It’s not so obvious while walking around the immaculate first district that Vienna, like Berlin, has a thriving community of graffiti artists. While Berlin’s taggers work on buildings all over the city, Vienna’s use the Donaukanal as their canvas. Last week, walking with Kavalier along the canal en route to his new apartment, I happened across this:
A giant pack man monster and a gap-toothed frog, looking terrified as his princess goes in for the kiss (just a theory). Since then, I’ve started seeing the same tagger’s work all over Vienna – along my run up Rechte Wienzeile to Schonbrunn and in several spots along the canal. We also saw this kick ass chicken:
A lot of the groups of (mostly) kids working on graffiti have a cameraman on hand to record the evolution of their projects. I’ve always wondered why that is, and today I serendipitously discovered what they do with the recordings: youtube. Do a search for “Graffiti Donaukanal” and you’ll find hundreds of clips of teenagers spray painting in Vienna. Though I warn you, they’re not exactly Hitchcock films.
Madame Seguin 