Kalorama and Champlain Mural Transformation

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by Prince Of Petworth February 26, 2012 at 10:02 pm 7 Comments

A reader writes:

“Not sure if this has been published already, but found this cool graffiti at the corner of Kalorama and Champlain St, NW.”

Link is to what the graffiti used to look like:

We admired this mural back in Oct. 2011 but it’s super cool to compare it to the before photo. You can also see some close ups of what it used to look like, here.

Annonny

I pass this mural every time I go to the grocery store and just love it. It’s a great addition to the neighborhood, and captures what is so wonderful about living in Adams Morgan.

There’s another really cool mural nearby, just south-east of Marie Reed. That one was painted by Big Al Carter (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/10/AR2009011002068.html). It’s a real neighborhood treasure, too.

I really quibble with the notion that this is graffiti, however. Clearly it’s something that took a lot of planning and coordination to develop, There were several artists painting it when it was going up. To me, this is public art, not graffiti.
- admin
  
  I agree 100% that this mural is public art.
Anonymous

AWESOME! finally, a great mural in this town.
Anonymous

The “graffiti” in the first photo was a commissioned mural by the noted artist Aniekan Udofia while the new commissioned mural is by the graffiti artist Chel Love. Y’all need to pay attention before you cast stones.
- Anonymous
  
  Oops I see that it was both referred to as graffiti and as a mural on this site so it’s a little confusing
Anonymous

I love it. I think it does such a wonderful job of representing all the good things that Adams Morgan embodies.
Anonymous

Love the new work.

But I have a similar quibble to Annonny. I understand that “graffiti” most correctly denotes the style and format of the art, and the term does not necessarily imply vandalism. So at the outset I confess to probably being on the wrong side of semantics. I do think, however, that on most occasions “graffiti” is vandalism as an empirical matter, so it’s a bit of a tainted term to use with something like this. Because this issue comes up often enough on PoP, my main issue is that in this case, use of the term cheapens the effort, artistry, skill, creativity, and legality of this work (whereas on most PoP posts, I think use of the term “graffiti art” usually serves to validate criminal vandalism and minimize the culpability of the people who perpetrate it).

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