Bob Donovan and TRUE Skool

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher believes Alderman Bob Donovan owes TRUE Skool an apology.

Schumacher writes:

Political theater is one thing. It’s what Milwaukeeans have come to expect from Ald. Robert G. Donovan. But to look a group of young people in the eye and call their art and their efforts at bettering the community and themselves “crap” is something else altogether.

This is what Donovan did when he called a press conference and released statements last week attacking TRUE Skool, a non-profit group that works with at-risk young people through neighborhood cleanups and public art projects.

What prompted Donovan to point his finger toward the group, which has been around since 2004, was a temporary mural that a police captain told him would “give him a stroke” and which was created by an artist and a few students during TRUE Skool’s annual block party in Walker’s Point.

What’s the alderman’s beef? He’s concerned about illegal tagging and the toll it takes on neighborhoods and property values — legitimate issues, certainly.

But the perfectly legal mural that Donovan found offensive — for no particular reason other than its general style and look — has little to do with any of that.

Obviously, Schumacher has not been battling graffiti in her neighborhood.

Did Donovan lash out and exhibit a lack of control? Yes, but he's fighting to protect and defend the rights of the individuals in his district.

A mural, "RAW LOVE," goes up and so does a slew of illegal tagging nearby. That's a problem. There's a problem when "artists" create victims.

Legitimate artists don't express themselves on others' property without permission. They don't express themselves illegally. People who do that are vandals. They're destructive, not creative.

Schumacher doesn't get that.

Public art and murals have been around forever; but graffiti that reflects gang-related activity and a criminal lifestyle isn't something to be encouraged.

Yes, Donovan became very animated in his opposition to TRUE Skool's mural. Could he have been more reserved as he relayed his concerns about its impact on the neighborhood? Yes.

However, I think it's wrong for Schumacher to dismiss the reality of what graffiti means to a neighborhood. It means decline. It means a decline in property values and quality of life. It means crime. It means feelings of insecurity and danger.

That's not art.

It's easy for elitists to celebrate graffiti as art because they're detached from what it really means.