As we briefly talked about yesterday, NOLA Rising’s Michael “ReX” Dingler has emerged victorious in his battle with Fred Radtke, a.k.a. “The Gray Ghost.” Radtke took it upon himself to turn in Dingler to the police for placing original artwork around New Orleans, and Dingler faced $50,000 in fines and a possible jail sentence.
Today, Dingler posted a full account of yesterday’s court case on his blog. One of the more interesting (to us, anyway) points:
“RAdTke produced from his grocery ba[g] of cheap tricks the ANTIGRAVITY articles that first called into question his tactics, which has since become an issue that has cost RAdTke funding.”
I thought this would be a good time to clarify our stance on The Gray Ghost, so we blogged parts 1 and 2 of our late-’07 story on Radtke, and I’m going to talk about it in general.
Neither ANTIGRAVITY as a whole nor I as a citizen condone graffiti or defacing public and especially private property. I don’t know how much clearer I can say it—illegal graffiti is wrong, and so is any changing of property that doesn’t belong to the person doing the changing. You may wonder why I’m repeating myself, so I’ll tell you why: there seem to be people who believe that our piece on The Gray Ghost and our support of NOLA Rising means that AG is in favor of illegal graffiti and similar illegal acts. While distributing AG one month in the Marigny, I was verbally assaulted by a man who thought that our articles “invited graffiti artists” to hit Coffea and other businesses in the area, which is the farthest thing from the truth and not what our point was. We were specific in calling graffiti an “art-crime,” which is what painting on someone else’s property without the owner’s permission is. The point of our article wasn’t to praise graffiti artists, it was to call attention to Radtke because we believe that his actions are just as illegal as those of the graffiti artists.
It would be a simple matter of opinion if Radtke were simply covering up graffiti in public places, but he’s also covered up private art that was legally bought and paid for by owners of buildings and also painted on buildings despite the true legal owners specifically asking him not to. Because of these actions plus reactions from the citizens it represents, the Vieux Carre Commission has a problem with him, as noted in our articles. Yes, it’s true that his actions are technically approved by the city of New Orleans, but it’s been pointed to again and again that it’s sometimes by omission—the city doesn’t have the resources to take care of the graffiti problem the right way, so by default it lets Radtke run rampant. If our article caused a couple of Radtke’s “sponsors” to think twice about give him funding and/or materials, well, to put it quite frankly, more power to us.
Radtke accused Dingler of unlawfully putting art in public places, and the judge essentially found him guilty—Dingler is no longer allowed to post NOLA Rising artwork in public places. I’ll be as clear as I can: Neither I nor ANTIGRAVITY condones Dingler, Radtke or anyone else painting or placing materials on property owned by someone who doesn’t want it. It’s that easy. We do support people who want to have artwork on their own property and their right to not have it painted over by someone who deems himself judge, jury and executioner.
I would like to add that I do not paint on peoples’ property without their permission and any time I have used spray paint for a mural, it has been with the owner’s consent and not in the form of street-style graffiti. All artwork that NoLA Rising has done has been installation pieces that are easily removable for the enjoyment of the viewer to take home with them. We also made scores of street signs in post-K times to help people identify streets, alert people to school zones and traffic hazards and, yes, signs of hope when we could. We’ve sent artwork to over 30 countries now and well over 100 cities around the world, all for free and in the name of the city for which we live…to showcase the spirit of New Orleans and let anyone interested to know that we have here an artistically viable community that remains strong. Some people like to call me an opportunist, but I have accomplished no real financial gain from this. In fact I’ve lost. The real gain is the viewpoint in the city that has changed since it all began, the growth of the grassroots sentiment in New Orleans and the beautification of our neighborhoods in all of their many ways. If, for any reason, someone didn’t like any of the signs that NoLA Rising produced, they could easily be removed and we encouraged that. Mr. Radtke, however, made it a point to seek me out because he took offense when I called into question his tactics of “clean-up.” While there are contractor signs, music venue flyers, lost kitten postings and even Neighborhood Watch flyers with the names and numbers of the people responsible for the persons posting them on telephone poles, Mr. Radtke instead decided to cyber-stalk me to see when and where I’d be so that he could “citate” me with a NOPD officer.
BLAH BLAH BLAH, it’s all a bunch of bullshit really. It’s laughable that in the state of our city, this is a major news story. We have lovely elderly women being beaten to death by ruthless thugs. We have kids running the streets with AK-47s. And instead, the police are led to serious criminals such as myself {insert sarcasm here}. The fact that it was allowed to even get this far is fucking absurd…emphasis on the right syllables. So, for all the morons out there shaking their fists at me, I hope you’re enjoying the exercise.