Nearly two years ago, San Diego artist Nicholas Nicholas coined the word “mendalism”.
It happened on January 1, 2011 when he noticed that Brazilian artist Stephan Doitschinoff’s untitled contribution to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Viva La Revolución street art exhibition had been vandalized.
The mural’s red ribbon “tears of blood” had been ripped from the eyes of the mural at 16th & J Street in downtown San Diego.
Using the photograph on the “public site map” brochure as a guide, Nicholas Nicholas endeavoured to “mend” the vandalism by replacing the tears.
He did this with neither authorization by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego nor permission from the original artist.
This was pure mendalism at its most basic definition:
mend·al·ism (mend’əl·iz·əm) The unauthorized repair of damaged art, street or other
