Beautiful and illegal

Last week, property-owner Adam Corlin unveiled a four-story art installation filled with a lot of color and meaning, but today--unless some drastic can happen, Corlin will have to take down the installation.

The art-work was a collaboration between west-coast graffiti legends, Risk and Retna, (both recently featured at the record-breaking "Art in the Streets" exhibit), who created it to help promote a Coastal Clean-Up Day (Sept. 17) by the non-profit environmental group, Heal the Bay.

However, not long after the unveiling, Santa Monica city police and code-enforcement officers showed up at the property and have threatened him with fines. Corlin told the LA Weekly on Friday that if it is not taken down by today they will even take the case to the L.A. County District Attorney's office. He was quoted as saying, "I think they just used the build department as an excuse to get me to take this down. . .There's a double standard going on here. Somebody doesn't like the art or the message or the artists."

This is something for all art-lovers to ponder: What kind of fucked-up society are we living in, when good artists and building owners, after teaming up to bring awareness of a much-needed pro-environment message--and doing it in a beautiful and creative way--are then told by city officials that the art has to come down!?

How would you handle this if this you were running things? It's pretty obvious to me, that the only thing keeping us away from this beautiful installation, are some real wack city officials with little appreciation and understanding of art.