Krog Street Tunnel and Masquerade

So I don’t post a lot of stuff from Krog Street because it changes so much and nothing there is permanent. There’s also a lot of just absolute crap in there, but after the whole debacle with the Krog Masquerade a few weeks ago and the subsequent buffing of the tunnel that got picked up by the news and stirred the social media pot I thought I’d write a quick post about it.

So for starters, for anyone who doesn’t know Krog is considered by most artists around Atlanta as an open wall. I don’t know that it’s actually legal to paint there, but usually the police won’t mess with you. I do have a friend who got arrested about 10 years ago painting there even when he had written permission from the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Association to do so, but obviously over 10 years things change. Because it’s so easy to paint there and you usually won’t get bothered, people are painting there constantly. I don’t think the tunnel ever goes a night without someone painting. I mean even after the buff a few weeks ago there were a bunch of awful tags and hollows on the walls by the next morning.

My first point here is that people who felt the tunnel was ruined or that art was destroyed were just completely wrong and know nothing about how this tunnel works. The art in the tunnel is not some sort of permanent exhibition. People paint and if your piece lasts more than 3 days consider yourself lucky. It’s an everchanging canvas.

Next, there were a lot of complaints about the buff because it was so highly publicized. What a lot of people don’t realize is the tunnel was buffed as recently as this summer, but it was’t publicized all over social media so if you didn’t ride through it in the 2 or 3 days right after, you would have never known because by the end of the week it was covered in art again. It’s not an uncommon thing for the tunnel to get buffed a few times a year.

Last I had a bunch of people ask why the tunnel was buffed. Well first it was because the tunnel was chosen for this party due to the art on the walls as a backdrop. The organizer had murals on the walls which were all painted for free that he thought would be a cool background. It was a way of not having to pay artists to paint backdrops for a party anywhere else. Second, Cabbagetown/Reynoldstown has 3 throughways to the north, Krog Street, Boulevard, and Moreland. Krog is the main throughway and is in the middle between Boulevard and Moreland which are each over a mile. The organizers original plan was to have the tunnel completely closed for 30 hours. This is not a huge deal for cars to have to go a mile out of their way, but for a pedestrian or someone who rides a bike this is significant. It’s not going a block like in most neighborhoods. In addition emergency vehicles would not be able to use the tunnel. The same 2 miles could be life or death for someone having a heart attack. In addition to get back to the other side of the tunnel going through Boulevard would mean going down Carroll Street which is a 2 way nightmare of a road that should probably be 1 way. Lastly the organizer went to the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Association meeting where they voted not to support the party. He then completely avoided the Reynoldstown Neighborhood Association meeting and went straight to the city permitting instead.

Now that that’s all out of the way, the good news from all of this publicity. More big name artists have painted Krog Street in the last week than probably have painted there in the last 6 months. Unfortunately just like before the murals are very temporary and many are already covered. I went by a few days last week and took pictures of some of the new art which you can see below.

Questions? Feel free to post in the comments!

Chris Veal 20141028_143437[1]

Never

Nels – well known for holding down this end of the tunnel that hangs out on the Dekalb Ave side.Catlanta – probably his first graffiti in 3 years and by far better than what he used to paint.David Byrd Kat Stockton Unknown Artist Fiest Unknown Artist Nick Benson Sam Parker Vedo