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The art historical term pentimento is used to indicate areas in painting that have been modified or overpainted by the artist during the creative process. The process of tagging, covering and erasing existing graffiti and street art murals transforms the original visual work. When not restored, these ‘agonist ornaments’ generate an in-between graphic status to the mural, highlighting an ongoing conversation at the scale of the city. This dialogic aspect invites us to consider the shape of urban landscape as collective responsibility. Each overpainting transformation can thereby be considered to have the possibility of revealing affect and effect related to hidden power dynamics. Considering the walls of the city as a palimpsest, the author analyses a series of murals through the lens of overpainting dynamics and offers an updated and site-specific understanding of the concept, combined with urban core topics such as social control tendencies, game as urban approach, and expression of emotions in public space. The author concludes that the upcoming processual beauty of contemporary muralism can be attributed to a chain of interactions where various actors depends one each other, the ‘pentimento’ of the collective author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present a series of reflections on the concept of graffiti. What begins as a critique of the ideological relation between “street art” and “graffiti” on the one hand and “center” and “periphery” on the other, unfolds as a schematic exploration of the relation between graffiti and social crisis. These theses argue that graffiti can and should be interpreted, and that this interpretation depends upon analyzing graffiti’s character as both text and image. In doing so they explore graffiti in crisis across the American hemisphere, moving from “center” to “periphery” and back again. In the ruin of New York, the commune of Oaxaca, the explosion of Santiago, we catch a vivid glimpse of the social form and latent content of graffiti. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text explores graffiti, street art, and murals in the context of the neoliberal city, highlighting the transformation of these forms in the context of growing commodification, touristification and gentrification of urban space. Through an ethnographic research in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the study illuminates the wall-written dissensus against the current production of abstract space. Special attention is given to the visual transformation in autonomous zones, especially how squatter communities, and in particular an anarcha queer feminist group, use graffiti and street art as media for voicing radical activism, while relying on collective muralism to build a political community. The paper argues for a nuanced understanding of the role of graffiti, street art and murals in the context of the neoliberal city and within social movements, emphasizing the multi-layered nature of political graffiti and street art as a form of radical political activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores graffiti, street art, and murals in the context of the neoliberal city, highlighting the transformation of these forms in the context of growing urban commodification, touristification and gentrification. The paper shows how contemporary neoliberal urbanism has driven the concept of the creative city that, in the framework of late-capitalist interurban rivalry, recuperated graffiti, street art and murals. Drawing on the growing body of literature in the field of graffiti and street art studies, and combining it with urban anthropology, the analysis of ethnographic material collected in Ljubljana (Slovenia) illuminates the role of graffiti and contemporary street art in the context of the neoliberal city – both as antigentrification politics and pro-gentrification policies. The paper argues for a nuanced understanding of the role of graffiti, street art and murals under the neoliberal regime of urban development, emphasizing the multi-layered nature of graffiti and street art: as a form of political activism, as an object of commodification, and as an instrument for de-ideologization, or what the author calls the muralization of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mizzart, a collective of students from different artistic fields, created large-scale paintings in the urban landscape in Ljubljana in the 1980s and 1990s. Their independent artistic practices in public space in the 1980s and 1990s could be described as ‘proto-street art’ – a new avenue of contemporary research in graffiti and street art studies. Based on a brief historical introduction of genealogical connections between street art and graffiti, upgraded with Rafael Schacter's classification of 'street art' as a defined artistic period, the article identifies the main characteristics of ‘proto-street art’, which are: the time of occurrence, agents, spontaneity/sovereignty, iconography, site specificity, unprofitability and interaction with public. Mizzart’s ephemeral cultural heritage is analysed by the proposed seven key formal elements of ‘proto-street art’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores a specific historical graffiti-scape in the Northern Adriatic borderland, composed of antifascist, (pro) communist and pro-Yugoslav political inscriptions and symbols created during World War II and the immediate postwar period by antifascist and communist activists. Produced in a turbulent historical period that radically reshaped the broader region, these graffiti ‘survived’ and endured almost 80 years, transcending their original political function and historical context of production, as well as the postwar Yugoslav and socialist future that their messages articulated, imagined and projected in the landscape. Today, these historical notes and fragments, scattered across present-day Croatian, Slovenian and Italian territories, represent a singular and significant, but largely unrecognized and overlooked archive that transmits a set of political imaginations, ideological discourses, linguistic nuances and historical experiences that depict a complex and multifaceted picture of the 1940s context in the borderland. The aim of the article is to, first, introduce and (re)contextualize the historical material with an examination of the main features of the documented World War II graffiti corpus and, second, to analyze the graffiti’s contents and meanings in order to highlight their historical, archival, cultural and memorial significance as unfiltered and authentic texts that constitute a particular and unexplored layer of the borderland’s memory landscape and (auto)biography [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along the Annexation Wall in Bethlehem, an entangled web of tags, slogans, graphic stencils, and gestures cover the surface of the concrete barrier wall and asphalt road. In Napoli, Italy, similar messages, and symbols appear on the dressed stone facade of government buildings, churches, and apartments. Messages exclaim: Not only Floyd, Iyad Hallaq Too, IAW, Palestino, and No Balls? #Build Walls. Varying in opacity, the words and symbols fight for legibility and presence, acting as a conversational message board between local and international activists. Such visual elements are, according to Ella Chmielewska, "connected with the specific history of protest, contestation, and subversion framed by the locality" (Chmielewska, 2007). Thus, graffiti may be read as an actual and symbolic act of resistance, framed by locality. Considering the saturation of solidarity-based graffiti in places like Bethlehem and Napoli, this paper examines how urban space both facilitates and complicates the durability of activist-based interventions. Through a pictorial study, I focus on the effects of graffiti-based activism and examine how these marks continue to draw attention to solidarity-based causes. Kevin D. Murphy and Sally O'Driscoll refer to these types of marks as "ephemeral interventions," a reference to the temporary nature of graffiti and the potential long-term impact of certain politically motivated works that produce iconic symbols/signs (Murphy and O'Driscoll, 2015). Whether along the Annexation Wall in Bethlehem or the streets of Napoli, graffitied messages are specific to local political and social causes, yet also connect to greater, global solidarity movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2019 to 2020, Hong Kong faced public unrest due to the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement. Political graffiti became a prevalent way to express dissent and different perspectives. This study uses linguistic landscape theory to examine the sociolinguistic and political characteristics of the graffiti that emerged during the protests. The goal is to highlight the counter-narratives that developed during this time. The findings, based on primary data (photos of graffiti) and secondary data (newspaper reports and social media posts on graffiti) collected from August 2019 to February 2020, suggest that protesters aimed to push forward the discourse on Hong Kong as a global economic hub that is succumbing to 'mainlandization.' As a result, much of the graffiti was written in English and other global languages. Although many of these messages were insightful and timely, some promoted radical ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the social mobilizations (2020-2022) during and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Colombia, the graffiti- projections produced, projected, and published by La nueva banda de la terraza played an essential role in visualizing, nurturing, and accompanying the social protests and the demands. As part of an unparalleled visual activism in Colombia, the graffiti-projections, which began in Medellín and soon expanded to other cities and beyond the country's borders, created an expanded para-cinema of protests, played an essential role in a complex web of actions and practices that made it possible, for the first time in the republican history of Colombia, to create a comprehensive, multivocal, and diverse social movement. The present analysis discusses how the graffiti- projections catalyzed engagement and dialogue and strengthened the democratization of the public sphere by developing an expanded para-cinema that involved textuality and social media, reenergized graffiti, street art, and communal Do-It-With-Others, and developed emancipatory strategies and networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban art in general, and graffiti in particular, has a multitude of artistic, cultural and social effects. Numerous studies explain its multidimensional role. This article specifically aims to address the potential that graffiti has in expressing revolt and opposition to the women economic oppression. Finally, the feminist movement in Kosovo has started to use graffiti as a tool to raise concerns about the position of women in society. The study objective of this article is the graffiti that shows discrimination against women as the workforce on three levels: unpaid work, paid work at the public sector, as well as the illegal exploitation of paid work in the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities, which are environments of social encounter, have versatile effects on our lives as dense living spaces. One of the most important communication tools of the social environment is the street walls, which are now the public spaces of cities. This phenomenon, which belongs to the city and emerges within the framework of the city's own cycles, expresses a protest stance that reveals a new perspective with its styles, techniques, figures and conceptual dimension. In the article, the concepts of public space and art in public spaces are discussed, and graffiti, which establishes connections between different art disciplines, is defined. While the reflections of this old form of art in the contemporary world were determined, an attempt was made to understand the point reached in the evolution of graffiti as a form of expression. In particular, by examining the emergence and development processes of graffiti after 1960 and its related post-graffiti art, the most important styles, figures and techniques of graffiti have been researched, and in this context, the interdisciplinary practices of Add Fuel (Diogo Machado), Shepard Fairey, Peeta, Hozoi, Nancy Kubale, Examples of works by artists such as Zedz, Zvi Belling and Prowla, Jan Wöllert and Jörg Miedza, and Roberto Lugo are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzes graffiti and murals made by young artists who are school students in Kosovo, and some of the professional artists, as a visual expressive description for certain purposes. Murals and graffiti which are made by students differ from those by professional artists in the field of visual arts, for the fact that naturally the graffiti made on the internal and external walls of schools display superficial and educational messages but still show creative aspects of the feeling for mural painting. A part of the graffiti were interwoven with musical art and represent the influence or inspiration from various musical components which in their images show musical content in the representation such as: musical instruments, musical performers, musical genres, musical bands (orchestras), and various musical symbols, notes, staff (pentagrams), musical keys, etc. The graffiti made by the students show their peculiarities in the content and in their messages. They are numerous in some schools in Kosovo, where graffiti fulfills the need of students to enforce any given topic, either social or educational. The importance and peculiarity of this research is that it highlights that the creation of graffiti-murals by students of different ages contains and displays empowering messages on certain topics, although art can also be used in other mediums where they convey their messages, however, in the murals there lies a greater power for conveying a message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work addresses the art of graffiti and murals in Kosovo and Serbia. Is graffiti political or not political? Are the murals in Kosovo and Serbia addressing similar political subjects? How much influence do the works of art possess? Murals and graffiti express culture in both Kosovo and Serbia. In Serbia, depictions of war leaders are on the walls of buildings all over the country. In Kosovo, how are the topics of the last war presented? Do real social themes influence the depictions of the murals? The graffiti and mural works in Kosovo are different from those in Serbia. Serbs still depict war themes in both graffiti and murals but in Kosovo, the topics are freer, still maintaining their subjectiveness to current political, social, economic, and legal topics. Free speech is as free as it is in murals and graffiti in two neighboring states that are American to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an Indonesian-language documentary film, "Coretan Seni Dibalik Vandalisme" offers a broader perspective on the street art beyond legality and democracy. The insights of artists, observers, and academics are critical to capturing the reorientation of street art, which is commonly referred to as vandalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of a small study that examines how and why the London Borough of Tower Hamlets introduced a policy in 2019 to distinguish between graffiti and street art. In doing so, this study adopts the theoretical vocabulary of legal geography to intervene in debates concerning the distinction between graffiti and street art. The research begins by outlining East London as a site of empirical interest, before defining several concepts in legal geography that are argued to be of analytical use for graffiti and street art scholars. The methodology of the study is presented before describing the results: that street art is selectively retained in Tower Hamlets because it valorises and decorates property where graffiti is considered to threaten the dominance of property in the spatial imagination of the law. As such, legal geography is presented as a critical tool to interrogate the instrumentalisation of policies, like that in Tower Hamlets, that seek to regulate what can be termed street art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, on the night of April 30th, marking the beginning of popular May celebrations, young men have gone out to write graffiti in the town of Torrenueva (Ciudad Real, Spain). This original graphic phenomenon is locally called "pintar los mayos" and consists of writing the word "MAYO" ("May" in Spanish) followed by the year of the execution (i.e., MAYO 98) on the façade of a girl's house as proof of interest and as an excuse to strike up a conversation. It is hard to confirm the origin of this custom with precision, but the tradition might date back from at least the 1940s. Today it's on the verge of disappearing; only one "mayo" was found in 2020 and none in 2021 or 2022. The ritual has evolved over the years in terms of purpose, location and medium and can be analyzed in the category of "love graffiti"2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with graffiti in the streets of Albania, a former communist state which in the time of communism had every modern motif banned, except the art of propaganda that was under the service of the party. Graffiti on the walls of buildings in different cities of Albania since 2010 has social, political, economic, psychological, social, and personal motives. It shows the development of murals, the freedom of expression of artists, and positive propaganda through this art. In Albania, artists are now free to express all their artistic ideas, and graffiti is used as public art which reflects any current events occurring. Color is the main element that distinguishes mural artists, as well as motive and figuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arabic calligraffiti, a form of urban art, has spread in both Arab and Western cities, including Montreal, Paris and cities in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arabic world. Its visibility underlines different tensions and highlights various conflicts and power relations, such as Arab-Western tensions in the visual culture of Western cities, tensions around the religious role of Islamic calligraphy in Arab cities, tensions around urban art in all cities, and tensions around the various digital spaces where these works are disseminated (Zahar, 2018). Arabic calligraffiti has its origins in Islamic calligraphy, modern Arabic calligraphy and the globalized graffiti movement. It is situated at the problematic meeting of the Arab and Western worlds and raises the question of possible interpenetrations and/or tensions (physical and digital) between those two cultural ensembles. Arabic calligraffiti can be considered in many ways as a liminal practice. In this article, we will illustrate the different facets of this liminal practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As identical and comparable with humanity's existence, art has existed in its own sphere or created a space for itself throughout history. These spaces represent oneness in private and individual spheres from time to time, while they sometimes mean oneness in a public space. Art is also precious and effective in public spaces as a reflection of culture and human discourse and action. This study tries to reveal this value based on examples from different cities and different countries and aims to examine drawing-based street art and graffiti existing in the public space with some concepts like culture, space, and experience. In line with this purpose, knowledge is produced basically from observation techniques and experience. The existence of the said works has been examined and photographed on site, some examples expressing the discourse have been selected from dozens of photographs, and then phenomenological information has been analyzed with literature information. Then knowledge has been sought to be produced. In this context, the uniting, experience-creating, space-creating, and life-forming effects of the work of art have been observed, and its relations with culture and practice have been examined. Then the meaning has been explored as independent of the criteria like identity and brand. As a different discourse, it is stated in this study that what constitutes the reality of drawing-based works of art and graffiti in the public space is neither the name written under each piece nor the capitalist economies and dominant political views but the social acceptance of the work, the relationship it establishes with culture and its meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti in conflict-affected settings offers alternative understandings of local experiences and international challenges that intertwine with everyday routines and spaces. Urban walls deliver canvases to write, tag, and paint to express grievances and aspirations for more peaceful futures, illuminate societal concerns, and offer solidarity on issues that sit within and outside the confines of historical and present-day division. In this expanded visual essay, we explore the publicly available resource of graffiti to gain insights into the challenges and priorities of Cyprus' conflict-affected landscape. Drawing on observations on both Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot sides of the United Nations Buffer Zone, we explore the ways in which graffiti provides space to recognise alternative voices in a society where official and media discourses remain characterised by language of difference and political division. Insights gained through walking surveys conducted in June 2019 were augmented by discussions with local experts to further contextualise the observed graffiti content. We demonstrate the potential value for academics, policymakers, and practitioners of analysing the languages, symbols, and messages of graffiti. We conclude that this initial exploration establishes graffiti as more than 'vandalism' and expands our knowledge of conflict-affected landscapes as an indicator of the everyday and the interactions, priorities, and spatial politics of local people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti artists are frequently regarded as "liminal" figures, or people who exist on the outskirts of society. This paper looks at one aspect of their marginal status: legal liminality. I argue, using the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, that writers, like the homines sacri, live in a state of legal exception. As a result, they face uncontrollable violence and are denied fundamental rights. Though writers are subjected to abuse and intimidation, their particular circumstances also position them to challenge sovereign power in neoliberal cities. They can join a community without establishing an identity because of their ambiguous situation. As a result, they undermine the inclusion/exclusion dichotomy at the heart of biopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a worldwide growing trend, graffiti and urban or street art are now part of many cities' action programs. Lisbon and Porto local governments are investing their efforts into managing these practices -- clearly separating graffiti from different art forms -- creating cleaning brigades to erase graffiti and other spontaneous interventions and at the same time promoting urban art by legalizing murals and supporting street artists. As a way to promote themselves as creative and artistic cities, Lisbon and Porto created two programs that support street art: Urban Art Gallery1 in Lisbon and Urban Art Program2 in Porto. In this article two PHD students collaborate to analyze the development of urban art in both Lisbon and Porto, mainly focusing on the last decade; to analyze the contrasts on the public management of urban art; and to observe the influence it may have on the artistic landscape of both cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a worldwide growing trend, graffiti and urban or street art are now part of many cities' action programs. Lisbon and Porto local governments are investing their efforts into managing these practices - clearly separating graffiti from different art forms - creating cleaning brigades to erase graffiti and other spontaneous interventions and at the same time promoting urban art by legalizing murals and supporting street artists. As a way to promote themselves as creative and artistic cities, Lisbon and Porto created two programs that support street art: Urban Art Gallery1 in Lisbon and Urban Art Program2 in Porto. In this article two PHD students collaborate to analyze the development of urban art in both Lisbon and Porto, mainly focusing on the last decade; to analyze the contrasts on the public management of urban art; and to observe the influence it may have on the artistic landscape of both cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence of the global contemporary graffiti and street art, urban spaces have become filled with a variety of techniques and art pieces, whether as a beautification method, commemorative and community art, or even activism. Ecology has also been a small part of this, with growing concern over our environment's health (as well as our own), disappearing living species and habitats, and trying to imagine a better, less destructive humankind (see: Arrieta, 2014). But, how can this art - based mostly on aerosol spray cans and thus not very eco-friendly - in urban spaces contribute to ecological awareness? Do nature, animal and plant motifs pave a way towards understanding the environment, or simply serve as aesthetic statements? This paper will examine these questions with the example of Belgrade, Serbia, and several local (but also global) practices. This text is based on ongoing research as part of Street Art Walks Belgrade project (STAW BLGRD) and interviews with a group of artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a on-going research project that blurs the frontiers between dominant and marginal cultures, their social practices, visual symbologies, and aesthetic manifestations, in the unstable space of the city, by discovering, collecting and preserving graffiti and street art works in middle range cities of Northern Portugal. Using the conceptual tools of intercultural studies, StreetArtCEI awakens tourists and inhabitants alike to the symbolic power of self- and hetero-marginalized aesthetical stances, organized by routes that reflect the social-cultural geography of the city. The methodology of the project includes the collection and study of both illegal art works in marginal sites; and of art works ratified and commissioned by private and public institutions, in tourist spots and high-end streets. The article analyses critically the feedback obtained from local authorities, the media and the community, and proposes several topics for further consideration. StreetartCEI thrives inside of a paradox built by itself, as a public institution led project that, at same time, collects, preserves and legitimizes cultural products which damage public and private property. We highlight the media's interest for the economic potential of the project, as well as for the aesthetic appeal of the artists' techniques, readily transformed into recognized canonical authors. Concerning the reception by local powers, we emphasise their swift investment in the creation of tailor-made local routes of graffiti and street art, that is, in artworks whose deletion those authorities are sponsoring at the same time. This apparent paradox by local institutions reproduces the common need for domestication of irreverence and commodification of the illegal, a paradox that all intervenient actors are aware of. StreetArtCEI's intercultural action takes place in a borderzone between the legal and the illegal, where researchers play the role of mediating agents, creating new discursive fields in permanent intersection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentinian academic research on urban creativity is not recent. Since the 1960s, the area has developed through a combination of different disciplines and perspectives. However, the arrival of the New York Style Graffiti Writing in the 1990s marked a shift in the field, in as much as it brought new artistic practices and, simultaneously, new research on them. These changes were fertile ground for generating new theoretical frameworks. Considering these facts altogether, the field is now in a complex juncture: on the one hand, several new artistic practices have proliferated and continue to do so, and on the other hand, perspectives through which these practices are studied also emerge. The result is a heterogeneous field of practices and frameworks. In this piece, we examine the way in which studies on graffiti and urban art emerged in Argentina -reshaping frameworks that used to be prevalent in the study of urban creativity. We also show a thread that has continued over time, even though it has been reshaped and reconstructed as a result of the dialogues with different perspectives and practices from other geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the question 'Why Can't Banksy Be a Woman' is a point of departure to approach some of the pressing challenges regarding sex and gender in graffiti and street art studies, in order to contribute on the matter of the presence/absence of women graffiti and street artists in this epistemological field. To this aim, I summon feminist contributions on the invisibility of women in the established art world, namely from art historians Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock. I map important contributions on the question of women in graffiti, by referring to graffiti scholars Nancy MacDonald and Jessica Pábon-Cólon. As street art has been considered more gender inclusive in regards to conditions of production, I locate restrictions mainly in terms of reception. Finally, I suggest that the question of women in graffiti and street art studies is larger than sex and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the multiplicity of graffiti-based reactions to COVID-19 and its resulting lockdown laws. It utilises Jill Bennett's work, Practical Aesthetics, to examine the continuation of vigilante graffiti in Hong Kong, as well as the rise of digital street-art globally. I argue that the artform's many responses indicate the elasticity of graffiti in times of crisis. I also discuss the willingness for communities to either adapt or continue their respective practices of 'mark-making' in the public place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the development of graffiti art after the last war in Kosovo. From 2000 to 2020. The presented murals express emotions, contain satirical nuances, humor, ridicule of various political figures in the state of Kosovo. Except that the ugly spaces are decorated, through this art, artists have used it as a voice of revolt and disappointment by playing with humor to fix the current system. The colour of the graffiti have been analyzed with The content, the messages it contains, the forms and many other details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti Writing is a visual movement engaged in the Hip Hop subculture. It spread globally over the past decades as a creative manifestation and a public statement of urban artists, being contested by the public domain values. Despite the large amount of material documenting it, such as films, documentaries, magazines and books, it remains a marginal subculture, less known by the large audience in its deep characteristics. The following article presents a work-in-progress practice-based research, whose objective is to investigate and connect the contribution of animation to the documentation and communication of the subculture of Writing, deciphering its interpretation for the uninformed audience. This is accomplished by a documentary fieldwork, with testimonies and memories emerged from the interviews to three activists of the Writing movement. The interviewed are artists that operate in different fields, surfaces and styles. The fieldwork is conducted as a mediation interface, focusing the research on the province of Ferrara, in Northern Italy. The documentary work is developed in a specific geographical context, with representation strategies and narrative reconstruction for the disclosure of this subculture. This is accomplished with the development of an animated documentary short film. Thanks to the documentation strategy it is possible to represent and reconstruct the Writing memories. This option allows the exploration of new concepts with the encounter of two distinct visual arts and mediatic approaches, that are urban art and animation, moreover it allows the definition of an authorial language appropriate to the project and its theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of leaving an individual mark behind reaches back to at least the Palaeolithic age, when early humans left negative imprints of their hands on the walls of caves. These negative handprints were produced by blowing pigment onto one hand, so that its life-sized outline would stay visible.1 In past societies with developed writing systems, such as ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire, written name tags would appear on man-made and natural surroundings, such as the walls and floors of buildings or caves as well as on rocks or trees.2 Even if a name was not always unique, it was a person's official identifier and therefore the personal mark left behind most frequently. In the same literate societies, however, we also find handprints left as personal traces3 - like the written tags of the same eras, these were either incised into a surface with sharp stones or metal writing implements, or drawn in colour. Apparently, these hands, as a kind of physical imprint, were understood as individual markers in the same way as name tags and portrait sketches (which sometimes bore the addition of a name), even if they occur much more rarely than their written counterparts in Roman times. This paper was presented at the international conference "Tag. Name Writing in Public Space" at the John-F.-Kennedy-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin in September 2017. The event centred neither on personal marks nor graffiti in general, however, but on the practice of tagging. Tagging is part of modern graffiti culture, and tags - informal, non-commissioned inscriptions of names by visitors, passers-by, and inhabitants - form a large part of historical graffiti as well. The term graffiti is, nonetheless, a problematic one when one regards the diverse practices and forms to which it is usually applied and the eras they span (from historical graffiti to modern street art). The tags therefore represent an appropriate selection to avoid or minimalise the methodological difficulties in bringing together material from different cultures and times. This essay deals with one of the few large collections of ancient graffiti we possess: those from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, situated in the region of Campania on the southwestern coast of Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overall, this essay examines the suitable settings for contextualizing graffiti and street art indoors, by introducing the upcoming museum for graffiti and street art in Amsterdam, an initiative of Street Art Today. Firstly, an overview of the project's story, including its idealizer, location and collection is provided. Secondly, the contributions of the museum to the art form are presented. In particular, through its ambition to become a knowledge hub of graffiti and street art, the institution produces, gathers and analyses data, thus reinforcing the legitimation of these visual expressions. Finally, this article examines the expectations related to the museum's role and its future visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this essay is the presentation and reflection of curatorial challenges related to the exhibiton of graffiti and street art. The curatorial practices of graffiti and street art has undergone several changes over the past decades: from the streets to the institutionalisation and commercialisation to virtualisation. In particular, the essay is examining curatorial practises in three main areas, the streets, the institutions and finally the augmented and virtual space. Due to the development of ICT and digitalization the possibilities of curating seem countless. However, within these developments there is also a downside. What if all unsanctioned graffiti and street art suddenly have 'no space', nor in the virtual nor in the real world, where neoliberal cities desire homogeneity, segregation and 24/7 surveillance? Can unsanctioned art even exist in the virtual reality? Can it still be called 'unsanctioned' or 'illegal'? The possibilities of multiple layers of reality as well as the thread of the disappearance stand very are very close by each other. It is the time to think about where and how which require novel perspectives and appropriate formats on how to reinforce this unique cultural expression in public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French "yellow vests" movement is a new kind of revolt - nearly a revolution - against the State and financial policies. Since its beginning, the expression of this movement also occurs through what now is referred to as street art. This is a solidarity expressed by artists with the yellow vests revolt, but also a way of being themselves actors of it. It is important too to consider how digital social networks, protest websites and blogs have provided the possibility all around the world to get acquainted with the Gilets Jaunes movement as well as with the works of the urban artists linked to this movement. In addition to that, the digital memory of this ephemeral art or of this revolt in the streets is a matter of urgency. It is of upmost importance to save by that way the historic and artistic works on the walls, quickly erased by State or local authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The campus of the National Metsovian Polytechnic in central Athens has been a significant cornerstone in the socio-political landscape of the city. Within the history of modern Greece, Polytechneio is regarded as a symbol of resistance against the Greek military dictatorship (junta) in 1973. In March 2015 and during times of austerity politics, the west façades of the Polytechneio were covered by a "black-and-white mural" (Tziovas 2017: 45). This paper examines how and why this black-and-white mural has been discussed often controversially from different kinds of recipients, leading to an ardent public debate within Greek society from a cross disciplinary point of view: 1) semiotics, 2) design, and 3) cultural studies. For our analysis, we use data from primary and secondary sources. Primary data sources include photographic documentation of the field. Secondary data sources include photographic material and newspaper articles circulated online, as well as, relevant academic literature. First, we examine how this mural was integrated into the constructions and intersubjective experiences of public space from the perspective of semiotization of space. Second, we discuss the practicalities involved for the fulfilment of this mural from the perspective of design-scope. And third, we advance the discussion around the issues of cultural preservation and heritagization of street art and graffiti. Our goal in this paper is to avoid binary interpretations, and instead, to induce in an intermediary way the significance of public dialogue, which this mural achieved to trigger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

São Paulo is the largest city in Latin America. In addition to its metropolitan and peripheral regions, there are more than 22 million people. All kind of reality is in the 1.520 km2 that extends its territory. From super millionaires who own huge houses of 10/20 million euros with 10.000 m2 of built area, with helipads and Ferraris in the garage, to wooden houses with 20/30 m2, without connection to the light and water network, with open sewage to your door. Nothing more violent and aggressive than this veiled socioeconomic segregation. Often this is observed within a radius of 5 km away, exposing and depicting a glaring inequality. The vast majority of this poor and excluded population is black. In this context, the Brazilian Hip Hop movement emerged in the 1980's, in the central region of São Paulo, which gave voice to the latent social problems of the metropolis. This is how the São Paulo graffiti, that spans the walls and concrete of the grey city is born, an ideal platform to express social problems and portray the colours and concepts of the new born musical movement. In this context, in 1997, in São Mateus, the far east of the city, the collective of urban art and graffiti Grupo OPNI was born, which remains alive and active, contradicting all unfavourable statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper focuses on graffiti depicting desperate warnings over the increase in shark attacks, the threat of which has been encouraged by the idyllic feeding climate on the Indian Ocean island, and suggests a metaphorical simile of the threatening invisible and ever present malevolent force felt in the social climate of expanding inner cities through greed within capital investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This working essay attempts to trace the history of art making in the public space in India. This is important for understanding the evolutionary process of the local graffiti and street art culture and the organisation of many street art festivals across the country. This festival structure often leads to a collaboration with various government bodies in order to work within a city or a neighbourhood to create a large scale immersive experience. This essay will try to argue the importance of people in the creation and evaluation of street art while collaborating and negotiating with various government institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past four decades, most large urban settings around the world have experienced an increase in graffiti and street art. One of the consequences of this activity is an attempt to interpret this phenomenon. Not only have popular and scholarly articles and books catalogued, examined, and analyzed graffiti and street art, and the people who engage in and respond to this activity, but so too have documentary movies. In order to better understand this latter method of capturing and explaining graffiti and street art, this paper reviews and analyzes seventeen English language documentary films (produced between 1980-2014) drawing generalizations about the dominant themes that have been expressed in this body of work. This analysis includes a review of the settings, individuals interviewed, and provides a critical commentary on this body of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to revisit some hermeneutical aspects which are essential for a theoretical approach to the interrelated notions of the poetic and poeticity in public space. I will use examples of ephemeral poetic forms such as graffito or performance, but also some examples of poetic objects from linguistic fields such as English, Portuguese, Spanish and German. These reflections on a theoretical and methodological framework for poetry and translation in public space can be subsumed under the key concept of transit-translation. I will associate four poetic expressions from four related cultural areas, with non-lyric discourse in visual, verbo-visual and performance poetry, in public space. They will be distributed along four thematic lines which I consider crucial to the current description of the phenomenon: the intermedial-intermaterial transition, the transfer from the poetic-political to the commercial, the poetic-political multimedia project, and the conflict between the poetic and the public. Drawing from different theoretical backgrounds (Heidegger, Benjamin, Rancière, Badiou, Bhabha, Butler and Spivak), I propose that these forms of non-lyric poetry might represent the advent of a new public sphere, which is no longer exclusively formed by an idealistic, romantic tradition, but rather characterised by a hermeneutic ambiguity which suggests a reconfiguration of the subject and of poetic subjectivity. This study has been carried out with the framework of the research project, "Contemporary Poetry and Politics: Research on Contemporary Relations between Cultural Production and Sociopolitical Context" (POEPOLIT, FFI2016-77584-P, 2016-2019, Ministry of Economy and Competitively, Government of Spain) and the Strategic Programme UID/ELT/00500/2013 of the FCT, Portugal. The text has been translated from Spanish by Feidhlim Hanrahan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti can be viewed as stories about embodied identities of the self and others which can be shared in intersubjective discourse, visual communication of varying content and motives, and utilizing specific technology and mediums. Graffiti's palimpestuous nature, in its physical and symbolic forms of layering information, is present in production and perceiving graffiti. A creator and a reader of graffiti are both palimpsesting the work, acting as narrators of their own mental sheets. The concept of graffiti as a palimpsest can be exemplified for example in graffiti art where the interpretation of a work of art depends on the properties of the work, the perceiver and the social and institutional agreements. How graffiti are interpreted is informed by perceiving individuals' characters, such as knowledge and skills, as well as the cultural and sociohistorical context where these individuals are immersed and act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is the institutionalization of graffiti art. It examines the contextual and formal aesthetic shifts of graffiti within the urban space to graffiti art exhibited in art institutions. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the adaptability and resilience of graffiti art within an institutional framework conducted by formal aesthetic shifts within the art works. Graffiti is always in the verge of the institution and seems challenging to integrate into the institutionalized framework. The significance and contextual change entering the white cube causes several effects such as neutralization, aestheticization and censorship. A formal aesthetic shift based within the art works will be demonstrated by five detailed analyses. Finally, further effects such as reduction and abstraction processes as well as aestheticization and autonomy of the art works will be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short note examines whether street and graffiti art can and should be protected by copyright. Indeed, cases where corporations have used these forms of art to promote their products are increasingly common, which shows that these artworks are particularly vulnerable to misappropriation. In addition to expanding on whether tags and throw-ups can be considered original enough to attract copyright, I will focus on whether unsanctioned street and graffiti art deserve such legal protection and in general on artists and writers' attitude towards copyright. The note also draws from semi-structured interviews I've recently conducted with several street artists and writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2010s have witnessed the rise of a new aspect of street art on the world stage: institutionalized murals. Downtown Madrid is no exception, though the mural scene there remains less developed than in some other European cities like Saragossa or Paris. Forsaking its graffiti forbear's emphasis on writing, this new trend embraces instead the power of imagery. Meanwhile in the walls of central Madrid, the writers are showing a new resilience with a variety of strategies that will ensure that the written word survives the ascent of the image in street art. This leads to a plastic discord juxtaposed--graffiti and mural, illicit and sanctioned, word and image--in an urban art scene in constant flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti often receives attention as a social problem. Its potentials and positive influence on the individual or the society are often left aside in the public discourse. This article shows how graffiti, as a catalyst of creativity, shapes one's personal career. Graffiti enables a unique combination of motoric and psycho-social abilities, which opens up many perspectives and careers for the so-called writer. The paper aims to show and complete with suggestion the value added through graffiti, especially in the areas of education, participation and urban development, both for the individual and for the whole society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural and urban geographical research related to graffiti and street art poses interdisciplinary questions and employs multimethodical approaches. In recent years, research methods in the field of ethnography have been receiving more and more attention in the German-speaking community of human geography. With this in mind, the following working paper presents a methodological experiment for examining the everyday urban practice of graffiti writing and its spatial relevance. "My run to a masterpiece" presents the current status of this ethnographic research, whereby it has been attempted to localize and analyze legal walls for graffiti writing (some of them considered "Halls of Fame") in the urban cultural landscape as well as these walls' potential for integrated urban development policies in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]