Description
(Text)
Graffiti has its roots in urban youth and protest cultures. However, in the past decades it has become an established visual art form.The volume investigates how graffiti oscillates between genuine subversiveness and a more recent commercialisation and appropriation by the (art) market. At the same time it looks at how graffiti and street art are increasingly used as an instrument to collectively re-appropriate the urban space and thus articulate different forms of belonging, ethnicity and citizenship. The focus lies on the role of graffiti in metropolitan contexts in the Spanish-speaking world and includes a glimpse at historical inscriptions in ancient Rome and Mesoamerica, as well as at the graffiti movement in Egypt.
(Text)
Graffiti has its roots in urban youth and protest cultures. However, in the past decades it has become an established visual art form. This volume investigates how graffiti oscillates between genuine subversiveness and a more recent commercialization and appropriation by the (art) market. At the same time it looks at how graffiti and street art are increasingly used as an instrument for collective re-appropriation of the urban space and so for the articulation of different forms of belonging, ethnicity, and citizenship. The focus is set on the role of graffiti in metropolitan contexts in the Spanish-speaking world but also includes glimpses of historical inscriptions in ancient Rome and Mesoamerica, as well as the graffiti movement in New York in the 1970s and in Egypt during the Arab Spring.
