Jackass sprays graffiti on glacier

Jan Philip Scharbert was caught on camera by tourists as he sprayed graffiti on a glacier and the rock walls surrounding the ice in Franz Josef, New Zealand. Scharbert, a 28-year-old visitor from Munich, was nabbed by police as he boarded a bus to split town. From The Press in Christchurch:

(Constable Paul) Gurney said it took Scharbert 1½ days to clean up his handiwork, during which he was severely dressed down by passing glacier guides and tourists.

Police said (the Conservation Department) was satisfied with his repair job, meaning he escaped a wilful damage charge and left Franz Josef "in one piece".

Link (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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The Snowden Principle

Deidzoeb

When you paint things that don’t belong to you, it can’t be art. Like the Sistine Chapel. Oh, I mean unless the owner is a patron who wants you to do it, and then suddenly it becomes art. Because owners get to tell the rest of us to do.

Let’s pretend that property has been fairly distributed. Wheee!
noen

@ 23
Its hard to put into words just how angry seeing someone’s shitty little tag scrawl made me, but it was pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted to see after hiking the hell away from the noise/pollution of the city.

Did you see any petroglyphs along the trail? Other than 10,000 years what difference is there?
Takuan

petroglyphs then would have been the best, most relevant social art you can name today. Graffiti then would have been smearing your shit on the remains of the kill to keep anyone else from enjoying it.
dragonfrog

#36

The difference is obvious – the geezers who disapproved of the 10,000 year old petroglyphs have been dead 9,993 years, and had no lasting medium in which to express themselves except other petroglyphs.

They don’t tell you about the ancient dyspeptic rants in the cave down the valley from Lascaux.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Darrell, you’ve posted the most self-righteous comment in the thread to date.

What is art: art is singular, intentional, non-utile, and an article of commerce.
Pipenta

This fellow did not intend this to be art. He was marking territory. What an doink. The tradition way to do it, pissing in the snow, works just fine.
Antinous

They don’t tell you about the ancient dyspeptic rants in the cave down the valley from Lascaux.

True, and thanks for saying ‘dyspeptic.’ Relatedly (maybe), people frequently remark on the wonderfulness of artifacts from past eras and how everything now is crap. But really, it’s just because people have had centuries to throw the crap away and only the best stuff is left.

And I love graffiti. Not on glaciers or in Griffith Park, but in urban areas, I would much rather see buildings covered with it. It’s a dynamic visual expression of vibrant, irrepressible life. It makes me feel human and alive and part of the growth and decay of history itself.
alisong76

#17: Bwahahahahaha! You win the internet! :-D
FutureNerd

Things to write on glaciers:

THE MOVING FINGER

NON-ATTACHMENT

SISYPHUS
soupisgoodfood

Bloody hell. It doesn’t even take a half a brain and a little taste to realise that most tagging is simply immature vandalism (especially if you are 28 — time to grow up). Some of it might pass as art, but it’s a rare case, and this isn’t one of them. Did he think people wouldn’t mind because it was a glacier and will be gone in a few years? Did he not think it would be disrespectful? Or perhaps just too arrogant to care?

Please don’t tag our glaciers. They already have enough to deal with.
Takuan

“Finally he remembers the words from the Rinzairoku, “When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha”, and he resolves to go ahead with his plan. He enters the Kinkaku and sets the bales on fire. He runs upstairs and tries to enter the KukkyÅchÅ, but the door is locked. He hammers at the door for a minute or two. Suddenly feeling that a glorious death has been “refused” him, he runs back downstairs and out of the temple, choking on the smoke. He continues running, out of the temple grounds, and up Mount Hidari Daimonji, to the north. He throws away the arsenic and knife, lights a cigarette, and watches the pavilion burn.”
Sensoz

While I think what the guy did was terrible, this is yet another chapter in the “BoingBoing Snitching” book. Clapping hands at ratting in general.

“Guides removed the glacier tagging with their ice axes”

That probably did more damage to the glacier than spray paint. I’m talking damage, not pollution.
adammetal

its only art if it’s on a piece of paper.
Antinous

the “BoingBoing Snitching” book

Is that on Amazon?
Takuan

pity about all those old masters on canvas and linen
dragonfrog

Indeed, please do not tag our glaciers, or any other thing that is already beautiful and would not be improved by graffiti.

Please, however, do tag the dead, grey, slablike cement factory on my bicycle route to work (actually the best graffiti is on a dead, grey, slablike warehouse across from the cement factory). Better yet, take your time and make a nice well-composed piece. Please piece the ugly green dumpsters in the alleys behind the highrises downtown. Please piece any of the oppressive monoliths of civic concrete with which city hall defaces the landscape (as if by coincidence) only in working class neighbourhoods.

Note, if you will, that a case of someone writing graffiti on something that’s beautiful is rare enough to make news. Nobody remarks on it when someone writes graffiti on something ugly, and makes it beautiful, or at least less ugly.
Takuan

in simple terms, only an asshole doesn’t understand what to tag and what to leave alone.

JAN PHILIP SCHARBERT! INTERNATIONAL ASSHOLE!!
darrell

@39:

Oh wow, you got that? Congratulations, welcome to the internet.
Antinous

@49,

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Nato Welch

Question: was the art any good?

I sense a new business model; sell ads on glaciers. The money can go to climate change research, and remediation.

Wouldn’t it be neat to be able to create a layered, claymation-style animation that falls off, piece by piece, in slow motion?
Takuan

can someone please get me Jan Philip Scharbert,International Asshole’s email address please? I wish to write to him and explain why he is an International Asshole. I am concerned he does not know.
Dayv

Lesson 1:

It’s only a crime if you get caught.
Santa’s Knee

Answer: If you actually READ the article, you would see the image showing that it was crap.

And, no, it would not be “neat” at all.
Takuan

what? not even one kick with a massive boot? Surely a little caning? I have it; he can swim with the NZ freshwater eels for a few minutes.
Mike8787

#18: Because fair means equal?
palindromic

This reminds me of hiking in Griffith park in Los Angeles, in the lesser known western part no less, and the explosion of invectives I unleashed at finding that someone had ‘tagged’ a rock that was a good 2 miles up on a formidable climbing trail. Its hard to put into words just how angry seeing someone’s shitty little tag scrawl made me, but it was pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted to see after hiking the hell away from the noise/pollution of the city.

What I can’t grasp is how someone could think that this was a good place for their pathetic little non-statement in the world. As if we’d stop and say, “oh shit, RoSCoX was here?” and then briefly pause to imagine how badass he or she must be, for climbing all the way up the same trail that hundreds of other people do on the weekend.
Giovanni

tagging a glacier doesn’t that clean it self up like sidewalk chalk?
Antinous

There are formidable climbing trails in Griffith Park? Cool. Let’s see pictures.
Takuan

so they tag to prove they were there. very well, stake them out for a while on that very spot.
Maurice Reeves

I vote for him having to spend the next 6 months working for conservation projects in NZ. That, and he has to be Al Gore’s personal towel boy for an additional 6 months.

If that doesn’t scare him down the straight and narrow, nothing will.
Anonymous

1. He’s a toy. Keeps writing the same style since years (decades?). Neither clear outlines and better colors nor legal pseudo reputation make it better (www.lackaffen.de)
2. He’s from MÃ¼nster not Munich, were you can see his crap.

Now you know…

(funny, nevertheless)
Anne K.

I think they should have set some keas on him or something. The Franz Josef is awesome.
gd23

#23 Well you obviously still remember it… so “Mission Accomplished” I’d say. ROFL.
gd23

and why are you all so grumpy today?
ZzmeeY

I know, people like Philip was born for making follies. It’s normal…
mujadaddy

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaahahaha!

…

It occurs to me that “cleaning” a glacier is just like melting it. More laughter ensues.
Ryan Waddell

What a douchebag. I went on a full day glacier climb back in May… Franz Josef is an absolutely gorgeous natural work of art, and the thought that some idiot would think it funny, or cool, or in any way a good idea to deface it with spraypaint is absolutely mindboggling.

Oh, and to #4 – the ice part of the glacier, sure, it’ll be melted and washed away in a week or so. The rocks? Not so much, since the glacier is steadily receding.
Takuan

because of all the hot-button choices today
Antinous

The look on his face is identical to a cat’s when you walk in on them in the litter box.
subversionary

Yeah- I’m all for graffiti art in urban areas- but, around natural phenomena- for severe punishment. This guy’s a punk.
yooper1019

There are times when my nonviolent nature subsides and I think cutting off people’s hands would be a great deterrent for others!
minTphresh

#15 here is pretty much the definition of art: art is what the artist says it is. good bad or indifferent, immaterial of the medium.
Landowner

Nato Welch

When you spraypaint things that don’t belong to you it’s not “art” and it’s certainly not “good”. I’ve seen some cool stuff on railway cars. But on a spectrum of things acceptable to spraypaint, railway cars are on one end and rock walls at glacier parks are at the other.
angryhippo

#30: So if I caught someone tagging my home I could beat them about the face, step back and say “look at my art”? Sweet.

Taggers are pathetic punks.
gabrielm

Speaking of graffiti “enhancing” natural areas…

Reminds me of this poem I came across in the Southern California wilderness.
strathmeyer

“I sense a new business model; sell ads on glaciers. The money can go to climate change research, and remediation.”

Great, do something that ruins the environment to do something that does absolutely nothing to improve the environment but will make some people money. Sounds like it will work.
Antinous

When you spraypaint things that don’t belong to you it’s not “art”…

Legality has no bearing on whether or not something is art.
alejroth

I think the attitude of “Clean up your mess” and be publicly shamed while doing it is probably the best deterrent. I doubt this punk will ever spray anything he canÂ´t really claim.
Now, how do we put this in action on a corporate level? Can you picture the CEO of Exxon cleaning up a spill? Or GW-bush in Irak? Mmhh, this could turn into a photoshop-friday project!
darrell

Wow…you can just smell the self-righteousness in here. How DARE someone disrespect what I consider to be beautiful?! HOW DARE THEY!

Guy was probably a dick, but all the people in here who are selling the “graffiti on railcars is one thing, but on rocks it’s evil” line are guilty of a bit of dickery as well.
Landowner

Legality has no bearing on whether or not something is art.

Yeah, something is art when smart people like me say it is. I’m saying that it’s not art. So it can’t be. bbbbbppppppttt….
Antinous

I actually don’t think that it’s possible to define art. Whether it’s good or bad is irrelevant, because opinions change. It could be defined by intent, but lots of good, practical design is great art without ever having any intention besides functionality. If I had to choose between the crappiest graffiti and some of the randomly piled crap featured in major museum exhibitions, I’d probably pick the graffiti. We’d be happier if we abandoned the concept of art and just view objects as objects that either please us or don’t.
Seedouble

#33, I can’t agree with someone tagging on glaciers in my country. A shitty building on my street? I don’t really care. But (probably toxic) spraypaint on a glacier? GTFO my country.
Frank_in_Virginia

#11, No. Railway cars and rock walls at glacier parks are on the same end of the scale. Vandalism is vandalism.

But, on the lighter side, too bad he didn’t have a chance to finish and add a Creative Commons tag.
Automatt

Spray painting other people’s stuff makes the neighborhood look crappy and makes me sad.
Deidzoeb

For punishment, this bastard was banished back in time approximately 15,000 years to live in a cave in the area that will later be known as Lascaux, France. That’ll teach im!