Watching Paint Dry #10: “Coke and the Beat Wall”

Hey ravers, sorry no speak last week. Busy, busy in the big city, bright lights and sleepless nights and all that. Wasn’t going to talk about this but with so much hype and misinformation online about what’s what, and as I have co-incidentally seen this one go down, I thought I should. So here goes..

As I have said in my column recently, Hackney Wick is the spot for East London street art and graffiti in the last few years (in my opinion) but has been suffering a smackdown from Boris’s Olympic claw hard of late. This last couple of weeks, a particularly relevant shift has occurred: the first truly corporate image hits the usually colourfully graffed up skyline, a big Coca Cola logo. If you stand in the right place on the exit steps from the station you can see and old scroll saying “Welcome to the Wick” on the outer wall of this yard. But inside everything has been buffed away. And where once a ton of local art sat happily, Usain Bolt now towers, the large Coke logo above his head.. The Coke Red beaming off the wall at you. Mixed opinions fly across the internet and around the Wick itself. And seemingly a lot of confusion about what this wall is about, who has done it, how all this works.. No one in the Wick really knew this was happening. Mark Ronson? What you doing here? Let me break it down a little bit. It went like this..

Myself and a friend wandered by this “piece” as it was beginning, and leaping over the wall to have a nose we were immediately approached by Monorex boss Mr. Terry Guy. Terry explained the piece was being painted by a set of artists who were working for him on behalf of the Olympic committee. “Why has so much of the surrounding area been whitewashed? Are you painting all the walls all around the yard?” I asked (somewhat horrified by all the pieces gone). Terry explained, “No, but the council guys asked us to white these ones out.” And that “We’re going to be opening up the area to local artists soon for a paint jam though, come down.” Terry went on to explain how there was to be school projects here with such things as his trademark Secret Wars, re-badged for community kids as School Wars. I asked how he thought TOOF and MONKEY and other (large amounts of them local) artists who had made this spot a bit of a hall of fame in the last year or so would feel about all this? He replied saying “TOOF is everywhere anyway, he has just done New York too, his stuff is all over the place including a gallery around the corner”. Terry also explained how artists need to get paid and that a lot of other collectives had pitched for the job over the last few months. It was obviously a big job I thought there is no doubt the guys painting here are very talented guys. Artists BEST EVER, SMUG and BUSK were painting the piece. However, there are a LOT of artists in Hackney Wick and I wondered why Terry hadn’t asked locals. But I do also remember thinking to myself, ‘This is business. All business. Olympic money here. Bet these boys are getting paid through the nose. Fair play. It is what it, eh? Fair play to Monorex, they’re doing their thing. There is a bigger picture here: Olympic Business.’

A few days passed and the piece grew and grew, I watched and waited to see how it would come together. A confusing blend of sport and rings at first. With 2 life size characters developing at the very bottom. Tweets banged out, some negative, some positive. From various corners of the social media sphere pictures emerged as the painting got more and more complete. One tweet notably commenting on how the mural had “Japanese undertones” in the background as a red sun styled backdrop was painted in the early stages of this giant wall. Over a few days involving a lot of mini cranes and obviously painstaking work, the piece seemed finished. I thought “I must get some proper pics of this” but it was too dark on said evening when I was passing by.
The next day I heard various murmurings on the game grid of how there is a now giant Coke logo in the Wick. Passing the yard later that day I see the corporate logo now blazoned across the skyline and sighed to myself (it had been added the very end of the piece or I hadn’t noticed it). Corporate takeover musk sat in the air nonetheless. Later that week (after a bit of googling) I found the whole thing is basically a big coke advert with Mark Ronson and Katy B all on board (the 2 characters at the bottom of the piece versions of them, hmmmm). Today photos enter the commercial media of “B” and “Ronson” standing in front of their graffiti counterparts. The ‘Beat Wall’ as Coke have dubbed it and its surrounding project ‘Move to the Beat’ is “..all about getting teens excited about London 2012 by tapping into their passion for music and fusing it with sport” – Mark Ronson explains in this interview with the eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk.

All a bit horrible isn’t it, Mark? Come on. Coke makes you fat and rots your teeth. And in a street art sense, isn’t this all a bit stinky? To quote HurtYouBad.com, “Coca-cola have teamed up with the Olympics to paint this cheesy mural in Hackney wick of people doing sports! Covering loads of local artists’ work… So this must be part of the whole east re-generation thing?” A sentiment echoed across other graffiti blogs and sites. I just think could there not have been more community involvement with the artists from the Wick here guys? I didn’t see any. Subsequently the work has lasted a few days before being damaged but I don’t think this is surprising due to this lack of communication. Let’s be honest, half of the Wicks residents are being shoehorned out and evicted left right and centre due to these Olympics. And this corporate giant of fizzy pop decides to hammer this out right now, the timing isn’t great here. Who cuts these deals?

I have worked with and always had massive respect for Monorex and Terry Guy, don’t get me wrong. But as the Olympiad napalm falls on the residents and workers of the Wick I think this is a little rich… Again, Monorex are merely playing their role, putting the design up in paint. But who did the design? Who did the the designers consult with? Who gets the money from Coke here? Where does that money fit in regeneration? (This isn’t regeneration is it?) Where does the council sit on this? Where is the line between illegal graffiti and corporate adverts? Why is it I get arrested for writing my name on this wall, but Coke are allowed to paint a monstrous “piece” on it and hide behind cheese pop marketing? Why do Coke think anyone in this area likes Mark Ronson’s music for god sake? (Maybe that one is just me, or is it?) I think you see my point. There is a lot of grey areas here. I guarantee for no amount of money would the London council let me paint a picture of anything there. But Coke can.

So I think it’s fair to say the problem obviously lies in communication here – both the Olympic committee, Coke’s representatives and dare I say it Monorex themselves didn’t work hard enough here on a local level. Monorex are painting it, but there are political and corporate suits out here who should be ensuring this regeneration is being done properly. And from where I’m standing its failing. This piece must have cost a lot of money. I see an equal amount of negative and positive praise for it. But it’s already damaged and an insult to the Wick’s artists. What happened here? C’mon people. This is not rocket science.

Artist Neil said in eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk: “It would be nice to inspire people, especially in an arty area like Hackney Wick where a lot of people have issues with corporate infiltration. This shows them that we have tried to do something positive that is in keeping with the current surroundings.” Corporate infiltration indeed, Neil. You obviously don’t have issues with it. Fair enough I suppose, but as you say, some of the residents do. Confusing stuff, isn’t it, all this? All I know is Coke definitely rots ya teeth. Don’t shoot the messenger. Go see the dentist. I feel a bit ill from it all now to be perfectly honest.\

Respect to everyone’s opinion and everyone involved. But it’s all a bit too sugary for me, this. Think I’ll watch La Haine again and try remember what all this graffiti thing means.

Brush ya teeth and stay up.

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