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Eurasien schließt sich gegen die amerikanische Hegemonie zusammen. Russland, China, der Iran und die Türkei sind dabei, den Petro-Dollar fallen zu lassen. Venezuela will sich ihnen anschließen. Die Dominanz der USA im Weltfinanzbereich beginnt zusammenzubrechen.
Bisher konnten die USA ihre Probleme lösen, indem sie Länder in die Luft jagten und ihr Öl stahlen: Die Zerstörung des Irak und Libyens machte amerikanische Ölgesellschaften für eine Weile solvent und bewahrte das finanzielle Kartenhaus vor dem Zusammenbruch. Aber die Bemühungen, Syrien in die Luft zu jagen, sind gescheitert, und auch der Versuch, Venezuela in die Luft zu jagen, wird wahrscheinlich scheitern, denn Venezuela hat zwischen 7 und 9 Millionen Chavistas, die vom bolivarischen revolutionären Geist erfüllt sind, ein großes und gut bewaffnetes Militär und ist im Allgemeinen eine sehr unnachgiebige Nachbarschaft. Früher griffen die USA zu verschiedenen schmutzigen Tricks, um ihre Aggression gegen ölreiche Länder und den anschließenden Diebstahl ihrer natürlichen Ressourcen zu legitimieren. Es gab dieses Fläschchen mit "hochgiftigem" Talkumpuder, das Colin Powell vor den Vereinten Nationen schüttelte, um sie dazu zu bringen, für die Zerstörung des Irak und den Diebstahl seines Öls zu stimmen. Es gab die erfundene Geschichte von Gräueltaten in Libyen, um die Stimmen für eine Flugverbotszone dort zu erhalten (was sich als Bombenangriffe herausstellte, gefolgt von einem Regierungssturz). Aber im Falle Venezuelas gibt es kein solches Feigenblatt. Alles, was wir sehen, sind offene Drohungen von nackter Aggression und eklatante Lügen, die niemand glaubt, die von Clowns, Strolchen und alten Dummköpfen inkompetent geliefert werden.
Wenn Plan A (Venezuelas Öl stehlen) scheitert, dann besteht der US-Plan B darin, alle Ihre aus US-Dollar bestehenden Papierabfälle – Bargeld, Aktien, Anleihen, Aktiva, Versicherungen, Schuldscheine usw. – zu nehmen und in Mülltonnen zu verbrennen, um sich warm zu halten. Die ganze Sache trägt definitiv einen Hauch von Verzweiflung in sich. Der globale Hegemon ist gebrochen; er ist gestürzt und kann nicht mehr aufstehen.
(von Pepe Escobar – russia-insider.com/en/venezuela-eurasia-teams-against-ame... und Auszüge von Dmitry Orlov – www.antikrieg.com)
Es ist das Öl, Dummkopf. Aber es gibt noch viel mehr, als man auf den ersten Blick sieht.
Caracas (Hauptstadt von Venezuela) hat in den Augen von Exceptionalistan die ultimative Kardinalsünde begangen: den Ölhandel unter Umgehung des US-Dollars oder der von den USA kontrollierten Börsen.
Erinnern Sie sich an Irak. Erinnern Sie sich an Libyen. Aber auch der Iran tut es. Die Türkei tut es. Russland ist – teilweise – auf dem Weg. Und China wird schließlich seine gesamte Energie mit Petroyuan handeln.
Nach der Einführung der Petro-Kryptowährung und des souveränen Bolivars in Venezuela hatte die Trump-Administration bereits im vergangenen Jahr Caracas vom internationalen Finanzsystem sanktioniert.
Kein Wunder, dass Caracas von China, Russland und dem Iran unterstützt wird. Sie sind die echte Hardcore-Troika – nicht die karikaturhafte „Troika der Tyrannei“ des Psycho-Killers John Bolton -, die gegen die Energiedominanzstrategie der Trump-Administration kämpft, die im Wesentlichen darin besteht, für immer auf das absolute Monopol des Ölhandels mit Petrodollars hinzuarbeiten.
"Petro-Dollar für immer!"
Venezuela ist ein Schlüsselglied in der Kette. Der Psychokiller Bolton gab es zu: „Es wird einen großen Unterschied für die Vereinigten Staaten machen, wenn wir amerikanische Ölgesellschaften dazu bringen könnten, in Venezuela zu investieren und die Ölkapazitäten auszubauen.“ Es geht nicht nur darum, ExxonMobil die riesigen Ölreserven Venezuelas übernehmen zu lassen – die größten der Welt. Der Schlüssel liegt darin, ihre Ausbeutung in US-Dollar zu monopolisieren, wovon einige wenige Big Oil-Milliardäre profitieren.
Wieder einmal ist der Fluch der natürlichen Ressourcen im Spiel. Venezuela darf nicht zu seinen eigenen Bedingungen von seinem Reichtum profitieren; daher haben Exzeptionalisten entschieden, dass der venezolanische Staat zerschlagen werden muss.
Letztendlich geht es hier um Wirtschaftskrieg. Aus dem US-Finanzministerium, das neue Sanktionen gegen die PDVSA verhängt, die einem de facto Ölembargo gegen Venezuela gleichkommen.
Wirtschaftskrieg 2.0
Inzwischen ist es fest etabliert, dass das, was in Caracas geschah, keine Farbenrevolution war, sondern ein von den USA geförderter Putsch zum Regimewechsel mit lokalen Kompradoreneliten, der als „Interimspräsident“ eine unbekannte Größe installiert, Juan Guaido, mit seinem Obama-Chorknaben, der extrem rechte Konditionierung verschleiert.
Jeder erinnert sich an „Assad muss gehen“. Die erste Stufe der syrischen Farbenrevolution war die Auslösung des Bürgerkriegs, gefolgt von einem Stellvertreterkrieg über multinationale Dschihad-Söldner. Wie Thierry Meyssan festgestellt hat, wird die Rolle der Arabischen Liga damals von der OAS jetzt wahrgenommen. Und die Rolle der Friends of Syria – die jetzt im Mülleimer der Geschichte liegt – wird nun von der Lima-Gruppe übernommen, dem Club der Vasallen Washingtons. Anstelle von al-Nusra „gemäßigten Rebellen“ können wir kolumbianische – oder verschiedene von Emiraten ausgebildete – „gemäßigte Rebellen“-Söldner haben.
Im Gegensatz zu gefälschten Nachrichten aus den westlichen Unternehmensmedien waren die letzten Wahlen in Venezuela absolut legitim. Es gab keine Möglichkeit, mit den in Taiwan hergestellten elektronischen Wahlautomaten zu manipulieren. Die regierende Sozialistische Partei erhielt 70 Prozent der Stimmen; die Opposition, von der viele Parteien die Wahl boykottierten, erhielt 30 Prozent. Eine seriöse Delegation des Lateinamerikanischen Rates der Wahlexperten (CEELA) war unnachgiebig; die Wahlen spiegelten „friedlich und ohne Probleme den Willen der venezolanischen Bürger“ wider.
Das amerikanische Embargo mag bösartig sein. Parallel dazu könnte die Regierung von Maduro äußerst inkompetent gewesen sein, um die Wirtschaft nicht zu diversifizieren und in die Selbstversorgung mit Lebensmitteln zu investieren. Wichtige Lebensmittelimporteure, die spekulieren, als gäbe es kein Morgen mehr, machen einen Großteil ihres Geldes. Dennoch berichten zuverlässige Quellen in Caracas, dass die Barrios – die Viertel des Volkes – weitgehend friedlich bleiben.
In einem Land, in dem ein voller Benzintank immer noch weniger kostet als eine Dose Cola, steht außer Frage, dass der chronische Mangel an Lebensmitteln und Medikamenten in lokalen Kliniken mindestens zwei Millionen Menschen gezwungen hat, Venezuela zu verlassen. Aber der wichtigste Faktor ist das US-Embargo.
Der UN-Berichterstatter für Venezuela, Völkerrechtsexperte und ehemalige Sekretär des UN-Menschenrechtsrates Alfred de Zayas, bringt es auf den Punkt; viel mehr als die sprichwörtliche Verteufelung von Maduro führt Washington einen „Wirtschaftskrieg“ gegen eine ganze Nation.
Es ist erhellend zu sehen, wie das „venezolanische Volk“ die Scharade sieht. In einer Umfrage, die von Hinterlaces noch vor dem Putsch der Trump-Regierung durchgeführt wurde, gaben 86% der Venezolaner an, dass sie gegen jede Art von US-Intervention waren, ob militärisch oder nicht,
Und 81% der Venezolaner gaben an, gegen US-Sanktionen zu sein. Soweit die „gute“ ausländische Einmischung im Namen der „Demokratie“ und der „Menschenrechte“.
Der Faktor Russland-China
Analysen durch informierte Beobachter wie Eva Golinger und vor allem das Kollektiv Mision Verdad sind äußerst hilfreich. Sicher ist, dass das amerikanische Drehbuch im wahren Empire of Chaos-Modus über das Embargo und die Sabotage hinaus den Bürgerkrieg anfachen soll.
Zwielichtige „bewaffnete Gruppen“ waren in den Caracas-Barrios aktiv, handelten mitten in der Nacht und verstärkten „soziale Unruhen“ in den sozialen Medien. Dennoch hat Guaido innerhalb des Landes absolut keine Macht. Seine einzige Chance auf Erfolg ist, wenn es ihm gelingt, eine Parallelregierung zu bilden – die von den Öleinnahmen profitiert und Washington dazu bringt, Regierungsmitglieder wegen erfundener Anschuldigungen zu verhaften.
Unabhängig von feuchten Träumen der Neocons sollten Erwachsene im Pentagon wissen, dass eine Invasion Venezuelas tatsächlich zu einem tropischen Vietnam-Sumpf werden kann. Der brasilianische starke Mann im Wartezimmer, Vizepräsident und pensionierter General Hamilton Mourao, sagte bereits, dass es keine militärische Intervention geben wird.
Der inzwischen berüchtigte Notizblock-Stunt des Psychokillers Bolton über „5.000 Soldaten nach Kolumbien“ ist ein Witz; dieser hätte keine Chance gegen die wohl 15.000 Kubaner, die für die Sicherheit der Maduro-Regierung verantwortlich sind; die Kubaner haben in der Vergangenheit gezeigt, dass sie nicht im Geschäft der Machtübergabe sind.
Alles hängt davon ab, was China und Russland tun werden. China ist der größte Gläubiger Venezuelas. Maduro wurde letztes Jahr in Peking von Xi Jinping empfangen, erhielt zusätzliche 5 Milliarden Dollar an Darlehen und unterzeichnete mindestens 20 bilaterale Abkommen.
Präsident Putin bot Maduro telefonisch seine volle Unterstützung an und betonte diplomatisch, dass „destruktive Einmischung aus dem Ausland eklatant gegen grundlegende Normen des Völkerrechts verstößt“.
Im Januar 2016 kostete das Öl nur 35 US-Dollar pro Barrel; eine Katastrophe für die Kassen Venezuelas. Maduro beschloss dann, 49,9% der staatlichen Anteile an der US-Tochtergesellschaft Citgo von PDVSA an die russische Rosneft für ein Darlehen von nur 1,5 Milliarden Dollar zu übertragen. Dies musste eine Welle von roten Lichtern über den Beltway schicken; diese „bösen“ Russen waren nun Miteigentümer von Venezuelas wichtigstem Vermögen.
Ende letzten Jahres, immer noch immer auf der Suche nach mehr Geld, öffnete Maduro den russischen Minengesellschaften den Goldbergbau in Venezuela. Und es gibt noch mehr: Nickel, Diamanten, Eisenerz, Aluminium, Bauxit, die alle von Russland, China und den USA begehrt sind. Was 1,3 Milliarden Dollar Venezuela’s eigenes Gold betrifft, so vergessen Sie die Rückführung von Gold von der Bank of England.
Und dann, im Dezember letzten Jahres, kam der Strohhalm, der dem tiefen Staat den Rücken brach; der Freundschaftsflug von zwei russischen nuklearfähigen Tu-160-Bombern. Wie können sie es wagen? In unserem eigenen Hinterhof?
Der Energie-Masterplan der Trump-Administration könnte in der Tat darin bestehen, Venezuela an ein paralleles „North American-South American Petroleum Exporting Countries“ (NASAPEC)-Kartell anzuschließen, das in der Lage ist, ein Gegengewicht gegen die OPEC+-Liebesgeschichte zwischen Russland und dem House of Saud zu bilden.
Aber selbst wenn dies zum Tragen käme und eine mögliche gemeinsame US-Qatar-LNG-Allianz hinzukäme, gäbe es keine Garantie, die ausreichen würde, um die Vorherrschaft von Petrodollar – und Petrogas – auf lange Sicht zu sichern.
Die Energieintegration Eurasiens wird den Petrodollar weitgehend umgehen; dies ist das Herzstück der BRICS- und SCO-Strategie. Von Nord Stream 2 bis Turk Stream sichert Russland eine langfristige Energiepartnerschaft mit Europa. Und die Dominanz des Petroyuan ist nur eine Frage der Zeit. Moskau weiß es. Teheran weiß es. Ankara weiß es. Riyadh weiß es.
Also, was ist mit Plan B, Neocons? Bereit für euer tropisches Vietnam?
DSC_0220sc2
Strolling through little villages in the Albula region with my bike. Here in Alvaschein.
A typical facade in Graubünden with its nice doors, deep little windows and the Sgraffitto around them.
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Beim Bummeln per Rad durch kleine Dörfer in der Albula Region. Hier bin ich in Alvaschein.
Eine typische Bündner Fassade mit ihren schönen Türen, kleinen, tiefliegenden Fenstern und dem Sgraffitto-Schmuck um sie herum.
Captura: Via Laietana, Barcelona.
CATALÀ
La casa del Gremi dels Velers, també coneguda com a casa dels velers o casa de la seda, fou construïda entre 1758 i 1763 com a seu de la Confraria de Teixidors de Vels de Seda, sota l'advocació de la Verge de Nostra Senyora dels Àngels. L'edifici és una obra declarada Bé Cultural d'Interès Nacional (declarada l'any 1919). Des del 1834 és la seu del Col·legi de l'Art Major de la Seda de Barcelona.
WIKIPEDIA
A cop d’ull destaca l’ornamentació de la façana amb uns esgrafiats que molts han qualificat com els més macos de la ciutat. Encara que es desconeix l’autoria, no és difícil endevinar l’habilitat tècnica i la categoria de l’artista. Va demostrar tenir una gran destresa per transmetre un precís efecte corpori en les gegantines figures de quatre metres d’alçada, seguint el model de representació clàssic de cariàtides i Atlants. També cal destacar les motllures excepcionals que emmarquen finestres i balcons d’inspiració barroca.
Al balcó de la cantonada podem observar una fornícula on es troba Nostra Senyora dels Àngels, patrona i protectora dels velers. Als seus peus, els àngels estan situats en forma de mitja lluna identificant-se tots i cadascun d’ells. Es tracta d’una composició netament barroca amb un fort concepte de moviment. L’obra de l’escultor Joan Enrich realitzada al 1760.
A la banda de la Plaça de Lluis Millet, entre el 1928 i el 1932, l’edifici va ser ampliat per l’arquitecte Jeroni Martorell, seguint les línies de l’antic edifici. L’estucador Ferran Serra va fer uns esgrafiats imitant els antics.
CASA DE LA SEDA
ENGLISH
At first glance the facade is highlighted by its sgraffito decoration. Many have described it as the most beautiful in the city of Barcelona. Although the author is unknown, the technical skills and the category of the artist are evident. He perfectly conveyed an accurate corporeal effect on the four meter giant figures, following the example of classic caryatids and Atlanteans representations. The exceptional Baroque inspired moldings that frame windows and balconies are also noteworthy.
On the balcony of the corner we can see Our Lady of the Angels, patroness and protector of all veil weavers. At her feet, angels are located in a crescent shape. It is a typical baroque composition with a strong concept of movement. The work was made by Joan Enrich in 1760.
Between 1928 and 1932 the building was extended by the architect Jeroni Martorell and the plasterer Ferran Serra made some new sgraffito imitating the original ones.
CASA DE LA SEDA
ESPAÑOL
La Casa de la Seda, también llamada Casa del Gremio de los Veleros, Casa Gremial del Arte Mayor de la Seda o Casa del Arte Mayor de la Seda (en catalán: Casa del Gremi dels Velers) es una edificación considerada Bien de interés cultural en su categoría de Monumento desde el 2 de junio de 1920 situada en la localidad catalana de Barcelona (España). Fue construida entre 1758 y 1763 por el arquitecto Joan Garrido y Bertran (cuyo proyecto ganó frente al de Marià Ballescà) como sede del gremio de tejedores de velos de seda, creado en 1553. Al cabo de cuatro años de su inicio, las dificultades económicas detuvieron la obra, que fue retomada gracias a una ayuda de 6000 libras de la secretaría de la Cámara del Rey.5 Algunos autores confunden el significado de la palabra "veleros", en este caso "fabricantes de velos de seda", con las personas que se dedican a la fabricación de velas para embarcaciones.
WIKIPEDIA
A simple vista destaca la ornamentación de la fachada con unos esgrafiados que muchos han calificado como los más bonitos de la ciudad. Aunque se desconoce la autoría, no es difícil adivinar la habilidad técnica y la categoría del artista. Demostró tener una gran destreza para transmitir un preciso efecto corpóreo en las gigantescas figuras de cuatro metros de altura, siguiendo el modelo de representación clásico de cariátides y atlantes. También cabe destacar las molduras excepcionales que enmarcan ventanas y balcones de inspiración barroca.
En el balcón de la esquina podemos observar una hornacina donde está Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, patrona y protectora de los veleros. A sus pies, los ángeles están situados en forma de media luna identificándose todos y cada uno de ellos. Se trata de una composición claramente con un fuerte concepto de movimiento. La obra es del escultor Joan Enrich realizada en 1760.
Por la parte de la Plaza de Lluís Millet, entre 1928 y 1932, el edificio fue ampliado por el arquitecto Jeroni Martorell, siguiendo las líneas del antiguo edificio. El estucador Ferran Serra hizo unos nuevos esgrafiados imitando los antiguos.
CASA DE LA SEDA
Our Daily Challenge 13-19 June : Fish
I made quite a few of these years ago, all different. I like doing sgraffito.
Stoneware clay with black slip fired to 1280 C about 12"/30cms across.
Our Daily Challenge 2-8 March : Other Worldly.
A sgraffito work by Melinda Mollusc and associates on a lamppost near me.
Radula and algae on metal paint
Prachatice - Stará radnice
Die Stadt Prachatitz (Prachatice) war als Zentrum des Salzhandels über Jahrhunderte die bedeutendste Stadt im Bereich des Böhmerwaldes. Die am „Goldenen Steig“ gelegene Siedlung ist unter ihrem heutigen Namen erstmals für das Jahr 1088 belegt, wenngleich es sich dabei vermutlich um das Dorf Alt Prachatitz (Staré Prachatice) handelt, in welchem damals aber bereist das von Passau herangeführte Salz gestapelt werden durfte. Die Einkünfte daraus flossen an das Domkapitel auf dem Prager Vyšehrad, welches Anfang des 14. Jahrhunderts die im nahen Witiejitz residierende gleichnamige Adelsfamilie mit der Gründung einer Stadt zum Schutz der Salzhändler beauftragte. Die südlich des Dorfs Alt Prachatitz angelegte Stadt erhielt einen kreisförmigen Grundriss, wobei das ein rechteckiger Marktplatz das Zentrum bildete und zwei Tore dem Verlauf des Goldenen Steiges entsprachen. Durch die bereits 1323 verliehenen Stadtrecht blühte die Siedlung schnell auf, was durch das 1382 von Wenzel IV. Verliehene Salzstapelrecht noch gesteigert wurde. Prachatitz hatte damit über lange Zeit das Monopol des Salzverkaufs für ganz Böhmen inne. Der Reichtum der hiesigen Kaufleute zeigte sich an zahlreichen Patrizierhäusern mit ausgesprochen wertvollen Sgraffitoverzierungen. Die Bedeutung von Prachatitz ging ab dem 17. Jahrhundert langsam zurück, als es zwar zur Königsstadt erhoben wurde, jedoch der Salzhandel sich mehr auf den aus Österreich kommenden Linzer Steig verlagerte. Nach dem Verlust der Privilegien in Folge des Dreißigjährigen Krieges und der endgültigen Verlegung des kaiserlichen Salzlagers nach Böhmisch Krumau (Český Krumlov), geriet Prachatitz endgültig in den Rang einer Provinzstadt.
Das Alte Rathaus am Marktplatz gilt als eines der bedeutendsten Renaissancebauwerke Böhmens. Es wurde in den Jahren 1570-72 erbaut und besitzt eine Sgraffitofassade mit Motiven der "guten Regierung". Die Sgraffiti wurden nach dem Stadtbrand von 1832 neu geschaffen, als auch das Rathaus mitsamt des damals noch vorhandenen Turmes den Flammen zum Opfer fiel.
Esgrafiat i relleu del Palau Alfons XIII, 1929 Exposició Internacional de Barcelona
Esgrafiado y relieve del Palacio Alfonso XIII, Exposición Internacional de Barcelona 1929
Plaça Puig i Cadafalch
Montjuïc
BARCELONA
Star Wars wieder da – Trump macht den Reagan
Leider gab es den Glauben an eine Differenz zwischen dem US-Establishment und Donald Trump bis in die Friedensbewegung. Dass das nur eine übliche Prügelei unterschiedlicher Profit-Fraktionen war, dürfte spätestens jetzt, nach der Wiederkehr der Star-Wars-Pläne, auch denen klar sein, die immer noch auf einen guten König hoffen: Es rettet uns kein höheres Wesen, geschweige denn ein Donald Trump.
(von Uli Gellermann in www.rationalgalerie.de/home/star-wars-is-back.html)
Da war ein Zetern und Zagen im deutschen Medien-Dschungel, jüngst, als sich die Herren Putin und Trump in Helsinki getroffen hatten. Was mögen sie wohl gemacht haben, die zwei, als sie mal so ganz alleine waren? Sich Witze über Frau Merkel erzählt? – Das Wort "Verrat" machte die Runde, der sonderbare, postfaktische Hubert Wetzel von der SÜDDEUTSCHEN wusste gar von "Trumps dreifachem Verrat" zu erzählen, als sei jener Petrus und die westliche Staatengemeinschaft der liebe Herr Jesus. Spätestens das muss Donald, den Twitterer, schwer gerührt haben. Denn schon in diesen Tagen lässt er seinen evangelikalen Vizepräsident Mike "The Racist" Pence von einer "Space Force" schwärmen: "Die Zeit ist gekommen für das nächste, großartige Kapitel in der Geschichte unseres Militärs. Um für das nächste Schlachtfeld gerüstet zu sein, auf dem Amerikas Beste und Tapferste aufgerufen sein werden, neue Bedrohungen für unsere Nation abzuwehren und zu besiegen." Denn bis 2020 wollen die USA mal wieder Weltraum-Streitkräfte aufbauen.
Geradezu erleichtert wusste die TAGESSCHAU die Pence-Worte zu apportieren: "Viele Jahre haben Länder wie Russland, China, Nordkorea oder Iran Waffen angestrebt, um unsere Navigations- und Kommunikations-Satelliten mit elektronischen Angriffen vom Boden aus zu stören. In jüngster Zeit arbeiten unsere Gegner daran, Kriegswaffen ins Weltall zu bringen." Beweise? Null. Nachfragen der Behelfsjournalisten? Zero. Zweifel gar? Auf keinen Fall! So schön lebt die Made im Speck atlantischer Seligkeit, da will man doch nichts und niemanden irritieren. Vor allem nicht Zuschauer und Leser. Zumal Trump so ein schönes altes Kapitel in der Geschichte des US-Militärs aufschlagen will. Denn die neue "Space Force" klingt ganz nach der "Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)", den Star-Wars-Träumen des Ronald Reagan, der damit immerhin einen erheblichen Beitrag zum Totrüsten der verblichenen Sowjetunion geliefert hatte. Und jetzt versucht es Trump eben mit Russland.
Donald Trump hatte gleich nach seinem Amtsantritt eine Überprüfung der amerikanischen Nuklearstrategie angeordnet. Ein Ergebnis dieser "Überprüfung" ist der Plan des Pentagon, Atomwaffen mit vergleichsweise geringer Sprengkraft bauen zu lassen. Denn, so argumentiert die US-Kriegsmaschine: "Strategische Atomwaffen mit ihrem gigantischen Zerstörungspotenzial reichten nicht zur Abschreckung. Russland setze demnach womöglich darauf, dass Amerika diese Waffen niemals einsetzen würde, da das Risiko wegen eines zu befürchtenden atomaren Gegenangriffs von ähnlicher Dimension und der damit drohenden Vernichtung von großen Teilen der Menschheit zu hoch sei" (zitiert nach FAZ 03.02.2018).
Die einzige substanzielle Äußerung des Putin-Trump-Treffens in Helsinki kam dann auch von Wladimir Putin, der kühl und nüchtern daran erinnerte, dass Russland eine Reihe von Vorschlägen unterbreitet habe, um die Verhandlungen über das Rüstungskontroll-Abkommen NewSTART, das 2021 ausläuft, wieder aufzunehmen. Das brutale Echo der USA ist wohl die neue "Space Force". Selbst die konservative "Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)", der Think-Tank der Bundesregierung, meinte jüngst: "Vor allem in Washington mangelt es an der Bereitschaft, das Abkommen zu verlängern. Donald Trump ist besorgt, die Vereinigten Staaten könnten nuklear hinter andere Nuklearwaffenstaaten zurückfallen. Die USA sollten, so sein Versprechen, das »Rudel« der Atomwaffenstaaten »anführen«. »New START« bezeichnete er als »einseitiges Abkommen«."
So reden Waffenhändler nun mal. Denn schon der historische Vorläufer der Trumpschen "Space-Force", die Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), hat zwischen 1983 und 1993 rund 120 Milliarden US-Dollar gekostet. Da läuft der Rüstungsindustrie der Profit-Sabber nur so aus dem Maul. So blieb es nicht aus, dass die ebenso perfide wie raffinierte Alice Weidel von der AfD das Helsinki-Treffen so kommentierte: „Die teilweise schrillen Reaktionen auf die Zusammenkunft Donald Trumps mit seinem russischen Amtskollegen sind unverständlich und unangebracht. Dass der Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten gegen den lautstarken Widerstand des US-Establishments einen Schritt unternimmt, die Beziehungen zu Russland zu normalisieren und den unerklärten Kalten Krieg zu überwinden, ist aus deutscher und europäischer Sicht zu begrüßen." Dass Trumps Schritt nur der zum Tritt gegen das russische Schienbein war, wollen die NATO-Lover von der AfD ungern zugeben. Hat sich die Partei doch bisher, vor allem um Stimmen in Ostdeutschland zu gewinnen, als Russlandfreundin ausgegeben.
Leider gab es den Kinderglauben an eine fundamentale Differenz zwischen dem US-Establishment und Donald Trump bis in die Reihen der deutschen Friedensbewegung. Dass es sich um nichts anderes handelte als um die übliche Prügelei unterschiedlicher Profit-Fraktionen, dürfte spätestens jetzt, nach der bedrohlichen Wiederkehr der Star-Wars-Pläne auch denen klar sein, die immer noch auf einen guten König hoffen: Es rettet uns leider kein höheres Wesen, geschweige denn eine solch niedere Existenz wie Donald Trump.
Kommentare dort:
Folgende Leserbriefe wurden zu diesem Artikel geschrieben:
Am 16. August 2018 schrieb Krysztof Daletski:
Das von der FAZ gebrachte Zitat belegt "from the horse's mouth", dass die USA die Erstschlagsfähigkeit anstreben. Das war übrigens bereits unter Obama so, denn der "Raketenabwehrschirm" macht laut "Foreign Affairs" (März/April 2006, p. 52) nur in einem offensiven Szenario Sinn: "Die Art von Raketenabwehr, die von den USA wahrscheinlich zum Einsatz gebracht werden wird, wäre primär in einem offensiven Kontext sinnvoll - nicht in einem defensiven - als Ergänzung einer amerikanischen Erstschlagfähigkeit, nicht als Schutzschild an sich. Wenn die Vereinigten Staaten einen Nuklearangriff gegen Russland (oder China) führten, bliebe dem angegriffenen Land nur ein kleines Arsenal übrig ? wenn überhaupt. Dann wäre sogar ein relativ bescheidenes oder wenig wirksames Raketenabwehrsystem zur Verteidigung gegen Vergeltungsschläge ausreichend."
Das ist eine hochgefährliche Entwicklung. Was vom Geleristen angesprochene eventuellen "Kinderglauben" bzgl. Trump angeht, so lag der vielleicht weniger in Trump selber, als vielmehr in einer möglichen Reaktion auf seinen Politikstil. Paul Craig Roberts schrieb einmal im Zusammenhang zur Ukraine-Krise, dass die US-Regierung geschickt nach und nach die Temperatur erhöht habe, ohne dass der europäische Frosch aus dem Wasser gesprungen sein. Wenn ein Heißsporn wie Trump die Temperatur viel schneller erhöht, kann sich der Frosch vielleicht daran erinnern, dass er springn kann. Leider sind unsere Regierungen aber anscheinend so im Kalten-Kriegs-Lagerdenken verfangen, dass transatlantische Treue einen höheren Stellenwert hat als eigene Überlebensinteressen. Da hat sogar ein Trump freie Hand...
Am 14. August 2018 schrieb Hella-Maria Schier:
Selbst wenn sich Trump gegen das Establishment stellen wollte, dürfte es ihm kaum gelingen. Wir werden also nie wirklich wissen, ob er mal die Absicht hatte. Sowieso ging es ja wohl nur um einen bestimmten Zweig des Establishments und die ideologische Gruppe der New American Century - Imperialisten um Clintons, Bush, Obama und die Gruppe der Neocons. Möglich, dass Trumps Opposition zu ihnen nur scheinbar besteht. Dann spielt aber die gesamte transatlantische Medienlandschaft mit ihrem unaufhörlichen Trump-Bashing dieses Spielchen mit. Ich tue mich immer schwer damit, jemanden zu "fressen", der mir zum Frass geradezu und immerzu vorgeworfen wird, und zwar von Leuten, die ich nicht als meine Freunde betrachte. Das macht mich misstrauisch. Warum tun sie das? Ist doch eine interessante Frage. Ähnlich verhält es sich mit der AFD. Sowohl AFD wie auch Trump habe ich als anständiger Mensch als Gegner Nummer 1 zu betrachten. Dies sind Nationalisten, also Rechte, Rassisten. Das soll auch erkennbar sein.
Was hätte nun die auch nicht gerade menschenfreundliche Fraktion der kapitalistischen Globalisierer davon, sie in den Fokus der Kritik zu nehmen? Man bedenke den enormen Einsatz der Medien. Vielleicht ein klar gezeichnetes Bild der bösen Rechten , des Faschismus zu vermitteln, von dem sie selbst sich dann als "fortschrittlich" abheben können? Gar als links? Ach Angela, du Engel, gute Mutter der Beladenen, bewahre uns vom Übel der AFD, durch deren Finsternis wir dein strahlendes Licht heller lñeuchten sehen! Jeder der die Stimme gegen dich erhebt und gegen alles, was du vertrittst, macht sich gemein mit diesen braunen Kräften der Finsternis. Ach, Hillary ... tja, das hat wohl nicht ganz geklappt. Aber natürlich hat der Deep State mit dieser Möglichkeit gerechnet und einen Plan B mit Trump parat gehabt. Letztlich, wie sie den Bürgern Rechte und Mittel nimmt, ob über rechts oder pseudolinks, ist der dunklen Seite der Macht (gibt es überhaupt eine andere?) relativ schnurz. Hat sie gewonnen, macht sie sowieso, was sie will. Links wird es kaum sein.
Antwort von U. Gellermann:
Einen Oligarchen und aktiven und (siehe NATO-Etats) erfolgreichen Vertreter der Waffenindustrie „gegen das Establishment“ einzuordnen entbehrt nicht der Komik.
Natürlich ist die öffentliche und höchst „moralische“ Kritik an der AfD ähnlich zu werten. Auch hier geht es um Futterneid (Wähler-Potentiale, Posten) unterschiedlicher Fraktionen der Bourgeoisie. Aber: Die AfD erweitert fraglos den Spielraum nach Rechts.
Am 14. August 2018 schrieb Klaus-Peter Kostag:
Lieber Ulli Gellermann,
nie würdest Du Dritte als "perfide" behaupten ohne Hintergrundwissen. Fehlen mir da gewichtige Infos?
Antwort von U. Gellermann:
"Burkas, Kopftuchmädchen und alimentierte Messermänner und sonstige Taugenichtse werden unseren Wohlstand, das Wirtschaftswachstum und vor allem den Sozialstaat nicht sichern.“ Zitat aus einer Bundestags-Rede der Dame Weidel. Das ist perfide (niederträchtig) weil Minderheiten eklig diskriminiert werden und zudem ein „Wohlstand“ behauptet wird, der offenkundig die Armen gegen die noch Ärmeren ausspielen soll. Also perfide (heimtückisch),
Am 14. August 2018 schrieb altes fachbuch:
"Kann mir das einer mal sagen?"
nun, lieber o.bismarck,
ich maß mir nicht an, von irgend was ahnung zu haben, aber traue mich zu einer antwort:
"..unsere wirtschaft..., ".... das volk..." "..wir.. und andere unzulässige verallgemeinerungen lese ich in ihren zeilen. frau merkel und die dt. politik müsse doch anders handeln und ob sie das nicht wüssten oder könnten oder dürften??
mit respekt und verlaub: dieses WIR oder UNSER gibt es nicht!
jenseits von aktuellen personen oder parteien sollte bewusst sein, dass "bürgerliche" "parlamentarische" "demokratie" ein schauspiel zum kaschieren eigentlich ausschliesslich wirtschaftlicher macht und interessen von eigentümern in der wirtschaft ist!! diese zu erhalten und zu mehren ist die alleinige aufgabe der darsteller, neben der nabelschau und selbstabsicherung der darsteller selbst, und der verarschung der konsumenten dieses schauspiels;)
ihr beispiel iran: die EU hat der wirtschaft gar verboten, den us-sanktionen zu folgen. ABER sie können eben privatunternehmen auch nicht zwingen zu investieren! reines schmierentheater. fahren sie mal bei rot über eine ampel, und argumentieren sie danach, die sei nicht bindend für freie bürger!
durch die globalisierung entstanden so viele abhängigkeiten (swift, dollar als leitwährung, globale firmengeflechte....), dass ein widerspruch gegen die us-entscheidungen ein widerspruch gegen eigene verusacher wäre. was der staat usa als "welt-hegemon" zelebriert, kopiert der staat brd in europa, mit mehr appetit gerichtet gen osten und afrika! das alte krupp-prinzip aus bismarks zeiten lässt grüssen;)
ob die brd anders handeln wollte??
autos, waffen und gift verkaufen reicht erstmal, die bewohner als hauptproduktivkraft und konsumenten und damit den wirtschafts- und verwertungskreislauf oder eben die wertschöpfungskette zu erhalten!! im tierreich gibts nur die nahrungskette, im wertesystem muss das opfer die beleidigung des verstandes zusätzlich in kauf nehmen. wenn noch welcher da ist!
jeder zoo ist humaner, jedes tier menschlicher!
ob die brd eigenständig handeln dürfte?? eine anstalts-folge belegt gegenteiliges:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8iZD0O2hug
von daher passiert alles, wie es soll. da hat frau spurgat schon recht!
@die friedens"bewegten"
SDI und der doppelraketenbeschluss sind damals an den kosten, der technischen machbarkeit, dem widerstand des warschauer vertrages und der SU gescheitert! NICHT aber am plakateschwenken!!
nun kommen neues geld, neue machbarkeit, kein warschauer vertrag und ein kap. russland, das auch gerne waffen verkauft!! wieder plakate schwenken???
der inf-vertrag oder open-sky in gefahr??
juckt keine sau, ist doch die rente an die börse gekoppelt.
@systemgläubige
glaubt jemand, dass der kapitalismus dieses sanktionierungs-unwesen, diesen wirtschaftskrieg erst eben erfunden hat??
der ostblock und damit der reale sozialismus ist NICHT am system allein kaputt gegangen. er wurde insbesondere wirtschaftlich nieder gerungen (hallstein, wettrüsten, cocom...)
wen juckt es. kühe sind ja auch lila;)
ääähmmm, moment - und fressen grünes, und ich braunes?? keine sorge, diese fragen stellen sich schüler heut zu tage nicht mehr, die fressen einfach;)
nun komme ich ja aus der welt, jenseits des stacheldrahtes: ob mir damals was gehörte und das unser war, war mir gar nicht bewusst. bis es fehlte!!
der schwachsinn, der mir in dieser welt täglich widerfährt, ist des unterganges würdig.
daher lieber eine mauer aus beton, als durch den kontostand!!
bei versehentlich offenem mikro hat reagan den atomaren angriffsbefehl gen SU befohlen und bejubelt!!
merke: die befehle gibt es also schon, fehlt nur noch das okay der wall-street!
apropos bismarck:
des "eisernen kanzlers" russlandpolitik war alleinig dadurch bestimmt, gegen das revolutionäre frankreich freie hand zu haben.
google dialektisch-historischer materialismus oder Genesis-prinzip, oder vergiss es: kühe sind lila;)
Antwort von U. Gellermann:
Die Zuschrift ist fast so lang wie der Artikel auf die sie sich bezieht. Ein paar Zeichen mehr und sie wäre nicht veröffentlicht worden. Alle Leser werden gebeten sich kurz zu fassen. Das dient dem Dialog.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Thomas Fricke:
Der Präsident blickt zu den Sternen
Der Präsident blickt zu den Sternen,
Im Auftrag von Rüstungskonzernen.
Beim Anblick vom Universum
Fällt ihm ein, was - Wen wundert's? - dumm:
"Ich bin erleuchtet, Tanradei!
Wir brauch'n ein neues Es-Di-Ei!
Das gibt uns Kraft, das gibt uns Schwung,
Die Aktien steig'n, krawumm, krawumm!"
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Karola Schramm:
Was für eine "Kinder-Kacke!" - Nicht der Bericht von U.Gellermann, sondern das Theater von Donald Trump und seines gleichen. "Krieg der Sterne." Großes Kino! Die ganze Welt, Himmel und Hölle , Hollywood!
Reicht es nicht, die Erde atomar zu vergiften, sollen nun auch die Sterne herhalten für den Fantasiemüll einiger durchgeknallter Psychopathen, die sich Künstler nennen und die Hirne und Herzen der Menschen auf der Erde in die Irre führen.
Aber man sieht ja. Fast kein Kinderzimmer eines kleinen Jungen, in dem nicht "Star Wars" gespielt wird. Die Sehnsucht nach Frieden und dem Guten geht nur über Krieg?!
Donald Trump knüpft genau da, womit er die Fantasie der Menschen am meisten fesseln kann: "Krieg der Sterne." Der Gute gewinnt. Damit es auf jeden Fall Amerika ist, wird dasjenige Land zum Feind erklärt, das sich gegen diesen kriegsgeilen, von sich selbst trunkenen, amerikanischen Präsidenten, wendet.
Ronald Reagan, der filmschauspielende ehemalige Präsident dieses großen, schönen Landes, hatte die "Tore der Hölle" zum Raubtierkapitalismus geöffnet. Und nun besinnt sich wieder einer, ihn großkotzig auf den Himmel auszudehnen. So viel krankes Hirn mitten in der Weltpolitik! Erwachsenen Spiele von zumeist reichen Politikern, die nie richtig Kind sein durften, erlebt man überall.
Der "Kinderglaube", dass Trump sich über das amerikanische Establishment stellen würde ist uns Friedensbewegten jetzt zwar genommen, macht aber dafür auch den Weg frei für einen realistischen Blick auf die eigene Politik und das Eröffnen eigener Handlungspielräume gegenüber den USA. "Gefahr erkannt - Gefahr gebannt."
Antwort von U. Gellermann:
Kindlich finde ich diese neue Bedrohung keineswegs.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Paulo H. Bruder:
1. Absatz, 6. Zeile: Der "liebe Herrn Jesus" wurde nicht von Petrus verraten, sondern von ...? Ja, richtig: Judas hat er geheißen!
Antwort von U. Gellermann:
Nun zur Bibel, Matthäus - Kapitel 26
„Jesus sprach zu ihm: Wahrlich ich sage dir: In dieser Nacht, ehe der Hahn kräht, wirst du mich dreimal verleugnen“ Verleugnen ist natürlich Verrat.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Lutz Jahoda:
ERINNERUNG UND WARNUNG
John von Neumann, Edward Teller
klopften Ronald Reagan weich,
sagten: "Tief im Strahlenkeller
ruhn die Pentagon-Aufheller,
hol sie hoch ins Sternenreich!"
Milliardenteure Pläne
wurden in den Sand gesetzt.
Übrig blieben Teilchenspäne,
eine Präsidententräne
und zwei Forscher, tief verletzt.
Nun verschafft Herr Trump drei Toten,
Auferstehung per Dekret.
Lenker aller Idioten,
lasst von Russland eure Pfoten,
da auch ihr sonst untergeht!
ANMERKUNG:
Leó Szilárd, Eugene Paul Wigner,
Edward Teller und John von Neumann
kamen aus Budapest, studierten in Deutschland Mathematik und Kernphysik, flohen vor Hitler in die USA und wurden dort zu den maßgeblichen Schöpfern der Atombombe.
Während Szilárd und Wigner nach dem ersten geglückten Test alles versuchten, um die Anwendung über einer Stadt zu verhindern, zeigten sich Neumann und Teller auch nach Hiroshima und Nagasaki als unerbittliche Befürworter, immer stärkere Plutoniumformate zu entwickeln.
Edward Teller, der einst in der Leipziger Linnéstraße 5 mit Werner Heisenberg Tischtennis und vierhändig Klavier spielte,
forcierte schließlich den Bau der Wasserstoff-Bombe, und Produzent Stanley Kubrick setzte Teller ein Denkmal mit der Filmsatire "Dr. Seltsam oder: Wie ich lernte, die Bombe zu lieben", und watschte verdientermaßen gleichzeitig zwei hohe US-Militärs ab.
Erst kürzlich wurden Stimmen laut,
warum Frau Merkel sich nicht traut,
der Rüstung dies Geschenk zu machen.
Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat?
Die böse Tat
gefriert mir schon im Lachen.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Susanne Kreuzer:
Unter familiären Briefschaften, welche ich momentan sichte, habe ich ein Rundschreiben des Deutschen Frauenrates vom 03. Dezember 1959 gefunden. Darin heißt es: "Sehr geehrte Damen! Auf internationaler Ebene gewinnt die Einsicht nach Verständigung immer mehr an Boden, so daß es u.a. bei der Einigung zwischen Eisenhower und Chrustschow in Camp David zu dem Ausspruch kam, Es gibt keine Alternative mehr zum Frieden.
Der hoffnungsvolle Vorschlag des Ministerpräsidenten Chrustschow vor der Vollversammlung der Vereinten Nationen, einer allgemeinen und vollständigen Abrüstung in allen Ländern, zwingt uns noch stärker für die Sache des Friedens einzutreten. (...) Die Erklärung des Präsidiums des Deutschen Frauenrates zu dieser Frage, erlauben wir uns Ihnen beizulegen. Deutscher Frauenrat, i. A. Frau A. Messerschmidt, Wuppertal-Elberfeld"
In der beigefügten Erklärung vom November 1959 heißt es: "Das Präsidium des Deutschen Frauenrates begrüßt mit großer Freude den Vorschlag zu einer allgemeinen und totalen kontrollierten Abrüstung, den der Ministerpräsident der Sowjetunion der 14. Vollversammlung der Vereinten Nationen unterbreitete.
In dem Vorschlag wird das völlige Verbot der Herstellung, Lagerung und Verwendung von Kernwaffen aller Art und die Vernichtung aller Kernwaffenvorräte, die Abschaffung der Armeen, Kriegsflotten, Luftstreitkräfte, Generalstäbe und Kriegsministerien zusammen mit anderen Maßnahmen in allen Ländern der Erde gefordert. ( ...) Der Vorschlag zu einer totalen Weltabrüstung von dem einen der beiden mächtigsten Staaten der Welt vorgetragen und von dem Vertreter der USA unterstützt, fand den einmütigen Beifall der Vollversammlung der Vereinten Natioen. Die Völker haben den Wunsch, dass ihre Staatsmänner friedliche Wege gehen."
Die Vertreter im Bundestag scheinen davon nicht nso beindruckt worden zu sein, denn
weiter heißt es: "Wir Frauen stellen beunruhigt fest, daß die außenpolitische Debatte des Bundestages weder Beschlüsse über einen Abrüstungsbeitrag, noch Schritte zur Entspannung zwischen den beiden deutschen Staaten brachte - obwohl die Bereitschaftserklärung des Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik vorlag - sondern die Regierungskoalition erneut ihre Entschlossenheit bekräftigte, ihre bisherige Politik der Aufrüstung und des kalten Krieges fortzusetzen. (...)"
Der Text spricht für sich.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Peter Leisten:
Wo kann man sich für diese Veranstaltung anmelden?
Antwort von U. Gellermann:
Das ist die Telefon-Nummer der Kammer: 0335 5619-103
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Karin Brenner:
Die Charakterisierung der Weidel (perfide und raffiniert) trifft es genau. Die AfD wanzt sich bei den Russen an. Hoffentlich fallen die nicht darauf rein.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Otto Bismark:
Ja, so langsam wird es deutlich, Trump ist der Meister der Profitmacherei und das natürlich vor allem für den Rüstungsbereich. Und bisher hat das ja bestens funktioniert, aus der Position der militärischen Stärke werden die Gegner und aus der Position der ökonomischen Stärke die Vasallen gezwungen, das Elend mitzumachen. Entweder es geht bis in den Untergang auf ewige Zeiten so weiter oder dem US-amerikanischen Volk wird durch eine Blockbildung "Die Welt gegen die USA" verdeutlicht, daß sich die Völker der Welt diese Vorherrschaftsstrategie nicht länger gefallen lassen. Es muß vor allem dazu kommen, daß einer Sanktionspolitik, die da lautet (Beispiel!) "Wer mit dem Iran handelt, handelt nicht mit uns" die kalte Schulter gezeigt wird und die Antwort lautet, "Dann eben nicht!". Natürlich weiß ich, daß wir davon meilenweit entfernt sind und Deutschland vor allem durch die Merkelsche Kriecherei gegenüber den USA und die Konfrontationspolitik gegenüber Rußland noch immer auf dem entgegengesetzten Weg voranschreitet. Leider wird von den Kreisen, die gegen die Konfrontationspolitik Richtung Osten sind, nicht deutlich genug gemacht, daß eine Hinwendung zu dem Riesenreich im Osten absolut nichts mit einer Verherrlichung der früheren Sowjetunion zu tun hat, sondern ausschließlich auf objektiven ökonomischen Zwängen beruhen würde. Deutsches know how und russische Ressourcen, wenn das zusammenkommt, dann kann Trump und sein Clan einpacken! Das wissen die übrigens ganz genau und deswegen versuchen die uns auch peinlich vom Osten fernzuhalten. Und sagen das auch noch laut! Bis jetzt mit Erfolg, in diesem Zusammenhang halte ich besonders die Frage für wichtig, wieso merkt das Merkel eigentlich nicht? Einer promovierten Physikerin kann man doch wohl einige Fähigkeiten beim Erkennen von Zusammenhängen und objektiven Gesetzmäßigkeiten unterstellen. Also warum weiß sie das nicht? Oder weiß sie es vielleicht doch? Mal soll mir an dieser Stelle nicht mit der angeblichen Aggressivität Putins kommen, seine Administration wurde durch den Putsch in der Ukraine bis aus Blut gereizt und wenn der Sewastopol aufgegeben hätte, dann hätte er das politisch nicht überlebt und wir hätten dort vieleicht wirklich politische Hasardeure (Putschisten) am Ruder. Also, nochmal, warum verfolgt Merkel einen außenpolitschen Kurs, den seinerzeit schon Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck peinlich vermieden hat? Warum versaut sie unserer Wirtschaft auf diese Weise die Erschließung riesiger Geschäftsfelder? Kann mir das einer mal sagen?
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Ullrike Spurgat:
Bei Trump ist alles, was nicht von ihm "angeführt" wird ein "einseitiges Abkommen."
Spätestens jetzt ist die "Katze aus dem Sack."
Trump zuerst. Seine Regeln gelten. Jedes Abkommen, wo er nicht klar machen kann, wo der Frosch die Locken hat wird aufgekündigt, um dann die sowieso völlig zu unrecht ,grässliche Stärke der USA zu personifizieren in seiner Person. Trump von "Gottes Gnaden."
Trump ist die Antwort auf die bestehenden Verhältnisse in den USA. Direkter, offensichtlicher und mir klarer Aussage. "Die USA sollen, so sein Versprechen (Trump), das Rudel der Atomwaffenstaaten anführen." "New Start bezeichnet er als einseitiges Abkommen."
Natürlich ist ihm bewusst, dass die USA immer in einer besseren Verhandlungsposition sein werden und darum geht es ihm.Alles was vor im an Abkommen unter seinem verhassten Vorgänger Obama abgeschlossen wurde soll weg und dafür ist ihm jedes Mittel recht.
Die Knarre wird gezogen, wer schweigend seine Stimme erhebt.
Im gespaltenen Amerika, wo der Kapitalismus ungebremst das Volk in den Abgrund stürzen lässt ist Trump, der wieder von "Größe" und von der Nummer eins faselt ein geknickter Strohhalm, der ergriffen wird.
Die "Erniedrigten" und "Geknechteten" danken es ihm, unverständlich, aber große Teile wählen ihn, der zu den 1% gehört, der zynisch, sich selbst, nicht nur als "Genie" bezeichnet, sondern der Welt sagt: "Friß oder stirb."
Die USA können das so tun, weil sich die Macht- und Kräfteverhältnisse nach 1990/91 so entscheidend verändert haben, dass der Kapitalismus ohne sich noch verstellen zu müssen, die Menschheit in Not und Elend stürzt. Es gibt keine klassenbewussten Lohnabhänigigen (Arbeiterklasse) und diese Schwäche wird sich zunutze gemacht.
Man ist wieder wer, will er den Amerikanern sagen und das er innenpolitisch ein Komplett Versager, eine Null ist wird schnell vergessen, wenn man den Menschen suggeriert, dass sie die "Besten" in der Welt sind. Dieses nationale Denken geht nach hinten los.
Es ist wie mit fast allem, dass Patriotismus, der erstmal nichts verwerfliches ist sich ins Gegenteil verkehrt eine völlig andere Bedeutung bekommt.
Wir können nur etwas verändern und bewirken, wenn wir es im eigenen Land tun und dort Veränderungen mit anschieben, mit der Erkenntnis, dass es übergeordnete gemeinsame Interessen mit allen Völker in der Welt gibt. Thälmann war glühender Patriot und Internationalist.
Wer ohne Not eine beginnende Selbständigkeit, nach 1945 den Geiern zum Fraß vorwirft, wie Deutschland mit seiner unerträglichen Kriecherei Amerika gegenüber macht uns zum Deppen, den keiner mehr ernst nehmen kann. Merkel ist erledigt.-
Die Steuern für die Reichen gesenkt, in einem Land, wo Kinder von Farmern mit arbeiten müssen. Schwere Landmaschinen dürfen sie bedienen und vor der Schule müssen sie ran, weil ihre Arbeit das Leben der Farmer Familien mit sichert. Es gibt kein Gesetz, dass diese Kinder schützt und es sind die Kinder derer, die ums tägliche Überleben kämpfen müssen.
Ich hab keine Ahnung, was erstrebenswert sein soll an einem System, dass für Armut, Not, Elend, Hunger, dass Anspruch auf die Weltherrschaft erhebt, in dem Schwächere niederknüppelt werden, Millionen keine Lebensperspektiven haben, wo Faschisten ungehindert auf marschieren können und ein Präsident dazu keine klare Position hat. Die Reichen werden reicher, die Armen ärmer und der Griff "zu den Sternen" zeigt die Konsequenz auf, was Amerika zuerst wirklich bedeutet:
Amerika will die Welt beherrschen und alle sollen sich unterordnen und den Amis auf ewig dankbar sein, dass sie, die größten Kriegsverbrecher, Kriegstreiber und Mörder sind, weil sie die "Schutzmacht" ist den Reichtum, die Bodenschätze der Völker für die herrschende Klasse, mit Kriegen, Unterdrückung, mit Mord und Totschlag "schützen." Die herrschende Klasse wird geschützt und wer kann das besser als "Feuerlocke."
Fürs Fußvolk gibt es den berüchtigten Patriotismus,der zwar nicht satt macht, wenn man nicht genug auf dem Teller hat, aber immerhin ist man ja als Amerikaner etwas ganz "besonderes."
Russland muss sowas von auf passen, denn denen, (den Amis) reicht es nicht, dass sie die Sowjetunion mit vernichtet haben.
Russland wird sich niemals unterordenen und warum denn auch.
Die Sowjetunion, die in unvorstellbarer Weise vernichtet werden sollte, die gehungert, gefroren, gelitten und mit den größten, menschlichen Verlusten, eingebrannt in den Herzen bis Heute, haben mit dem Mut der Verzweiflung, den nur Menschen haben können, die erleben mussten, wofür es keine Worte gibt weiter zu machen und an die nächsten Generationen weiter zu geben, dass sich Faschismus und Krieg unter den heutigen Bedingungen niemals wiederholen darf.
Es ist nicht das erste Mal, dass man so einem wie Trump auf den Leim geht.
Amerika hat den Dollar und man sieht, dass Trump andere Länder in die Knie zwingen will und wie gesagt: "Wer über die Währung bestimmt......."
Man muss sich unabhängig machen von den Launen eines Mannes, dem jegliches Mitgefühl, dem jeglicher Respekt vor der Selbstbestimmung der Völker fehlt und nicht nur das. Ist es nicht Trump ist es eine andere Figur, die das System mit Klauen verteidigt. "Sozialismus statt Barberei." (Luxemburg).
Der Internationale Strafgerichtshof ist nie tätig geworden, um dem Kriegsverbrecher USA das Handwerk zu legen.
Amerika zuerst und Amerika darf und kann alles und die Welt dackelt mit und hinterher.
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Werner Holzer:
Die Russen können auch anders:
"Der russische Verteidigungsminister Sergej Schoigu hat seine deutsche Amtskollegin Ursula von der Leyen ausdrücklich davor gewarnt, Russland aus einer Position der Stärke zu behandeln. Russland werde einen solchen Umgang nicht dulden, sagte Schoigu und erinnerte dabei an den Ausgang des Zweiten Weltkrieges.
Deutschland sollte seine „Großväter fragen“, was werde, wenn man mit Russland aus der Position der Stärke zu sprechen beginne, so Schoigu weiter. Dabei versicherte er, dass Russland für eine gleichberechtigte Zusammenarbeit weiter offen sei." (Sputnik)
Am 13. August 2018 schrieb Lena Hoffer:
Der "gute König" ist nackt. Die armen Gläubigen können die Trump-Kirche verlassen.
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"Fake-News - Lügenpresse. Werte und Normen im Journalismus"
Es referiert:
Uli Gellermann, Journalist und Filmemacher
24. August 2018
15:45 Uhr bis 16:45 Uhr
Konferenzraum 2 im Bildungszentrum der Handwerkskammer
Spiekerstraße 11,
15230 Frankfurt (Oder)
Bildmarz 618
"The State Castle in Litomyšl is an important architectural monument located in the Pardubice region on the Czech - Moravian border.
The Pernštejn family had a Renaissance castle built in the 16th century as their family residence. The building is a rare example of the adaptation of an Italian Renaissance palace to the conditions of the Alpine countries. According to the Italian model, the inner courtyard is surrounded by arcades on three sides, and the gabled facades are covered with sgraffito decoration with small letters or figural motifs. The interiors are generally the result of later Baroque and Classicist modifications. The walls of the rooms are decorated with illusory painting in the style of Louis XVI, the ceilings are decorated with stucco, furniture and equipment then represent the lifestyle of the 18th and 19th centuries. On the ground floor of the noble residence, a unique classical family theater with functional machinery and a set of scenery has been preserved.
On the basis of restitution processes, the castle complex is divided into a state part (castle, carriage house, official house no. 94, salet, French garden and English park) and a municipal part (brewery, riding stable, stable, official house no. 134 and I. courtyard). The castle managed by the National Institute of Monuments is open to the public, offering two sightseeing routes (theatre and representation rooms, chapel and guest rooms), the possibility of organizing weddings and renting multifunctional halls. In the area you can visit the Municipal Gallery, the castle cellar with the sculptures of Olbram Zoubek and the Heart for Václav Havel or the birthplace of Bedřich Smetana. In addition to other events, the Smetanova Litomyšl music festival has been held here regularly since 1949.
Since 1962, the castle area has been protected as a National Cultural Monument, in 1999 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Litomyšl (German: Leitomischel, Leutomischel) is a town in the Svitavy district of the Pardubice region on the Czech side of the former land border with Moravia. It is located 17 km northwest of the district town of Svitavy (which was itself the seat of the district until 1960) and 13 km southwest of Ústí nad Orlicí. Litomyšl covers an area of less than 34 square kilometers in the central part of the Svitava Uplands on the Loučná River at an altitude of 330 meters. The cadastral area of Litomyšle includes the territorially independent parts of Kornice, Nová Ves u Litomyšle, Pazucha, Pohodlí and Suchá. Approximately 10 thousand inhabitants live here.
The name of the city comes from the Old Bohemian personal name Ľutomysl. Litomyšl received city privileges in 1259 (confirmed in 1263) from King Přemysl Otakar II as a vassal town of the local Premonstratensian monastery, whose lily symbol was adopted by the town as its coat of arms. The development of the city is closely linked to its lordship - first ecclesiastical (Premonstratensian monastery, bishopric of Litomyšl), later secular (Kostková from Postupice, Pernštejn, Trauttmansdorff, Valdštejn-Vartenberk, Thurn-Taxis). A number of leading personalities were born or worked in the city, including Bedřich Smetana, Alois Jirásek, Bozena Němcová, Josef Váchal or Olbram Zoubek.
The castle hill and the city itself offer a combination of historical architecture (the Renaissance castle on the UNESCO World Heritage list, the Baroque Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross and the Gothic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) with modern artistic trends (revitalization and projects by Josef Pleskot ). A number of events and festivals take place in the city throughout the year (Smetanova Litomyšl, Litomyšl Days of Baroque Tradition, ArchiMyšl, MD Rettigová Gastronomic Festivals). Litomyšl is therefore often referred to as a "modern historical city".
Bohemia (Latin Bohemia, German Böhmen, Polish Czechy) is a region in the west of the Czech Republic. Previously, as a kingdom, they were the center of the Czech Crown. The root of the word Czech probably corresponds to the meaning of man. The Latin equivalent of Bohemia, originally Boiohaemum (literally "land of Battles"), which over time also influenced the names in other languages, is derived from the Celtic tribe of the Boios, who lived in this area from the 4th to the 1st century BC Bohemia on it borders Germany in the west, Austria in the south, Moravia in the east and Poland in the north. Geographically, they are bounded from the north, west and south by a chain of mountains, the highest of which are the Krkonoše Mountains, in which the highest mountain of Bohemia, Sněžka, is also located. The most important rivers are the Elbe and the Vltava, with the fertile Polabean Plain extending around the Elbe. The capital and largest city of Bohemia is Prague, other important cities include, for example, Pilsen, Karlovy Vary, Kladno, Ústí nad Labem, Liberec, Hradec Králové, Pardubice and České Budějovice, Jihlava also lies partly on the historical territory of Bohemia." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Centraal Station | Underground Bicycle Parking 11/03/2023 14h41
Two wall artworks have been placed in the underground bicycle parking that opened on February 23, 2023, of which this is one.
A photo especially taken and uploaded for the
HET STRAATONGELUK (Street accident) 1965
Lex Horn (1916-1968)
*sgraffito
The original location of this sgraffito is the Jan Swammerdam Institute in the Eerste Contantijn Huijgensstraat. After demolition in 2004, this work was relocated here.
A girl can be seen at the bottom left. She ended up under a bicycle or cart and is lying on the street with spread arms and legs. Two bystanders help. A woman rushes up to the right to see how the girl is doing.
*Sgraffito is an old Italian technique for monumental wall art that was reintroduced by Lex Horn in the 1940s.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (ISO: Mōhanadāsa Karamacaṁda Gāṁdhī;[pron 1] 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (from Sanskrit 'great-souled, venerable'), first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.
Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, Gandhi trained in the law at the Inner Temple in London, and was called to the bar in June 1891, at the age of 22. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. There, Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against discrimination and excessive land-tax.
Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. He began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 and in calling for the British to quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a Muslim nationalism which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims within British India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these was begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948, when he was 78. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India. Among these was Nathuram Godse, a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, western India, who assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948.
Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is considered to be the Father of the Nation in post-colonial India. During India's nationalist movement and in several decades immediately after, he was also commonly called Bapu (Gujarati endearment for "father", roughly "papa", "daddy).
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
This small tray featuring a sgraffito design is by Lapid of Israel, which operated from 1944 through 1990. It is hand-signed "Lapid Israel", and was found in Minneapolis.
"The State Castle in Litomyšl is an important architectural monument located in the Pardubice region on the Czech - Moravian border.
The Pernštejn family had a Renaissance castle built in the 16th century as their family residence. The building is a rare example of the adaptation of an Italian Renaissance palace to the conditions of the Alpine countries. According to the Italian model, the inner courtyard is surrounded by arcades on three sides, and the gabled facades are covered with sgraffito decoration with small letters or figural motifs. The interiors are generally the result of later Baroque and Classicist modifications. The walls of the rooms are decorated with illusory painting in the style of Louis XVI, the ceilings are decorated with stucco, furniture and equipment then represent the lifestyle of the 18th and 19th centuries. On the ground floor of the noble residence, a unique classical family theater with functional machinery and a set of scenery has been preserved.
On the basis of restitution processes, the castle complex is divided into a state part (castle, carriage house, official house no. 94, salet, French garden and English park) and a municipal part (brewery, riding stable, stable, official house no. 134 and I. courtyard). The castle managed by the National Institute of Monuments is open to the public, offering two sightseeing routes (theatre and representation rooms, chapel and guest rooms), the possibility of organizing weddings and renting multifunctional halls. In the area you can visit the Municipal Gallery, the castle cellar with the sculptures of Olbram Zoubek and the Heart for Václav Havel or the birthplace of Bedřich Smetana. In addition to other events, the Smetanova Litomyšl music festival has been held here regularly since 1949.
Since 1962, the castle area has been protected as a National Cultural Monument, in 1999 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Litomyšl (German: Leitomischel, Leutomischel) is a town in the Svitavy district of the Pardubice region on the Czech side of the former land border with Moravia. It is located 17 km northwest of the district town of Svitavy (which was itself the seat of the district until 1960) and 13 km southwest of Ústí nad Orlicí. Litomyšl covers an area of less than 34 square kilometers in the central part of the Svitava Uplands on the Loučná River at an altitude of 330 meters. The cadastral area of Litomyšle includes the territorially independent parts of Kornice, Nová Ves u Litomyšle, Pazucha, Pohodlí and Suchá. Approximately 10 thousand inhabitants live here.
The name of the city comes from the Old Bohemian personal name Ľutomysl. Litomyšl received city privileges in 1259 (confirmed in 1263) from King Přemysl Otakar II as a vassal town of the local Premonstratensian monastery, whose lily symbol was adopted by the town as its coat of arms. The development of the city is closely linked to its lordship - first ecclesiastical (Premonstratensian monastery, bishopric of Litomyšl), later secular (Kostková from Postupice, Pernštejn, Trauttmansdorff, Valdštejn-Vartenberk, Thurn-Taxis). A number of leading personalities were born or worked in the city, including Bedřich Smetana, Alois Jirásek, Bozena Němcová, Josef Váchal or Olbram Zoubek.
The castle hill and the city itself offer a combination of historical architecture (the Renaissance castle on the UNESCO World Heritage list, the Baroque Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross and the Gothic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) with modern artistic trends (revitalization and projects by Josef Pleskot ). A number of events and festivals take place in the city throughout the year (Smetanova Litomyšl, Litomyšl Days of Baroque Tradition, ArchiMyšl, MD Rettigová Gastronomic Festivals). Litomyšl is therefore often referred to as a "modern historical city".
Bohemia (Latin Bohemia, German Böhmen, Polish Czechy) is a region in the west of the Czech Republic. Previously, as a kingdom, they were the center of the Czech Crown. The root of the word Czech probably corresponds to the meaning of man. The Latin equivalent of Bohemia, originally Boiohaemum (literally "land of Battles"), which over time also influenced the names in other languages, is derived from the Celtic tribe of the Boios, who lived in this area from the 4th to the 1st century BC Bohemia on it borders Germany in the west, Austria in the south, Moravia in the east and Poland in the north. Geographically, they are bounded from the north, west and south by a chain of mountains, the highest of which are the Krkonoše Mountains, in which the highest mountain of Bohemia, Sněžka, is also located. The most important rivers are the Elbe and the Vltava, with the fertile Polabean Plain extending around the Elbe. The capital and largest city of Bohemia is Prague, other important cities include, for example, Pilsen, Karlovy Vary, Kladno, Ústí nad Labem, Liberec, Hradec Králové, Pardubice and České Budějovice, Jihlava also lies partly on the historical territory of Bohemia." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.