W O R D S B Y T R A C E Y C O V E A R T, P H O T O S B Y K E R I A N D E R S O N ( @ K E R I J E A N S )
Queen West’s Graffiti Alley: Canada’s most beloved street art galler y One of the most mesmerizing art galleries in the world is not a gallery at all, but an alleyway that has become famous around the globe for its eye-popping street art. Queen West’s iconic Graffiti Alley – a threeblock, one-kilometre continuous concrete canvas along Rush Lane from Spadina to Portland – is not only one of the city’s most celebrated and colourful attractions, but also the battleground where street artists scored their first major victory in Toronto. The ‘vandalism versus art’ debate has long been a hot button issue between business owners, politicians and talented aerosol artists looking for a legitimate outlet for their creativity. For years, they came to Graffiti Alley under the cover of darkness to paint. Their pieces were cultural treasures but, according to the law, if they were created with spray paint, they were considered
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graffiti vandalism, which remains illegal in this city as it is in most parts of the world. In 2005, the city enshrined its anti-graffiti laws in Chapter 485, which specified that: a) No person shall place or cause or permit graffiti vandalism to be placed on any property; and B) The owner or occupant of property shall maintain the property free of graffiti vandalism. Championing the municipal code, former Mayor Rob Ford went to extraordinary lengths to expunge graffiti, which had continued to proliferate in spite of its illegal status. His guarantee to remove defacement wherever it existed sparked one of the city’s most public conversations ever about the subject (and, ironically, made the mayor a favourite figure in street art across the city). His eradication campaign went so far as to encourage Torontonians to use a dedicated
Smartphone app to photograph and report graffiti in the city, leaving property owners to pay the clean-up bill. Several years before Ford became mayor, however, a movement to legitimize the graffiti art form had taken hold. In 2003, event organizer Janna Van Hoof started Style In Progress, a not-for-profit supporting all forms of hip hop, including graffiti art.
Artists are required to get permission from property owners to paint, and while commissioned and approved “aesthetically enhancing” art murals and street art are exempt from Toronto’s anti-graffiti vandalism bylaws, unauthorized graffiti tagging is still a criminal offence.
