Monumental Graffiti: Tracing Public Art and Resistance in the City

By Rafael Schacter

What is graffiti vandalism, ornament, art? What if, rather than any of those things, we thought of graffiti as a monument? How would that change our understanding of graffiti, and, in turn, our understanding of monument? In Monumental Graffiti, anthropologist Rafael Schacter focuses on the material, communicative and contextual aspects of these two forms of material culture to provide a timely perspective on public art, citizenship and the city today. He applies monument as a lens to understand graffiti and graffiti as a lens to comprehend monument, challenging us to consider what the appropriate monument for our contemporary world could be.

Monumental Graffiti unpacks today's iconoclastic moment, showing us why graffiti demands our urgent attention as a form of expression that challenges power structures by questioning whose voices are included in and whose are excluded from public space.

Written from 20 years of embedded research on graffiti, the book includes works from graffiti writers such as 10Foot, Delta, Egs, Honet, Mosa, Petro, Revok and Wombat, alongside those of artists such as Francis Alys, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, Klara Liden, Gordan Matta-Clark, William Pope. L, Cy Twombly and many more.

Available: Amazon UK | Waterstones | Hive

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 01 October 2024

Format: Hardback

ISBN 978-0262049221

Image: Book cover