Graffiti and the Critical Power of Urban Space

Abstract

Analyzing graffiti—the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds—reveals the institutional structures that shape urban spaces, and this is particularly evident in the context of Wall-era West Berlin. Through an investigation of two Berlin Wall graffiti-based artworks, Gordon Matta-Clark’s Made in America from 1976 and Keith Haring’s 1986 Berlin Wall mural, this article considers how these artists used graffiti practice to reveal the economic, social, and political processes with which West Berlin was connected and which it signified. In analyzing Matta-Clark’s and Haring’s artworks, these works’ specific political and historical contexts, and the specific institutions that sponsored their creation, the author considers the relationship of specific examples of graffiti to the larger processes from which they emerged. The author furthermore argues that considering individual examples of graffiti, on their own terms, is crucial to understanding the relationships between their creation and the power structures that govern urban spaces in which they are created.

#Detroit Music City: Analyzing Detroit’s Musical Urban Imaginary Through a Cultural Justice Lens

“…Therefore, murals function between the "paradigm of public art as resistance" (Chakravarty & Hwee-Hwa Chan, 2016, p. 418) and a more recent development of public art as a tool in gentrification, utilizing public space as an opportunity for economic and social development (MacDowall & de Souza, 2018;Pugh, 2015;Riggle, 2010;Skinner & Jolliffe, 2017). This is especially visible in, for example, creative city strategies, which potentially offer chances of urban revitalization (Florida, 2017) but which have also been shown to increase the marginalization and displacement of specific communities.…”

“…Indeed, murals can become landmarks of belonging, texts to be read for their expressed social values, political stances, or emotional responses to certain events (Flores, 2016, p. 20). At the same time, street art can be used to create place identity and enhance place branding, contributing to economic and social development goals (Chakravarty & Hwee-Hwa Chan, 2016; Oh, 2020; Pugh, 2015).…”

Bin ich ein Berliner? Graffiti as layered public archive and socio-ecological methodology

“…At the same time, the European citizenship narrative peddled by EU policy-makers and municipal governments, deemed self-indulgent by many, has been challenged by multiple forms of public, visual contestation visible across a number of global cities (Krätke 2004). Despite damage to building façades approaching some 50 million euro per year (Tzortzis 2008), murals and graffiti have proliferated across Berlin (Pugh 2015;Dembo 2013;Richardson and Skott-Mhyre, 2012). Exploring the collective imaginary to which this visual practice of dissensus (Rancière 2004) appeals can uncover the more-than-human entanglements that populate Berlin's socio-ecological trajectories of inhabiting (Ingold 2000), from squatting to gardening to grocery shopping.…”