San Francisco Music Blog

Hey, can anyone provide me with an address for this place? I wanna check it out for myself.

Interesting art work bro.

I looked through the whole post, I saw no art, just graffiti.

a forbidden wonderland of fun

That's sick, anyone with an appreciation of art of any kind would want this building to stay standing. Caltrans are probably just another greedy, power-hungry organisation, there's way too many of them on this planet.

Where is this building? I would love to explore it before it gets torn down...

Scribbled gibberish is not art.

Graffiti is art. electronic cigarettes

i've been going to this building to enjoy the graffiti for years. it's amazing, and it'll be missed.

i understand peoples rage against graffiti and the vandalism that they see it as; but i wish they could just take a moment and look at the work involved in creating any number of the pieces shown in these photos. calm down, and open your eyes. this is art. created with passion, pride, and amazing levels of talent.

it's a shame the tie building will be gone soon.

Not art? You must be kidding me. This is art at its finest, and yes graffiti is art you brainless morons. What was the first form of art you might ask? GRAFFITI...cavemen drawings. Just because you don't like it, tuff shit...get your yuppie ass out of my city you filthy scum. Otto, it is scribbled gibberish to you because you suck at life and live in a closed box. SF has slowly taken away the people's form of expression. The media has forced much of the population into believing that graffiti is terrible, and most people follow that like a good lemming should.

Bayview neighborhood off Evans along Islais Creek. Not hard to find with a little Internet digging. Watch out for asbestos.

HAHAHA the usual cadre of 'Kill All Graffiti Writers!!!!" kneejerk loudmouths shows up here, too. If graffiti writers piss you off SO MUCH they must be doing something right. When there's no where left to paint off the beaten path....look out Frisco! Go get em kids!! A pro-graffiti homeowner.

It is art, for sure. But it's also unsafe. Preserving a condemned building that massive and that old is incredibly difficult. Mourn it's passing, sure, but it's got to go at some point.

This is basically the largest art projct ever

Amazing!!!! I love graffiti, it's an amazing art form, raw and colourful. Losing a building like that is a loss, plain and simple. I hope more photographs are taken to remember it by . . . And possibly removing walls, sections, etc and placing them for public viewing.

3rd and Army

a few of the walls have graffiti on them that looks like it should qualify as art but for the most part they seem to be covered with tags. the building is old, it probably needs to be torn down otherwise someone will end up with a large chunk of ceiling falling on their head while their spray painting a wall. then people will blame the owners for negligence. saving some of the really artistic pieces would be nice but not very realistic.

I just made a public set of photos I took of the insides of this abandoned cannery.

The photos in this set are from 2005 - 2008.

Check out all of these photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/habitforming/sets/72157608689998203/

I photograph graffitti in Philly and some of the artists are as good as the ones here. It would be nice if the photographer concentrated on the art rather than the art of a decorated building. If the building could be stabilized to make it safe to enter, my guess is that it could be a tourist attraction for many people, myself included. I hope the owners rethink their decision to tear down this building. Loved the photos of the spray cans.

The "hooligans" break into incredibly unsafe buildings and risk not only their lives but also their freedom in order to vandalize and cause damage? That doesn't even make sense. If they really were out there putting in all that effort just to mess up the city, I think the city would be much more messed up. The fact is that people who go off the beaten path to do graffiti have a serious dedication to it. Even if some of their work does not look good at all, it's because they need practice to produce good work. They are brave enough to show their practice sessions to the world and expose their own insecurities, unlike most artists. Just because it is on canvas and technically 'legal' does not make something art, check out all the horrible mixed media pieces overwhelming the walls of SF's cafes and restaurants. Being able to afford art supplies does not make one an artist. And 'Wes', last time I checked, "unsupervised youth" are the most spirited and creative demographic in our country, maybe even the world.

Beautiful.

Close minded individuals take note. Hundreds and thousands of years ago, our ancestors were doing the same thing to their walls. Yes, it was art that they all related to (nature, animals, body parts), but we have evolved beyond those symbols. The language of art isn't and cannot be mono-linguistic; the diversity of this art, compared to "normal" art, is what makes it amazing and worth appreciating.

If you can't see the magnificence that is present here, then your opinion probably doesn't contribute much to the advancement of society anyway.

This is one of the saddest things I have seen happen to a city full of hidden gems including this one. It is truly a shame what a skewed perception the majority of humans have of what perfection is. If it's not perfectly square, all one color, and symmetrical it should be torn down and made that way?! People spend tons of money to leave the city to vacation in places with natural beauty that comes in organic forms yet they are blind to the beauty that lies right in front of their eyes in the form of man-made organic beauty. Many trained and untrained artists have gone out of their way and risked their freedom to pay homage to and bless the city in which they live and love. This concept must be too far ahead for the masses to grasp at this point in time. After all, any artistic movement that matters or made any sort of impact caused ripples in the flat societies in which they existed. R.I.P. TIE BUILDING and I can't wait to see the birth of this buildings replacement. Graffiti is transitory and it's creators are nomadic therefore where it occurs and exists is also always in transition. Good Luck to those who thrive off of this destruction and enjoy it, for I am sure there is a graffiti writer that thrives off the destruction or shall I say redecoration of the place you choose to dwell in.

I got to see the building in its partially demolished state in late October. Here is one of several photographs I took:

http://www.ptank.com/blog/2009/11/wordless-wednesday-demolition/

For all those who say this is not art, is far from a qualified critic. Judgement on art is not based on a medium alone, but how an artist manipulates their medium. Some of the stuff is ameture work, some are masterpiece artworks.
Just cause u use watercolors doesn't make u an artist.