Grafficity

Visual Practices and Contestations in Urban Space

Eva Youkhana, Larissa Förster (Eds.)

Wilhelm Fink Verlag (Paderborn), 1. Aufl. 2015, 316 Seiten, 72 s/w und 21 farb. Abb., Franz. Broschur

 

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.