when I first saw this mural on Napoleon Ave:

I wondered what Muck Rock was. I looked it up to find out she was a graffiti artists who had become pretty controversial in New Orleans after her painting of a bunch of dead presidents got vandalized and the pile on began.

Now I get the idea that some of her subject material is a little tacky, particularly her Charles Manson portrait, and the name “MUCK ROCK” reads a little too large in most of her work, but that’s not really the point. All of her pieces are very well painted and she is painting them on formerly empty walls. Since when do New Orleanians feel entitled to approve of the art of someone else? If you don’t like someone’s mural, paint a better one across the street. We have plenty examples of brilliant street art here that paints a contrast in style.

The destruction of another artist’s work is unacceptable for a community that claims to value the arts. Anything that livens up a street corner is a net positive. Even bad art is better than no art.