Admirers Call It Art, but the Police Call It a Problem

 

An exhibition of street art that opened last week has been responsible, the authorities say, for a new wave of graffiti on buildings, lampposts and mailboxes in downtown Los Angeles, forcing a fresh crackdown on an activity that the police thought they had brought under control. And it has put them in the awkward position of trying to arrest people for doing something that is being celebrated by the city’s cultural establishment.

On another level, the exhibition, “Art in the Streets,” has fueled a 40-year dispute about the nature of graffiti and the appropriateness of a mainstream arts institution, like the Geffen Contemporary wing of MOCA, conveying legitimacy on an activity that some people see as nothing short of vandalism.

“It sounds like every nitwit around is down there trying to take advantage of these admirers of graffiti,” said William J. Bratton, who served as police chief in Los Angeles and commissioner in New York and in both places made eradicating street graffiti a top priority.

Mr. Bratton said he was not going to call on the museum to shut the show down — but he would never visit it. “What was expected to occur has occurred in the surrounding areas,” he said.

A French tagger known as Space Invader was detained and released by the authorities after climbing down a building near the museum this week. The police now believe he was responsible for a tag later found there and are trying to find him again.

Jack Richter, a senior lead officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, said that was one of a number of graffiti episodes in the neighborhood of Little Tokyo that he argued had been, at the least, encouraged by “Art in the Streets.” He vowed to prosecute anyone caught defacing public space, even those whose work might have made it to the big leagues of the Geffen.

“They will go to jail, sir,” he said. “This not a ticket. I will put them in jail myself.”

Jeffrey Deitch, the director of MOCA, said that reports of tagging linked to the show were exaggerated, and that the museum was ready to send a crew of workers to paint over any graffiti found in the neighborhood.

“It’s actually very minimal,” said Mr. Deitch, and paying too much attention to it was only going “to encourage vandalism where the exhibition discourages it by emphasizing the positive direction that young people can take to channel their talents.”

The exhibition, a year in the making, fills 40,586 square feet and is the most ambitious of its type, museum officials said. As such, it suggests a final validation of graffiti as an art form.

Forty years ago, Taki 183, a graffiti writer in New York, became a symbol of urban life run amok as his distinctive tag turned up on subway cars, bridges, schoolyards and walls across the five boroughs. Taki’s tag is on prominent display here, and the artist himself turned up for the opening. The exhibition includes a sweep of street artists, including Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Chaz Bojórquez, Henry Chalfant and Banksy.

The show itself appears to be a huge success. On Thursday morning, a line snaked up the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open at 11. By noon, the huge expanse was filled with people examining the galleries in an atmosphere of intense interest.

“I was skeptical before I came, but I think graffiti like this is art,” said Eric Watson, 42, a filmmaker. “Look at the way kids here are engaging in it.”

Cynthia Miltenberger, 39, an arts educator, scoffed at the notion that this had anything to do with what was going on outside — or in fact, that there was anything wrong with graffiti. “It’s a way of encouraging people to express themselves,” she said.

Niels Kantor, an art dealer with a gallery on Melrose Avenue, said: “People have to realize that art has to start somewhere. Cavemen drew on walls.”

In many ways, the battle in Los Angeles reflects what has been a recurring argument in cities around the world: Is graffiti a legitimate form of art? Should society be trying to quash it or validate it with exhibits like this? Indeed, the conflicting sentiments could be found right inside the museum the other day, where graffiti over sinks in the men’s room had been painted over.

Mr. Deitch said the exhibition was designed to present graffiti in a historical and critical context, showing the chronology of the development of street art and the connections between various artists. “I want people to look at this and understand this is an important contribution to contemporary art,” he said.

Officer Richter said he had been over to look at the exhibit a few times.

“I think graffiti is so yesterday,” he said.

 

At Swatch, an Enviable Problem: An Excess of Eager Customers for Its Products

Swatch, the world’s largest watchmaker, is rushing to add factory capacity so that it can make enough watches to meet demand. It wants to add as many as 2,000 employees this year — about 1,500 of them at home in Switzerland. But it is struggling to find enough qualified people.

“Managing our stock is at the moment not an issue for us because demand is so big that we unfortunately don’t even have the time to build up any stock,” Mr. Hayek said last month at Baselworld, the watch industry’s biggest fair. “I hate that feeling of missing sales because of a shortage in products.”

Swatch’s production and hiring problems reflect the overall health of a sector that has rebounded from the world financial crisis. Demand for watches has soared in Asia — a region that accounted for more than half of Swiss watch exports last year — with makers of mechanical watches capturing an increasingly large slice of the market. Exports of mechanical timepieces rose 32 percent in unit terms last year, compared with an 18 percent increase for less expensive quartz watches.

Swatch had a 42 percent increase in net profit last year, to a record 1.08 billion Swiss francs ($1.22 billion), from 763 million francs in 2009, on a 19 percent rise in revenue, to 6.44 billion francs.

While the company does not break down earnings by brand, revenue in its main watch and jewelry division rose 28 percent last year at constant exchange rates, compared with an increase of 8 percent in revenue in its parts production business, which accounts for about a quarter of its revenue.

Still, Mr. Hayek is pushing to change the modus operandi in his sector, from tightening rules on what defines a watch as “made in Switzerland” to forcing rivals to make their own components. Swatch has been talking with competition regulators about how far it could cut back its supply business, without endangering manufacturers that rely on Swatch parts.

“People assume that it’s a good business to sell components, but the only really attractive business is to sell finished products of our brands,” he said. “We are in a ridiculous situation that would be like having BMW supply all the engines for Audi and Mercedes. In no other industry do you have one company supply all the critical parts to the people who then compete directly with it.”

Swatch’s withdrawal as a supplier would be a sea change for the sector. As a result, such a move “cannot happen overnight,” said Jean-Frédéric Dufour, chief executive of Zenith, which is owned by the French group LVMH Mo?t Hennessy Louis Vuitton and is one of the few Swiss brands that does not buy from Swatch.

Still, Mr. Dufour said, by forcing rivals to invest more in production, Mr. Hayek “could help bring back the watch sector to how it was operating 100 years ago, when each brand really differentiated itself from others by the quality of its movements.”

Swatch’s hegemony over watch production is part of the legacy of Mr. Hayek’s Lebanese-born father, Nicolas, who died last year.

As a management consultant, Nicolas Hayek had been hired by banks to close two manufacturers in the early 1980s, at a time when Swiss watchmakers were getting crushed by less expensive Japanese competitors. Instead, he merged and acquired a stake in the struggling companies and revived the industry with the introduction of the inexpensive plastic Swatch watch.

The fashion frenzy generated by the colorful Swatches in turn required the group to develop mass volume production, building its leadership by later acquiring more component manufacturers.

In terms of volume, Swatch controls 70 to 80 percent of the sector’s watch movement production, according to a research study published last month by the investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

The Hayeks own about 35 percent of the group’s equity, ensuring that Swatch remains essentially a family business. Mr. Hayek is joined by his elder sister Nayla as chairwoman, while the next Hayek generation is led by her son, Marc, who had a stint in the restaurant business but now oversees part of the group’s luxury watch business, including the Breguet and Blancpain brands, which Swatch acquired in 1999 and 2000.

Nick Hayek, meanwhile, cut his teeth in movies before joining his father at Swatch in 1994, initially in a marketing role. Having studied filmmaking in Paris, he started a production company making documentaries, short movies and two feature films, including “Family Express,” which starred Peter Fonda.

Nowadays, his movie-making is limited to occasional involvement in advertising campaigns, but he plays down the suggestion that he was pushed into making a U-turn in his career ambitions.

 

At Swatch, an Enviable Problem: An Excess of Eager Customers for Its Products

Swatch, the world’s largest watchmaker, is rushing to add factory capacity so that it can make enough watches to meet demand. It wants to add as many as 2,000 employees this year — about 1,500 of them at home in Switzerland. But it is struggling to find enough qualified people.

“Managing our stock is at the moment not an issue for us because demand is so big that we unfortunately don’t even have the time to build up any stock,” Mr. Hayek said last month at Baselworld, the watch industry’s biggest fair. “I hate that feeling of missing sales because of a shortage in products.”

Swatch’s production and hiring problems reflect the overall health of a sector that has rebounded from the world financial crisis. Demand for watches has soared in Asia — a region that accounted for more than half of Swiss watch exports last year — with makers of mechanical watches capturing an increasingly large slice of the market. Exports of mechanical timepieces rose 32 percent in unit terms last year, compared with an 18 percent increase for less expensive quartz watches.

Swatch had a 42 percent increase in net profit last year, to a record 1.08 billion Swiss francs ($1.22 billion), from 763 million francs in 2009, on a 19 percent rise in revenue, to 6.44 billion francs.

While the company does not break down earnings by brand, revenue in its main watch and jewelry division rose 28 percent last year at constant exchange rates, compared with an increase of 8 percent in revenue in its parts production business, which accounts for about a quarter of its revenue.

Still, Mr. Hayek is pushing to change the modus operandi in his sector, from tightening rules on what defines a watch as “made in Switzerland” to forcing rivals to make their own components. Swatch has been talking with competition regulators about how far it could cut back its supply business, without endangering manufacturers that rely on Swatch parts.

“People assume that it’s a good business to sell components, but the only really attractive business is to sell finished products of our brands,” he said. “We are in a ridiculous situation that would be like having BMW supply all the engines for Audi and Mercedes. In no other industry do you have one company supply all the critical parts to the people who then compete directly with it.”

Swatch’s withdrawal as a supplier would be a sea change for the sector. As a result, such a move “cannot happen overnight,” said Jean-Frédéric Dufour, chief executive of Zenith, which is owned by the French group LVMH Mo?t Hennessy Louis Vuitton and is one of the few Swiss brands that does not buy from Swatch.

Still, Mr. Dufour said, by forcing rivals to invest more in production, Mr. Hayek “could help bring back the watch sector to how it was operating 100 years ago, when each brand really differentiated itself from others by the quality of its movements.”

Swatch’s hegemony over watch production is part of the legacy of Mr. Hayek’s Lebanese-born father, Nicolas, who died last year.

As a management consultant, Nicolas Hayek had been hired by banks to close two manufacturers in the early 1980s, at a time when Swiss watchmakers were getting crushed by less expensive Japanese competitors. Instead, he merged and acquired a stake in the struggling companies and revived the industry with the introduction of the inexpensive plastic Swatch watch.

The fashion frenzy generated by the colorful Swatches in turn required the group to develop mass volume production, building its leadership by later acquiring more component manufacturers.

In terms of volume, Swatch controls 70 to 80 percent of the sector’s watch movement production, according to a research study published last month by the investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

The Hayeks own about 35 percent of the group’s equity, ensuring that Swatch remains essentially a family business. Mr. Hayek is joined by his elder sister Nayla as chairwoman, while the next Hayek generation is led by her son, Marc, who had a stint in the restaurant business but now oversees part of the group’s luxury watch business, including the Breguet and Blancpain brands, which Swatch acquired in 1999 and 2000.

Nick Hayek, meanwhile, cut his teeth in movies before joining his father at Swatch in 1994, initially in a marketing role. Having studied filmmaking in Paris, he started a production company making documentaries, short movies and two feature films, including “Family Express,” which starred Peter Fonda.

Nowadays, his movie-making is limited to occasional involvement in advertising campaigns, but he plays down the suggestion that he was pushed into making a U-turn in his career ambitions.