Tags have appeared over part of the Chasing Waterfalls mural in the Bond St alley, completed in January last year by visiting artists Emmanuel Jarus, of Canada, and Caratoes, of Belgium.
Among those annoyed at the damage is Blair Hesp, the managing director of medical communications company Kainic Medical, which operates from a small office in the alley.
Mr Hesp said he chose the location because of the alley’s unique environment, including its street art, which he used to help brand his business.
His company’s office had also been tagged before, but the latest incident was "just really, really disappointing", he said.
"It’s kind of a form of plagiarism. It’s just people trying to get a name for themselves ... by sticking their tag on somebody else’s work, which is just ridiculous — but it drags it down."
Mr Hesp said the street art provided a point of difference for visitors to the city, helping draw people in, "so it’s a real shame to lose some of that".
"Once it’s gone, once somebody has done something stupid to it ... you can’t just sort of paint over it.
"It’s quite fragile. You can’t just always fix it."
Scott Muir, chairman of the Dunedin Street Art Trust, said he that was aware of the damage, but not when it occurred.
Street art was an "evolving landscape", and the damage was "annoying". Most taggers respected the city’s street art, he said.‘‘It’s a shame it’s happened with this one, but I guess it’s slightly out of the public eye.
"We don’t usually get this sort of thing and we certainly don’t condone it."
The city’s street art brought "immeasurable" benefits to the city, mixing contemporary art and the city’s heritage buildings, he said.
"We’ve put a brooch on an old coat, as my partner likes to say. We’ve made the city sparkle a little bit."
The damage would be assessed to see if it could be repaired, but the difficulty was in matching colours exactly, he said.
"We’ll do what we can with this one to bring it back to life."
He also offered an olive branch to the taggers, saying a "changing wall" in Rattray St — with murals which were replaced every few months — might provide an alternative outlet for them.
"If they want to talk to us ... we’d be happy to talk to them.
"We’d rather the taggers respected the work of the other artists because they’re out there trying to do the same thing. They’re maybe just at a different place in the journey."
Related Stories
Comments
Shouldn't be too hard to track down taggers. They are not original or creative- just following a what they see from another country in films and videos. Often children. We found one on his Facebook.
Tagging can be brilliant art in itself.After all Basquiat was a tagger. But tagging street art is the work not of a tagger, but of a moron.