Thursday, January 24, 2008

"4Give Yo-self"

"4Give Yo-self"

"4Give Yo-self"

That was the message scrawled across two separate buildings at Tucker and Chouteau this morning. Somebody else (more important than me, perhaps) must have noticed it, because about 8 am today there was a NestlePurina PetCare security truck parked alongside Tucker with its lights flashing.

The security officer was standing on the sidewalk photographing the graffiti, scrawled easily 10' tall (maybe taller) along one blank brick face of a Purina office building, and the rest of the graffiti on a rusty corrugated metal building behind the security officer.

I wonder what the message is here? It could be directed at anybody and everybody, from Mayor Slay to Purina itself (given its minimal role in the tainted pet food scandal last year), to all the capitalists on their way to work.

Hmmm.

9 comments:

theresa said...

At the abandoned gas station on Vandeventer between Chouteau and Boyle, a white small semi-truck has had the "4give Yo-self" message painted on it for quite a while - six months, maybe? It appeared at about the same time as other graffiti on the buildings in the triangle between Vandeventer / Tower Grove / Race Course ave. I think there's more on the Friendly Trucking co. on the other side of Vandeventer.

Anyhow, these seem to say who needs to forgive themselves - it escapes me now, but it's something like Red Fox... Not THE Red Fox, I assume. But it unfortunately does not seem to be a rallying cry against rampant capitalism or our hopeless dependence on fossil fuels. ;)

I would love to know more about it too. And whether they ever caught the Anarchist?

Anyhow,

Anonymous said...

4GIVE in red paint 10'+ recently appeared on corrugated metal west side of Tucker.

Anonymous said...

That would be the work of prolific tagger Ed Boxx / Redd Foxx. He's also a fan of writing permutations of his names, drawing images of cats and cigarettes, and of writing "get up! get god!"

Anonymous said...

I particularly noticed "Sit Up, Get God" on the old Hyde Park Chair building.

Murphy said...

There is a similar message scrawled upon the old Federal Mogul building that sits alongside Interstate 40 on Forest Park Parkway.

Geo St. Louis lists that there is already a complaint about the graffiti, but in a case listed in 2002, the resolution line merely said, "to high to reach".

I wonder if this might not happen here.

Doug Duckworth said...

The more tagging the better. Makes the City interesting.

ps2100 girl said...

driving east into downtown on highway 70 in early january i saw a whole bunch of these boxx/foxx tags including 4give yo-self and get up get god, probably 3 to 5 tags, all extremely visible while driving by, all in impossible places.

can't remember exact locations, but it might have been around the 10th street exit, maybe a bit before, one was on some steel girder latticework i think, another high up on a brick building...can't remember specifics but the tags obviously stuck in my mind.

pretty awesome, hope they're still up.

anybody got any more information on the artist?

Life said...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimblahg/2459973835/

Here's one of "Red Fox 4Gives You", I believe off 70 that I took last spring. These Red Fox/4Give tags always get my attention- I always wonder what they mean and why he chose Red Fox but see now it is just based on Ed Boxx, yeah?

NW Professional Tax said...

At least he is not tagging highly negative things like you see all over the cities usually. If someone is going to tag the city at least its semi-positive.