At our Instagram SignLaboratory, we post a lot of graffiti: messages scribbled by valiant, expressive, anonymous souls as they move around the city. It is a fine practice: seizing a moment to scratch a subversive message. They are, more often than not, uplifting.
We hadn’t thought of the lineage of graffiti until a friend showed us Brassaï Graffiti,a book of images the great photographer started making in the 1930’s of messages etched and carved in walls around France, gradually reworked, revised over time using other mostly crude media.
He was smitten with it.
The practice of making graffiti is, in truth, ancient. This animal carved into a wall of the Kom Ombo temple in Egypt c. 180 BC echoes the one Brassai found, above.
A graffito caricature of a politician found on a wall in ancient Pompeii makes us realize little has changed in the art of being human.
We can’t help seeing the cave paintings of Altamira and Lascaux as graffiti that proclaim “I am here!”
Graffiti can be elaborate and carefully plotted, like the work of Banksy…
…or as simple as this tiny poweful message written on rusty gate…
No matter how modest, graffiti is always an act of liberation and VOICE as we discovered the day we picked up a Sharpie found in the park, and wrote our first message (it’s still there, 6 months later)…
We recommend carrying a marker, a piece of chalk, a favorite sticker… as you go about your day, to write a message, a word of encouragement or outrage or hope…
…and see what happens…
