An Open Letter From Falling Whistles

Only Time Will Tell from Vans The Omega on Vimeo.

I am not really sure what to write here other than another beautiful mural in Los Angeles is gone. This one was named “Only Time Will Tell”. Murals in LA are a endangered species not only from the law makers with vendettas but people pasting advertisements over them. This is the fourth mural in a month that has been destroyed by advertisers using street art tactics. Its part of the game to get dissed by jealous haters, or buffed beige by the city, but it is especially difficult to swallow when a nonprofit raising awareness for a noble cause decides to blatantly disrespect you. I hope that every time I blow a head gasket over this issue people become more aware that they are encroaching into a world they obviously don’t understand and that there is a code of conduct that must be respected. Murals are our artistic legacy in Los Angeles and we as Angelinos need to be protect them……

The nonprofit group Falling Whistles is sorry for the destruction of the mural.

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Dear LA neighbors, artists and anyone else-

We screwed up.

Three years ago we learned about a war in Congo. A war that has taken millions of lives and continues to rape and kill daily.

Since that day we have hitchhiked, ridden bikes across the country and gone door to door building a coalition of people who want to see peace in Congo.

In our travels, the first place we felt truly welcomed was the Arts District. This was the neighborhood that accepted us for who we were and showed us – literally on the walls – how to speak up.

And so it was tragic to learn today that other members of that community felt disrespected by us and our actions.

After weeks of searching for a free wall, the wall on 2nd and Garey was donated to us. We were told by the building manager that the beautiful mural on the wall was scheduled to be sandblasted clean to the brick in the next 2 months. Before the wall was cleaned, we wanted to use it to make a statement of solidarity in the community.

And so we gathered hundreds of faces from around LA and Congo who all stood for an end to our worlds deadliest war, and we pasted them side by side. Instead of asking for signatures, we asked for faces. And each of those faces will be faxed directly to the White House.

The man in the center of the wall was a music photographer in the 70s who documented the peace movement of Dylan, Marley and Hendrix. The man on the left built a hospital in the war-region and does over a dozen surgeries a day for raped women and injured children. The woman on the right has pulled together women from across the war-region to take a stand and publicly take rapists to trial.

It was not our intention to disrespect the artists of that wall. Or any wall. We love the art in our community and treasure the freedom to say what we feel however we feel it. The point was to elevate the heroic nature of protest. And give people a chance to make themselves heard and seen. Something this neighborhood helped teach us.

But in the end, we did all of this on the wrong wall. And we screwed up. We respect the time, energy, money and talent that went into creating that mural. To the MSK crew and supporters – we apologize.

Had we known yesterday what we know today, we would have gone directly to the artists and talked about how we could do it together. We did not.

We learned today of the campaign against LA’s recent mural ban. Whistleblowing, like art, is about saying what needs to be said. And we are joining a chorus of voices in saying that that this ban must be revoked.

There is an important blog about it here http://saberone.com/blog/2011/09/19/art-is-not-a-crime…end-the-mural-moratorium/

We are committed to partnering however we can to gather signatures for this petition, offering policy support and doing all we can to continue to make our city an evolving, provocative, and beautiful place.

Tomorrow at 6pm, I will be at the wall at 2^nd and Garey to speak openly and freely with anyone who would like to talk further.

Sean

FALLING WHISTLES

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ARTISTS WHO WERE FEATURED ON THE 2ND STREET WALL

REVOK1

RIME

DABS & MYLA

ASKEW

VANS THE OMEGA

DEUS

SCORE

WITNESS

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Read more:

Revok Mural in L.A. Arts District Accidentlly Plastered Over by ‘Peace in Congo’ Campaign - LA WEEKLY

Group Apologies for Covering Iconic Street Art Mural - LA Times (L.A. Now blog)

Congo Charity Pastes Over Graffiti Crew’s Mural in Downtown Los Angeles - Huffington Post Arts

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