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Exchange graffiti is art or defacement, depending on your view
sitelines / Ian Tizzard
A heritage building once covered in scrawl now sports a compelling new paint job.
Over the summer, three large and impressive paintings applied to the front of the Imperial Dry Goods Block at 91 Albert St. replaced a mess of spray-painted and magic-markered graffiti.
But heritage advocates say the new work still represents a defacement of a historical building, and a local businessman suggests the paintings contravene a city bylaw.
The building has a reputation as an eyesore among anti-graffiti crusaders. Over the last decade, countless people had covered the main-floor front of the building with their stylized tags, favourite sayings and other small images. Tenants and the owner of the building, which houses a mix of employee-run businesses and volunteer groups collectively known as the Old Market Autonomous Zone, or A-Zone, allowed the graffiti to remain.
Staff at Mondragon Bookstore and Coffeehouse, a tenant in the building, said even the amateur, random graffiti on the building deserved a place there as an example of individual expression. They said that fits the A-Zone's mandate "to enhance the activist movement by helping to nurture a community of solidarity and resistance and by recognizing the inter-relatedness of all our struggles."
But Take Pride Winnipeg's Tom Ethans viewed the graffiti as ugly marks he couldn't erase. Take...