Weed Wolf
Street art tends to fall into one of two categories: tags that basically just show that someone with a nickname and a willingness to deface property was in a specific location at some unspecified time or self-conscious “pieces” that make you suspect they were done by an art student going through a Banksy phase. I don’t consider either category to be inherently bad (of course, I also don’t own property) but as much as I appreciate any effort to bring art to the public, most graffiti doesn’t do much for me. Every once in a while, though, someone comes along and finds the sweet spot between street art’s higher aspirations and its baser territorial impulses—like whoever’s been throwing “Oh Shit!” in neat handwriting all over my neighborhood. Weed Wolf is both prolific and conspicuous, as anyone who’s visited a Logan Square bar bathroom or seen his/her giant tag next to the Logan Blue Line stop is probably aware. The aesthetic’s druggy, but not in anything like an enlightened way—pot leaves, wolf faces, and lettering that looks like the notebook doodlingof an Endust-huffing thrash metal fan. The frequent incorporation of the number 2012 and a glyph combining an inverted pentagram and an anarchy symbol might be some sort of message, but I kind of hope not.