Vancouver Art Gallery Ordered To Remove Anti-Olympics Mural

from the free-speech?-not-with-the-olympics-in-town dept

Mon, Dec 14th 2009 11:48am — Mike Masnick

Yet again, we're learning how when the Olympics come to town, your free speech rights apparently disappear. Rob Hyndman sends over the news that a Vancouver art gallery was ordered to remove a mural, because it was viewed as being anti-Olympics. The Olympics, of course, comes to Vancouver in a few months. The mural in question showed five rings, in the usual Olympic pattern, with four of the rings showing a frown face, and the fifth showing a smiley. The mural was hanging outside of the gallery, so the city claims the order to take it down came due to local graffiti laws -- though the gallery says in 10 years, this is the first mural it had to take down. In fact, when the landlord was told to remove the graffiti, he called the city back to ask what graffiti since he didn't see any and assumed the mural was fine, given the history of murals hung there. And, of course, there's already concern over a special law -- passed just for the Olympics -- that gives law enforcement the right to remove signage that they don't like.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: artwork, censorship, mural, olympics, vancouver

23 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Ima Fish (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 11:52am

So basically the International Olympic Committee exists solely to make the RIAA look warm and fuzzy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Thomas (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 12:11pm

not surprising..
the olympic committee thinks they can control everything. If you go to the olympics and take photos of the events, the committee thinks you cannot post them on anything like flickr since the images are copyright to the olympic committee.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2009 @ 12:11pm

Re:
Interesting that you bring that up. I was thinking about the royalty issues by SOCAN playing music at the Vancouver transit system the other day. Sorry to bring up a week-old story, but the licensing thing bugs me.

It seems reasonable to think Vancouver-based Nettwerk offered free licensing to their music catalog for buskers, and SOCAN wanted to put the kibosh on it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ima Fish (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 12:14pm

Re: not surprising..
"the olympic committee thinks they can control everything"

They think that because it's true, all governments so far have allowed them control everything. Any government that would stand up to them would be blacklisted. So out of fear they all bend over and take it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 12:18pm

Re: Re: not surprising..
"They think that because it's true, all governments so far have allowed them control everything."

The olympics....road map for borderless globalism much?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
known coward, 14 Dec 2009 @ 12:46pm

first vancouver then the . . . . .
Olympics, Olympics über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
|: Olympics, Olympics über alles,
Über alles in der Welt! :|
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2009 @ 12:57pm

Re: first vancouver then the . . . . .
Hmm. You may have a point:

"Canadians don't get sarcasm", was the message in a recent episode of NBC's "30 Rock". They claim that this was because Canada has a very,very small Jewish Population.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Steve, 14 Dec 2009 @ 1:19pm

Ordered to remove? Really? And they actually did it? What if they didn't, are they going take the Olympics somewhere else? I don't think so.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Westfork, 14 Dec 2009 @ 1:28pm

Re: first vancouver then the . . . . .
RE: Olympics, Olympics über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
etc...

You know, Google Translate really mangles this song...

Censorship?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
bubba, 14 Dec 2009 @ 1:47pm

great tshirt
i bet they will sell a million of these things to the people of vancouver, will they start pulling them off peoples backs?

look at athens, still paying for that olympics and now in a world of economic hurt.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Danny (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 2:07pm

This is Great!
great in a social exhibitionism sort of way.

I hope the gallery places the mural in a prominent position just inside its front door.

And I hope the copyright holder (artist or gallery) permits free online reproduction of this piece so the message the Olympics (or at least the City of Vancouver) is trying to suppress is spread far and wide.

I also agree with the sentiment that the gallery ought to leave the mural out front and force the city to forcibly remove it. The episode would undoubtedly be captured on video and posted all over the Internet.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Danny (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 2:08pm

Re: great tshirt
I will certainly buy a shirt!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2009 @ 2:27pm

They should sell poster size prints of the mural at the gallery. Oh and of course you should only be able to buy it with some other credit card than Visa (the only card accepted at the olympics? WTF?)

===Jac
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2009 @ 3:38pm

Re: This is Great!
I bet they make them remove it from public display in any format, outside or inside.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
interval, 14 Dec 2009 @ 4:03pm

I bet you dimes to donuts if it was an Anti-USA mural there'd have been no problem. The gallery probably would have gotten a positive write-up in the Sun.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
interval, 14 Dec 2009 @ 4:07pm

Re:
Hey, the Nobel Committee exists solely to award laureates to people it deems fit the European Socialist agenda, why can't the Olympic Committee schill for the RIAA? We've all got to serve somebody (apparently).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Thomas (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 6:23pm

A great idea...
Make 10,000 t-shirts of the "grafiti" symbol and get 10,000 women to wear the t-shirts and challenge the Olympic people to remove them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Dec 2009 @ 6:57pm

Re: A great idea...
"Make 10,000 t-shirts of the "grafiti" symbol and get 10,000 women to wear the t-shirts and challenge the Olympic people to remove them."

Based on a limited sample size of Canadian women I've seen, that is a horrible, horrible idea. You are awarded no points, and my God have mercy on your soul...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JustMe (profile), 15 Dec 2009 @ 6:26am

Re: Ima Fish
ROTFLOL
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2009 @ 10:18am

anyone know where theres a picture of the mural?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mike42 (profile), 15 Dec 2009 @ 10:58am

Re:
There's a pic here: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/32424

Love to know the name of the artist, and the name of the work. This should be free press for the artist, but the news people f*%ked it up.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
btr1701 (profile), 15 Dec 2009 @ 2:31pm

Re: Re: not surprising..
> > "the olympic committee thinks they can control everything"

> They think that because it's true, all governments so far have
> allowed them control everything.

Well, if this specific case had happened in the USA, it wouldn't have gone far. The city can kow-tow to the Olympics and pass all the special laws it likes but none of them trump the 1st Amendment. Ordering an art gallery to take down a mural like that would violate about a half-dozen constitutional free speech precedents and would be quickly reversed by judicial order.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
sarah, 19 Dec 2009 @ 3:24pm

QUALITY I really like this blog, now im not 1 for adding links in my replies but I feel this is a great exception, I read a blog like this on http://www.graffiti-art-murals.co.uk by a graffiti artist called Banksy & another great bunch of graffiti artists called the Graffiti Kings.
[ link to this | view in thread ]