While shooting GLYPHS last Thursday on this fabulous decaying metal grid, I noticed and loved the tag in silver sharpie. I even asked the photographer to work it into her shots. First let me say I'm a sucker for silver sharpie. It works the same way as white gold against grout: pure, reflectant shimmer. It pulls me in and makes me look again. It disappears at certain angles and pops again with the right lighting or movement. It leads to the same embodied interaction between viewer and context that I love in glass and gold.
Second, I do admire an artful tag--not going there on the 'art vs. vandalism' thing. I get this basic human impulse to transform a simple 'I am here' into a beautiful calligraphic form which exists objectively in the world as a physical mark. For me the egocentrism of the act is mitigated by the flowing, rhythmic script--rendered in sparkling, shimmering sharpie.