Curating the Subversive

Illegal Graffiti in Urban Space on the Example of Berlin and how to Approach it Curatorially

Helen-Sophie Mayr

Illegal Graffiti in Urban Space on the Example of Berlin and how to Ap- proach it Curatorially

Helen-Sophie Mayr

Abstract

Within curatorial practice, graffiti has come to little attention. On the occasion of the street art hype during the 2000s, graffiti appeared only as a minor component. Considering, that graffiti remains an undefined and mostly illegal and uninstitutionalized practice, the fact that it is not a common exhibition topic seems self-evident. However, graffiti is a globally and publicly present form of visual output and communication which upon closer look reveals conceptual depth and complexity. Therefore, this thesis investigates illegal graffiti in urban space and the possibility of curatorial approaches. Using the theoretical framework of Henri Lefebvre’s writings on the city, graffiti in urban space is conceptualized and analyzed. Possible readings and understandings of graffiti are highlighted. On the basis of such, past curatorial practices with and research on graffiti are outlined and discussed. Finally, the thesis aims to establish an understanding of graffiti as an institution of its own. For a productive curatorial approach to graffiti, an awareness of that division is considered crucial.

Keywords Graffiti

Curating

Urban Space

Henri Lefebvre

Berlin

Street Art

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 1 Aim and Research Questions ...... 3 Preview ...... 4 Material ...... 5 Method ...... 7 Theory ...... 10 Previous Research ...... 14 Delimitations ...... 17 Graffiti in Urban Space ...... 19 Graffiti’s Practices in Urban Space ...... 19 Graffiti’s Subversiveness ...... 23 Subversiveness through the Illicit Appropriation of Urban Space ...... 23 Subversiveness through the Appropriation of Knowledge on Urban Space ...... 24 Subversiveness through Independence and Anti-Institutionalization ...... 25 Graffiti’s Audience: The Urban Dweller ...... 28 Graffiti’s Scope in Urban Space. Examples around Four Symptoms of Neoliberal Urbanism ...... 33 Privatization of Urban Space ...... 33 Securitization of Urban Space ...... 37 Decentralization of Urban Space ...... 40 Isolation within Urban Space ...... 42 Graffiti’s Practitioners ...... 46 Graffiti within the Art Institutional System ...... 52 Graffiti’s Entry into the Art Institution or from Urban Surfaces onto Canvases ...... 52 Graffiti and Street Art ...... 56 Graffiti Disparate Street Art ...... 56 Street Art’s Bad Influence on Graffiti ...... 61 Final Discussion and Conclusion ...... 69 Practical Curatorial Approaches to Graffiti ...... 69 Theoretical Curatorial Approaches to Graffiti or the Double Recognition of the Curator ...... 76 Bibliography ...... 78 Journal Articles, Theses, Books ...... 78 (Online) Newspaper and Magazine Articles ...... 81 Videos ...... 83 Websites, Blogs, Feeds ...... 84 List of Images ...... 86

Introduction

The motivation for this thesis grows out of my continual curiosity for graffiti, which has been present long before my studies. As a child I would during long car journeys on the Autobahn try to catch a glimpse of the flashing-by graffiti. They were spread over the inside of bridge piers, acoustic baffles or on the back of direction signs. Barely being able to read, I tried to generate some sense out of the few and cryptic letters – yet remaining clueless. I remember asking my parents what these colorful letters were. I do not remember the exact answer. It included something with “young people”. I do though remember my follow-up question: “And why?” Roughly summarized, graffiti as it is known today started at the end of the 1960s in Philadelphia and developed itself during the 1970s in New York. Children and teenagers gave themselves pseudonyms consisting of names and of numbers representing themselves and their neighborhood. They spread their code names illegally throughout the city, painting them onto any sufficient kind of surface, later particularly on and in subway trains. Fifty years later, the phenomenon has become a global one. Apart from that, not much has changed. The core of illegally spreading a personalized signature, has to a large extend been preserved. How- ever, a definition of what graffiti is, has not been established. And as general, as graffiti’s core might be outlined here, many perceptions of graffiti differ from it. For now, a careful proposition shall be, that graffiti is, among other things, a practice and that it differs from street art.

Coming back to my developing relation to graffiti: Later, but still before actively engaging with the topic and the study of it, a recurrent motive caught my attention in the streets of Ber- lin: At first, I casually started noticing all the visualized yellow fists along the rails while sitting on an S-Bahn (public railway train). After a while I was actively on the lookout for them whenever I was walking Berlin’s streets. It was a nice game to play and felt like finding a little note left by an invisible friend. Whether KRIPOE, the originator of the fists thought of them as a friendly note remains unknown. In fact, his intentions are secondary to me.1 KRIPOE took the freedom to place their fists within the city and I take the freedom to subject them to my perception.

Berlin is a city covered in visual expressions alike KRIPOE’s fists. I only realized to which extend they influence my perception of the city, the moment I left it. After I had moved to

1 Where the gender of an anonymous graffiti practitioner is known to the author, according articles are used.

Stockholm in 2018, I perplexed by how little graffiti and street art I encountered. At the same time, I reacted to the density of advertisement I saw myself confronted with at every step I took. I did not know what to make of my observations. Yet, for me they were related some- how. I was certain, that the absence of graffiti and street art and the high presence of advertisement were not a result of coincidence. During my studies on curating contemporary art I came across graffiti only within the scope of a course on juridical aspects to curatorial work. We discussed the case of Swedish artist NUG who as his degree project had produced a short film showing probably himself wildly smudging at least one Stockholm underground train and the juridical consequences he faced afterwards.2 Otherwise, the only time, graffiti appeared in a broadly related topic, was the day after Banksy shredded their work upon its sale.3 Compared to my fellow students I probably had a bigger interest in graffiti and street art. However, honestly speaking, part of why I decided to write my thesis about graffiti and street art, was that I knew my mentor was an expert in that field and that I would walk on fairly vir- gin research ground. Yet, as soon as I dived into the material, I figured that it was connected to many of my personal concerns and interests, primarily to my impression of Stockholm as a city. In the beginning I was drawn towards street art more than towards graffiti. The farther I got in my research, the more of graffiti’s complexity I discovered. Finally, I gave it that much room that I pushed out street art nearly entirely. I realized that street art has been institutionalized in a way, which for me personally made it uninteresting in regard to curatorial approaches. However, between the contemporary art institution and graffiti I sensed a strong tension and a possibly underrated potential which I curiously kept on investigating.

2 NUG, Territorial Pissing, 2008, Film, 2008.

3 Chris Johnston, “Banksy Auction Stunt Leaves Art World in Shreds,” The Guardian, October 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/06/banksy-sothebys-auction-prank-leaves-art-world-in-shreds-girl-with-balloon.

2 Aim and Research Questions The focus of this thesis lays on graffiti within curatorial practice. The aim is to trigger an interest for and openness towards graffiti among contemporary art curators as well as to suggest how to approach graffiti from a curatorial standpoint. As graffiti is primarily an urban phenomenon, only graffiti in urban space will be examined. Up until now, very little academic content on graffiti has been contributed from the curatorial field. Within curatorial practice the topic has also come to only little attention. The authors of essays or publications on how to curate graffiti often stem from research fields other than the curatorial one. The few contributions do not differentiate graffiti from similar practices like street art and generally do not research graffiti thoroughly enough as that a comprehensive foundation upon which curatorial suggestions could be justified is provided. Curators of exhibitions in which graffiti was included are often not primarily art curators but graffiti experts even fans.4 Their exhibitions are informed by a lack of critical distance. As indicated above, the absence of an interest and of conceptual discussions around graffiti among contemporary art curators leads to an unawareness of graffiti’s actual constitution and therewith of its depth, complexity and potential. The lack of suggestions for curatorial approaches to graffiti is enrooted within this gap. Given graffiti’s blurry even falsified image in general but also among curators, the first step is to highlight aspects that might be missed in the more mainstream coverage of graffiti. As already mentioned, graffiti is a practice that has managed to extricate itself from any attempt of definition so far. Among scholars and practitioners no shared understanding of what graffiti constitutes exists. Several attributes such as illegality, visualization of characters and letters, repe- tition and diffusion keep on appearing in connection to graffiti. Until now most attempts to define it get disproven by examples of graffiti they do not cover. Instead of trying to ascertain what graffiti is, this thesis aims to crystalize what graffiti can be. Consequently, the first research question reads as follows:

How can illegal graffiti in urban space be conceptualized?

Within previous research on graffiti, established findings have – if at all – only been brought into connection with graffiti practitioners, where a work’s initial motivation and approach equaled an externally generated interpretation of it. However, this dynamic is misleading and runs the risk of forcing an image onto graffiti practitioners as a whole, which in practice might

4 BEYOND THE STREETS LLC, “About,” Beyond The Streets, 2020, https://beyondthestreets.com/pages/about;

Jacob Kimvall, “Art in the Streets,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift/Journal of Art History 80, no. 4 (December 2011): 253–255, doi:10.1080/00233609.2011.639462.

3 not be applicable. The spectrum of people that actively engage in and identify with graffiti is broad. Motivations, approaches and understandings differ and might not necessarily corre- spond with the externally generated interpretations projected onto graffiti. Therefore, the highlighted aspects and conceptualizations of graffiti practice are followed by a brief outline of dynamics among graffiti practitioners.

With direct reference to the responses of the first research question, graffiti within curatorial practice will be discussed. Suggestions for curatorial approaches to graffiti can only be given, if the contemporary circumstances of graffiti are outlined. Those are still heavily influenced by graffiti’s institutional history. Therefore, the second research question of this thesis reads as follows:

How has previously been dealt with graffiti within curatorial practice and what implications can be drawn for future curatorial approaches towards graffiti?

In fact, the first question represents an answer to the third one. As a curator, research on the chosen topic of interest is indispensable. In the case of graffiti this groundwork has often been elided which led to graffiti’s blurred image and made it seem flat and uninteresting within a curatorial context. Besides the aim to contribute to the field of curatorial research and practice, this thesis can also be read as an image campaign for graffiti, not with the aim to draw a positive picture but a realistic one.

Preview In order to provide the reader with basic knowledge on how graffiti is executed in urban space, the thesis opens with an outline on common methods and procedures of graffiti practice invoking mainly one example which is the BERLIN KIDZ crew. Afterwards, the impact that graffiti has on urban space will successively be mapped following concepts of urban theory: First, how graffiti appropriates urban space will be analyzed, followed by the impact graffiti’s illicitness has in this process. Next, the relation between the graffiti practitioner and the perceiver – the urban dweller – will be analyzed. After the connections between the graffiti practitioner, the graffiti work and the graffiti perceiver have been established, potential readings and understandings of graffiti within urban space can be investigated. Different conditions and norms present within urban space and how graffiti relates to them will be highlighted on the basis of examples. The investigation of graffiti in urban space will be followed by a closer look on graffiti practitioners.

4 Within the second part of the thesis, graffiti’s institutional history will be outlined. Graffiti’s first appearance within the art institutional system will be delineated and commented on. Sec- ondly, graffiti’s relation with street art will be portrayed and commented on. In context of graffiti’s art institutional history this relation cannot be ignored. Finally, the answer to the question on what constitutes a productive curatorial approach to graffiti will be split into two sections, the first providing practical answers while within the second more theoretical answers will be discussed.

Material Material on graffiti can be found in very different shape and context. It is relevant for different groups of people such as the practitioners themselves, their fan bases whose members differ from the conventional art exhibition visitors, those that get damaged by graffiti, the judici- ary that judges graffiti crimes, the police and the graffiti-task-forces implemented in some cities, among them Berlin, as well as everybody that encounters it. Within academic context it generates interest in several disciplines. Consequently, the material collection for this thesis turns out accordingly marbled.

The foundation material supporting this thesis is an interdisciplinary selection of academic writings on graffiti, street art and urban public space. The academic treatises originate from different academic fields and sub-disciplines, among them art history, sociology, urban studies, visual culture, media and cultural studies even criminology. Some writings purely focus on graffiti while most also include street art or focus on street art and include graffiti. The boundaries between the practices are blurry. However, within the scope of this thesis, graffiti and street art are strictly separated from each other. Nevertheless, writings which do not distinct as clearly between the two have served as research material yet have been treated with caution as they seem to not have been thoroughly researched.

The main location of analysis is Berlin with few exceptions. In order to provide insights into the Berlin graffiti practice, examples, video material, blog posts, Instagram content and further sources deriving from within the broad scene will be introduced.

A graffiti work can easily be encountered on the street. How it got there, is not that easily observed. Yet, the processes, methods, tools and agents behind the work are important for a deeper understanding of it in general as well as in relation to a curatorial approach. The thesis draws on video material as it is a fitting format for illustrating processes as well as a common

5 format for distribution within the graffiti scene. A lot of more or less professional video material on graffiti is online, often produced and uploaded by practitioners themselves. The video platform YouTube provides endless footage revealing a lot of insights on graffiti. Roughly, since 2014 more elaborated productions appeared. A repeatedly used format are short movies accumulating scenes of graffiti practitioners in action. The perspectives vary and are mixed. Some sequences are taken with action cameras out of the practitioner’s perspective. Espe- cially when trains get painted on, cameras are being positioned in order to document the process. Often, the practitioners are accompanied and get filmed out of somebody else’s perspective. Entire series work with this format, featuring different graffiti practitioners in each epi- sode. The person filming the practitioner is often the initiator behind such a series. They move around with the featured practitioner for the duration of about one maybe two graffiti actions which can take place for instance for one evening, a night or an afternoon. Due to the anonymity of the depicted people, what is shown, even though still carefully selected, seems rather authentic. Nevertheless, the medium of film can easily be manipulated which should be kept in mind. Another longer video format are documentaries featuring mostly an entire crew. Documentations of graffiti actions and operations, interviews with the crew members and further video material depicting the crew member’s lifestyle are often included. The described material is used to illustrate graffiti and not in order to generate subjective positions. The discussions about graffiti shall be kept on a meta level and not get colored too subjectively.

In order to outline curatorial projects on and with graffiti, past exhibitions and projects will be referred to. Connected documentations, reviews, publications and related developments as well as academic writings will be referenced. Included exhibitions are: Né dans la rue – Graf- fiti (Born in the Streets – Graffiti) which took place from 2009 to 2010 at the Fondation Car- tier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, Art in the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) which took place in Los Angeles in 2011, Bundeskunsthall of Fame at Bun- deskunsthalle in Bonn, which took place in 2015, the exhibition series Beyond the Streets which premiered in 2018 in Los Angeles and continued in 2019 in New York and the exhibition series Backjumps, specifically the third edition Backjumps. The Live Issue #3. Urban Communication and Aesthetics which took place in 2007 in Berlin at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien. Further institutions discussed are Urban Nation. Museum for Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin and the Graffitimuseum. Publications that will come to special attention are Flexible Signposts by Florian Goldmann, CALYBA – Gedichte by Joachim Spur- loser and Stefan Wartenberg and Verehrtes Phantom by Kat Dogtok.

6 Method Defining graffiti seems like a difficult task. Up until today no shared or common definition has been adapted. This thesis moves away from definitions as well as working-definitions. However, such an open and unexclusive approach results in a broad amount of research material. Setting a research frame becomes all the more important. Graffiti is – not only but to the biggest extend – an urban phenomenon. Therefore, this thesis will focus on urban graffiti. Graffiti at for example abandoned industrial areas or highways is not specifically considered. Berlin is a good example for an investigation on graffiti in urban space as the city is known for its extensive and vivid graffiti scene.

This thesis focusses on illegal graffiti practices and its originaters. Works on legal walls or commissioned works on for example shop fronts are not of interest. A plurality of graffiti scholars as well as practitioners distinguish graffiti’s illicitness as one of its most important characteristics. This framing limits and defines the research field as well as corresponds to the theoretical groundwork of this thesis.

A further condition for the examples included within this thesis is that they are not chosen according to personal gusto or general popularity within and outside of the graffiti scene. Rather the opposite, the discussions around examples included shall be applicable to random neighborhood graffiti activity. Especially within academic writings on street art, case studies are conducted on the basis of artists like Shepard Fairy and Banksy. Those studies aim to point out how street art reclaims public space. However, especially institutionalized and famous artists like Shepard Fairy and Banksy would rather fit the counter study. Banksy is warmly welcomed by British town councils to paint their walls, preferably in an appropriate way though, his works get stolen from the streets just to appear on the art market, where some of his works have been sold for several million Euros, plastic films are stretched across his works to protect them from being damaged and people painting their walls and unknowingly covering some older work of Banksy’s are being admonished.5 This storyline appears rather staged

5 See e.g. Sarah Cascone, “Immigration-Themed Banksy Mural Destroyed by Local Council,” Artnet News, October 2014, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/immigration-themed-banksy-mural-destroyed-by-local-council-120475;

Alexxa Gotthardt, “Banksy and Fellow Street Artists Are Refusing to Fuel the Market for Paintings Taken from the Streets,” Artsy, January 2017, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-banksy-fellow-street-artists-refusing-fuel-market-paintings-streets;

Henry Neuendorf, “‘I Had No Idea’: A Bristol Shopkeeper Regrets Accidentally Painting Over One of Banksy’s Earliest Murals,” Artnet News, September 2018, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/shopkeeper-accidentally-painted-over-banksy-bristol-1348595.

Scott Reyburn, “Banksy Painting ‘Devolved Parliament’ Sells for $12 Million,” The New York Times, October 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/arts/design/banksy-devolved-parliament-auction.html;

“Banksy Mural Protected with Plastic,” BBC News, December 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-4665940

7 than subversive let alone that it is on no level comparable with the kind of street art spread within one’s own neighborhood. The latter, one encounters by chance while the first is sought out by tourists and fans who then gather at the location alike pilgrims. To avoid such contor- tion of graffiti’s constitution through the choice of unfitting examples, the practitioners mentioned and referred here are not included due to popularity or subjective preferences. Many examples are picked out rather randomly, just as one might come across them within urban space. This selection process appears most naturally considering graffiti’s contribution. Natu- rally, that intended randomness is bound to the subjective position of the author traveling through Berlin on familiar paths and living in a specific district. The choice of examples is therewith after all impacted slightly phenomenologically.

The choice of examples is further influenced by the amount of material surrounding them. YouTube and Instagram are popular platforms for sharing video material and further footage. The revealed production processes help understanding the practice, while they also enable the possibility to draw conclusions on the practitioners. These platforms are accessible for a huge group of people to broadcast as well as consume content. Of course, popular channels with a huge fellowship hold certain monopoles on those platforms. Nevertheless, besides their actual works in urban space – which can be documented and published by anybody – the practitioners themselves gear what and how much of their work they want to make visible online. That dynamic offers the opportunity to gather material on less popular but well documented practitioners and helps avoiding having to resort to already present research, reproducing content on already featured and known artists and practitioners. Instead, this research tries to adapt to dynamics inherent to graffiti.

Another observable dynamic within research on graffiti is to limit the used examples to highly conceptual works that are produced by recognized artists. Those works are detached from the typical graffiti aesthetic, yet they are closely related to the practice deploying typical graffiti methods. Some artists that have been or still are active as graffiti practitioners adapt such methods within their farther developed artistical practice. Once they have been included into the art historical canon, literature and documentation on their works gets produced and becomes accessible. It is as tempting as it is misleading to communicate only these examples of graffiti. Such framing does not live up to graffiti’s actual constitution. In fact, it appears as if the contemporary art world is supposed to get lured by representations of graffiti which suggest that it actually would be a sophisticated artistical practice. Nevertheless, examples of conceptual graffiti are included within this thesis as well. However, the aim is not to present a

8 conceptual format of graffiti as a good or better version than the conventional format of uner- asable letters in urban space. Those more conceptual and artistical examples help illustrate graffiti methods as well as represent a possible potential of the practice.

Summarized, the material is approached on a meta level trying to identify patterns and what they signify rather than accentuating particular artists or practitioners. Accordingly, the terminology is kept rather broad and inclusive. Up until now it might have become apparent that only comprehensive terms such as practitioner and graffiti work have been used. Specific terms such as sprayer, writer, artist, activist, piece, tag, throw up or bombing are avoided. Within this context, such terminology would limit graffiti to specifics and trigger debates that belong to other topical emphasizes.

An accusation often discernible from within the graffiti scene is that research on graffiti tempts to turn graffiti into something that it simply not is. As announced already, this thesis wishes to react to that concern by trying to paint a realistic image of graffiti. This tension has been described tellingly by Dr. Sabina Andron and Dr. Susan Hansen during a debate about philosophy on street art.6 Andron stated: “I believe it is our duty as academics to complicate things, to complexify things, to problematise things”.7 Susan Hansen added: “what we think we can do in terms of describing how to evaluate street art and graffiti, or what the qualities of these may be in formal terms, as academics, is actually, in practice, variable, complex and flexible.”8

6 Dr. Sabina Andron is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Architecture at Ravensbourne University London as well as Senior Lec- turer at the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering at the University of East London.;

Dr. Susan Hansen is Head of Visual and Creative Methods Group at the Middlesex University London.

7 Sabina Andron speaking at: Panel Debate about “A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law,” Nuart Journal, Brand New – You’re Retro! Memory and the City, 2, no. 1 (2019): 112.

8 Susan Hansen speaking at: Panel Debate about “A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law,” 112.

9 Theory Graffiti is generally and traditionally carried out on the street, more specifically in urban space. Especially in discussions on curatorial approaches the street as a venue and its importance for the practice gets invoked. Most scholars and practitioners argue that graffiti is in- separable from urban space. Accordingly, within graffiti’s constitution high importance is at- tached to this explicit choice of platform. Hence, in order to understand the practices, concepts theorizing urban space need to be examined. Within the ongoing discourse on graffiti, Henri Lefebvre’s (1901-1991, France) concepts are often referred to. Especially his call and alike titled book The Right to the City (Le droit à la ville) functions as fundamental theoretical thread within academic elaborations on graffiti. With his essay “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti” Dr. Andrzej Zieleniec demonstrated how Lefebvre’s essay and graffiti as an urban phenomenon can very well be associated with each other. Zieleniec is a lecturer in Sociology at Keele University as well as director of the Liberal Arts program. His essay and further ideas and observations of the city developed by Lefebvre shall lace this thesis as well.

Lefebvre has been active within manifold research fields. His development in short is probably summarized best by himself: “Youth tormented, rebellious, anarchistic. Found balance around his thirtieth year in and through Marxism. Has not followed a regular career, either University or otherwise.”9 According to Prof. Dr. Susanne Rau, Lefebvre is “a philosopher, sociologist, urban theorist, and publicist” all at once.10 Prefaces of books thematizing his theories usually mention that his oeuvre contains much more than the chosen extract.11 Rau for example lists theory of space, critique of everyday life, the right to the city, dialectical material- ism and rhythm analysis as further topics of Lefebvre’s writings.12 Especially interesting is, that he taught Sociology at the University of Nanterre just outside of Paris when the student revolts emerged in the French capital in 1968. Lefebvre had a strong intellectual influence on

9 Lefebvre, Henri quoted from: Stuart Elden, Understanding Henri Lefebvre: Theory and the Possible (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004), 1, http://qut.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=742709. 10 Prof. Dr. Susanne Rau is professor of spatial history and cultures at Erfurt University, Germany since 2009. She habilitated at Dres- den University in 2008. She holds a PhD in medieval and modern History at Hamburg University (2001) and an M.A. in History, Ro- mance Languages and Literatures and Philosophy (1997);

Susanne Rau, “Preface,” in Perspectives on Henri Lefebvre: Theory, Practices and (Re)Readings, ed. Jenny Bauer and Robert Fischer, 1st ed., Spatiotemporality / Raumzeitlichkeit 4 (Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018), VIII.

11 See e.g. Rau, VII;

Henri Lefebvre, State, Space, World: Selected Essays, ed. Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 2.

12 Rau, “Preface,” VII–VIII.

10 some of the movement’s leaders.13 Lefebvre is said to have triggered the revolts. Or has he himself frames it: “I stirred things up a bit.”14 The events of 1968 have had an enduring impact on him which is recognizable in his writings from that time onwards. Neil Brenner termed this development “post-1968 period”.15 In fact, within Lefebvre’s oeuvre, his post- 1968 writings came to most attention. His book containing the alike titled essay The Right to the City stands at the beginning of this period. Starting with the millennial turn and at the lat- est one decade later, this title appeared on the agenda again.16 The demand got appropriated by diverse urban movements and picked up within academic writing especially in the fields of urban theory and geography as well as architecture and political sciences.17 Two scholars which repeatedly examined Lefebvre’s theories implementing them into contemporary contexts are Prof. Dr. Margit Mayer and Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid.18 Together with Neil Bren- ner and Peter Marcuse, Mayer edited the publication Cities for People, not for Profit. Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City which got published in 2012. Mayer contributed the article “The ‘Right To The City’ In Urban Social Movements” which will help contextualize Lefebvre’s essay within a contemporary context. The same applies for Schmid’s article “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And the New Metropolitan Mainstream” included in the publication as well. Further, Mayer’s essay “First World Urban Activism: Beyond Auster- ity Urbanism and Creative City Politics” published in 2013 will help to understand specific dynamics within urban space today. Among further scholars that will be cited and included in regard to urban theory, Schmid and Mayer have been the leading voices throughout this thesis.

13 Rau, VIII.

14 Henri Lefebvre, Lefebvre on the Situationists: An Interview, interview by Kristin Ross, October, vol. 79, 1997, 82.

15 Prof. Dr. Neil Brenner is Professor for Urban Theory at the Harvard Graduate School of Design since 2011. He holds a Ph.D. in Politi- cal Science from the University of Chicago (1999), an MA in Geography from UCLA (1996) and a BA in Philosophy, Summa Cum Laude, from Yale College (1991).; Lefebvre, State, Space, World, 7.

16 Rau, “Preface,” X.

17 Margit Mayer, “The ‘Right to the City’ in Urban Social Movements,” in Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, ed. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer (London ; New York: Routledge, 2012), 64. 18 Prof. Dr. Margit Mayer holds a position as associate professor at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Technische Universität Berlin (TU) since 2014. She has been visiting professor at the University of California, at the New School for Social Research in New York, at the Carleton University in Ottawa, at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, at the San Francisco State University, at the New York University and at the Columbia University. Since 1991 she continuously has contributed book chapters and articles on social and urban theory, developments, politics, rights, movements, uprisings, economics, neoliberalism and more.;

Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid is titular professor in Sociology at the Department of Architecture at Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH). He intensely engaged with Lefebvre’s theories. He received his Ph.D. through his thesis City, space and society – Henri Lefebvre and the theory of the production of space, published in 2005.

11 Fundamental for an understanding of Lefebvre’s theory on urban space and the right to the city is an understanding of the city as such. A clear definition of city does not exist. Rather, there are many and they depend on the perspective from which the phenomenon city is approached. According to Schmid the many definitions of city result from its indistinct form. The city constitutes no longer “a distinct social or economic unit, or a discrete mode of production or way of life”.19 That means that the city is not a static entity. From the different definitions of city, Schmid isolates common denominators which are “mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion”.20 According to Schmid, those mechanisms “become battlegrounds for a vari- ety of strategies and interests. All kinds of political and economic actors, urban specialists, and intellectuals intervene in this field.”21 Consequently, the city is dependent on agents that establish, influence and manipulate its mechanisms. An extraction from Zieleniec’s mapping of Lefebvrian theory boils this relation down: “Space is […] socially produced” and – ex- tended by Schmid – reproduced throughout time.22 For the right to the city, this implies that it is not meant as a right to a terminated entity in the form of a just city, but as the right to “participate at the transformation of space and to control investment into space”.23 Ideally, in Lefebvrian terms, throughout such participation “centrality, assembly, encounter, and interac- tion” get established.24 These resources shall not lead to harmony and therewith terminate the participation in the production of space. These resources trigger difference, conflict and “con- stant struggle over the content of the urban”.25 The production process is ongoing and the participation within it remains an active decision that needs to be claimed again and again. The city then “is a place where differences come together and generate something new” and a place that can be inhabited.26 In regards to the complexity of the term city and Lefebvre’s own layout of his demand, he advanced the terminology of the right to the city further and split it

19 Christian Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” in Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, ed. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer (London, New York: Routledge, 2012), 51.

20 Schmid, 51. 21 Schmid, 51.

22 Andrzej Zieleniec, “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti,” Environnement Urbain / Urban Environment, "Whose right to the city ? / Le droit à la ville, pour qui?, 10 (2016): 5;

Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 52. 23 Henri Lefebvre, De l’État, Tome IV: Les Contradictions de l’État Moderne (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1978), 317;

Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 53.

24 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49.

25 Schmid, 52.

26 Schmid, 49.

12 up into more elaborated calls for “the right to centrality”, “the right to difference” and “the right to space”.27 However, as indicated by Schmid, Lefebvre’s conception of the urban is a “concrete utopia” and other parties that do not have a philanthropic but for example a capitalist interest can participate in the process of urban space production as well.28 Lefebvre was aware of this possibility and described its potential results as the exact opposite of his utopia:

[...] capitalist and neo-capitalist space is a space of quantification and growing homogeneity, a commodified space where all the elements are exchangeable and thus interchangeable; a police space in which the state tolerates no resistance and no obstacles. Economic space and political space thus converge toward the elimination of all differences […].29

Considering the different interests present within the production of urban space, it becomes clear that the right to participate within it “is less a juridical right, but rather an oppositional demand, which challenges the claims of the rich and powerful”.30 In consequence, the right to participate within the production of urban space is not a given one, but one that actively needs to be claimed. Regarding the implementation of Lefebvre’s theories into practice, events as they took place during the revolts in Paris in 1968 might come into mind. However, Lefebvre’s call for action addresses “everyday life, the banal, the ordinary.”31 As David Har- vey asserts: “We do not have to wait upon the grand revolution to constitute such spaces.”32 According to Schmid “Changing everyday life […] is the real revolution”.33

Lefebvre is mostly known for his writings and thoughts on urban theory. However, as stated above, he has been writing about many topics beyond the urban. Within her essay “Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time: The Contribution from Henri Lefebvre” Dr. Kirsten Simonsen crystalizes “Lefebvre’s contribution to a geographical theory of the body, in particular when it comes to the conception of a generative and creative social body as an intrinsic part of social

27 Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 194;

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991), 64;

Lefebvre, De l’État, Tome IV: Les Contradictions de l’État Moderne, 317. 28 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49;

Lefebvre, State, Space, World, 185;

David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (New York: Verso, 2012), XV. 29 Henri Lefebvre, “Space: Social Product and Use Value,” in State, Space, World: Selected Essays, ed. Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), 192.

30 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 71.

31 Schmid, 58.

32 Harvey, Rebel Cities, XVII.

33 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 58.

13 practice”.34 Within the essay Simonsen juxtaposes the previously mentioned everyday life with Lefebvre’s framing of “moments”. Moments stand out from the repetitive everyday life and constitute in a “double recognition of the ‘other’ and the self”.35 This bodily aspect examined by Simonsen will further be investigated as a form of identity performance on the basis of Prof. Tracey Bowen’s essay “Graffiti as Spatializing Practice and Performance”.36

Previous Research Within academic research graffiti has come to the attention of different disciplines. Several scholars have illuminated specific characteristics of graffiti. However, drawing a clear image of previous research on graffiti is hindered by the fact that it has often been negotiated in combination with street art. Yet street art and graffiti differ in several ways, which upon pre- occupation with the topics should become evident. Hence, to which extend research remains reliable within which graffiti and street art do not clearly get distinguished or are presented as equal enough to be treated within the same scope needs to be considered for each source individually. With that being noted previous findings and writings on graffiti will be mapped.

Graffiti’s illicitness has been acknowledged by nearly all scholars that engage with the topic. Within his essay “The Beauty and the Behest. Distinguishing Legal Judgment and Aesthetic Judgment in the Context of 21st Century Street Art and Graffiti” Andrea Baldini concludes that graffiti and street art lose part of their subversive nature, if they would be protected by the law.37 Baldini is an associate professor of aesthetics and art theory at the School of Arts of Nanjing University. He has written several essays on street art and graffiti, emphasizing their subversiveness. In 2019 he published the book A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law in which he analyzed their interdependence in more detail. However, Baldini does not analyze in depth within what and which exact processes and actions graffiti’s and street art’s illicit-

34 Dr. Kirsten Simonsen is Professor in Social and Cultural Geography at Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, Denmark. Her research focusses on social and cultural geography. Going from urban studies and urban everyday life over social theories of practice to the relationship between practice, body and space.

Kirsten Simonsen, “Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time: The Contribution from Henri Lefebvre,” Geografiska Annaler, Human Geog- raphy, 87, no. 1 (March 2005): 1, doi:10.1111/j.0435-3684.2005.00174.x.

35 Simonsen, 8. 36 Prof. Tracey Bowen is professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology of the University of To- ronto. She has been writing occasionally about graffiti since 1999. Further emphasizes of her research are experiential education and developing professionals as well as visual literacies.

37 Andrea Baldini, “Beauty and the Behest: Distinguishing Legal Judgment and Aesthetic Judgment in the Context of 21st Century Street Art and Graffiti,” Rivista Di Estetica, no. 65 (August 2017): 102, doi:10.4000/estetica.2161.

14 ness and subversiveness are rooted. Within the book UN(Authorized)//COMMISSIONED published by Baldini together with Pietro Rivasi, the two authors elaborate on possibilities to exhibit graffiti. Besides highlighting graffiti’s illicitness, they illuminate its performative processes. Their suggestion for coping with graffiti’s performative and unauthorized nature is to exhibit it through photography and video material. However, this approach ignores further important aspects of graffiti besides its performative processes.

Such processes have been examined by Dr. Rafael Schacter in his essay “The Invisible Perfor- mance/the Invisible Masterpiece: Visibility, Concealment, and Commitment in Graffiti and Street Art”. Schacter is an anthropologist and curator working at the Department of Anthro- pology at the University College London. He has written several essays on graffiti and street art and published three books on the topic. Observing graffiti’s and street art’s contemporary development and specific characteristics, Schacter continuously introduces new terminologies in order to grasp and elaborate in detail on the two practices within academic research. Schacter’s coined terminology will be used within this thesis as well. However, his choice of examples for backing his research represents a certain elite of graffiti practitioners and street artists. Among the examples only seldomly a conventional graffiti aesthetic consisting in colored letters is to be found. Instead, Schacter mostly puts forward works of a rather conceptual version of graffiti. Hence, some of Schacter’s conclusions might be applicable to a certain graffiti avant-garde however, in most cases not to random neighborhood graffiti.

In his writings on graffiti, scholar Andrea Mubi Brighenti offers a more differentiated perspective on graffiti practices and practitioners. Brighenti is professor of Social Theory and Space & Culture at the Department of Sociology at the University of Trento. His essay “At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban Territoriality, and the Public Domain” is based on ethnographic observations of an Italian graffiti crew. Rather than emphasizing the crew as such, Brighenti extricates patterns of territorial practices out of his observations which allow a transfer onto other graffiti practitioners and their practices. Brighenti’s essay is also referenced by Bowen’s elaborations on graffiti as specializing practice and performance.

Graffiti’s art institutional history has been mapped by Dr. Jacob Kimvall in his essay “Map- ping an Institutional Story of Graffiti and Street Art”. Kimvall is an art historian and art critic, working at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University. In his essay Kimvall outlines early developments between graffiti and the art institutional system in New York during the 1970s and 1980s. He has further written reviews on more recent exhibitions displaying graffiti and street art. A thorough mapping of graffiti’s art institutional history

15 since the 2000s especially in regard to street art has up until now not been formulated. Solely, streets art’s extreme institutionalization and the role art exhibitions played in that process has been briefly commented on by Schacter in his article “Street Art Is a Period. Period. Or the Emergence of Intermural Art”. Further, graffiti has been deemed unfitting for an institutional display on canvases due to its urban provenance by several scholars among them Baldini and Rivasi. However, an in-depth analyzes around the exact impact that an institutional display possibly has on graffiti works has not been formulated.

Graffiti’s relation to urban space has most elaborately and in detail been analyzed by Ziele- niec in his essay “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti”. Zieleniecs approach to apply Lefebvre’s theory onto the urban phenomenon graffiti shall be advanced within this thesis, extending Lefebvre’s writing by contemporary exegesis of it.

Within recent years, the discourse around graffiti slowly emancipated itself from the one around street art. With her cover story “Graffiti NOW. Ästhetik des Illegalen” for KUN- STFORUM International art critic Larissa Kikol contributed to that development. She clearly separates graffiti from street art and highlights common graffiti practices and aesthetics.

Despite Brighenti, the scholars informing this thesis have little to not at all allowed controver- sial dynamics from within the graffiti scene to be included within their research. Within the scope of this thesis such shall not be discussed in detail, however come to attention. In regard to graffiti’s demography, Nancy Macdonald’s publication The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity, and Identity in London and New York as well as her essay “Something for the Boys? Exploring the Changing Gender Dynamics of the Graffiti Subculture” will be employed. Macdonald worked as a youth consultant when she wrote her book, which is based on her PhD thesis which she completed at Brunel University.

Summarized, the research on graffiti has been scattered over different disciplines which might be the reason for an observable lack of in-depth analysis of singular aspects of graffiti. Hence, this thesis builds up on the previous research by taking it as an initial point from where pervi- ous findings can be pursued, advanced and merged, in some case maybe even contradicted.

In order to briefly position the role of the curator and their practice in general Kate Fowle’s essay “Who cares? Understanding the Role of the Curator Today” is referred to. When Fowle wrote her essay, she was chair of the Master Program in Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Today (2020), she is the director of MoMA PS1 in New

16 York. Fowle widens the frame for curatorial practice further than just exhibition making and suggests a more flexible, manifold and adaptive practice.

Delimitations Writing about graffiti bears the risk of generalization and inaccuracy. Considering, that graffiti is undefined and mainly executed autonomously and anonymously, it remains difficult to grasp. As neither mapping the graffiti scene nor emphasizing high-quality practitioners is the goal of this thesis, writing about graffiti as if it was a living organism in itself becomes unavoidable. It is nearly impossible to locate single practitioners and streams without conducting a thorough anthropological research. The thesis tries to adapt to the circumstances by keeping the terminology referring to graffiti and the concepts applied to it as open as possible in order to prevent inflexible formulations. Hence, details of graffiti practice and specific dynamics within the scene might not get elucidated. This does not mean that they are deemed inexistent or irrelevant. However, in order to outline illicit urban graffiti as a whole, a set limit on the depth that can be reached within the scope of this thesis cannot be overstepped.

Besides the analysis of graffiti as an illicit practice, other perspectives can be taken on as well. Graffiti can be a form of communication, territorial practice, activism, a subculture, an aesthetic practice and a game among other interpretations of it. However, those angles on graffiti cannot in detail be laid out within the scope of this thesis. Still, it should be noted that communication, territorial boundaries, violent conflicts, politics and game play are further aspects dealt with and negotiated within graffiti practice. Throughout the thesis these elements will be referred occasionally.

The choice of practitioners included within this thesis is bound to their personal decision of providing material about their practice online. This ensures a certain immediacy to graffiti which this thesis thrives for. However, this limitation excludes practitioners that do not engage on online platforms which constitutes a huge loss of potential material for this thesis. Meanwhile the limitation favors practitioners that attach importance to their online presence and further especially large crews that can draw on higher capacity due to their number of members. Nevertheless, as this thesis does not aim to promote single practitioners but rather provide illustrative material, the limitation is acceptable. Still, it should be made aware of.

17 Unfortunately, as far as known, all practitioners referred to within the scope of this thesis are read as men. This imbalance results from the demography of graffiti practitioners. This phenomenon has in detail been examined by Nancy Macdonald in her publication The Graffiti Subculture. Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York.

Besides the events and developments around graffiti in Philadelphia and New York during the late 1960s, earlier points in history could also be framed as the initial starting point of what today is considered graffiti. Often mentioned within this discussion are inscriptions on walls such as cave paintings or manifestations in the style of “Kilroy was here”.38 Within the scope of this thesis, mainly graffiti’s contemporary state is taken into consideration.

Berlin is reckoned a city holding a high quantity and quality of graffiti. The city might appear to be an adequate context for conducting research on it. However, it is exactly Berlin’s excep- tional position in relation to other cities that makes a transfer of claims made within this thesis onto other cities problematic. Stockholm for examples has a Zero Tolerance Policy in place which impacts the practitioners’ and perceivers’ relation to the practice. Beyond that, graffiti gets sanctioned with much stricter even fatal rigor in countries other than Germany. In São Paolo for example, graffiti practitioners must fear their life upon being caught by the police.39 Consequently, much more is at stake for the practitioners doing graffiti within such contexts. Those circumstances change the practice in itself as well as its meaning. Some here established findings might be applicable to other contexts as the thesis’s conceptual and termino- logical broadness tries to formulate the generated content applicably to graffiti beyond the borders of Berlin. However, graffiti remains deeply connected to its context, which is a char- acteristic that needs to be kept in mind.

For the suggestions on curatorial approaches to graffiti, the thesis remains on a rather theoretical level. Besides a few practical suggestions, no actual methods that can be implemented into practice will be generated. Instead, the findings are limited to conceptual understandings and basic knowledge deemed necessary for a productive approach to graffiti in the first place. This thesis is more of an initial point on the basis of which curatorial methodologies and practices can be produced individually.

38 Monja Müller, “Reclaim the Streets! - Die Street-Art-Bewegung Und Die Rückforderung Des Öffentlichen Raumes Am Beispiel von Banksys Better Out Than In Und Shepard Faireys Obey Giant-Kampagne” (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2017), 95, http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=f8d50d6ccdba43d7b643a5816eaa0787&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.

39 Dom Phillips, “Taggers Killed for Their Art Show Dangers of City’s Graffiti Culture,” The Guardian, August 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/01/brazil-graffiti-artist-sao-paulo.

18 Graffiti in Urban Space

The following chapter will unfold possible readings and perceptions of illegal graffiti within urban space. The chapter’s subsections are built up successively starting with common practical procedures and methods within graffiti practice which are specifically connected to urban space. On the basis of examples such will be illuminated without further analysis. The aim is to provide basic knowledge on which the following analyses and discussions can be posed. After gaining insights into graffiti’s urban practices, how subversiveness is generated from them will be analyzed in regard to a) illicit appropriation of urban space, b) appropriation of knowledge on urban space and c) independence and anti-institutionalization. Afterwards, the relation between the graffiti practitioner, the graffiti work and the graffiti perceiver will be analyzed in more detail. Outgoing from the established structures, specific dynamics, conditions and norms of contemporary urban space and how graffiti relates to them will be explored on the basis of examples.

Graffiti’s Practices in Urban Space Many scholars and practitioners agree that graffiti’s illicitness is an important component to what graffiti constitutes.40 A widespread general conception of graffiti is it being pure vandalism.41 The term vandalism generally indicates, that the motive for the destruction would be the destruction itself.42 Yet, vandalism is more of a specifying term. In Germany, one does not get charged for vandalism but for what it is a specification of. In the case of permanent graffiti this is damage to property. Even the attempt is criminal. Hence, unauthorized graffiti is not

40 See e.g. Larissa Kikol, “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt,” KUNSTFORUM International, May 2019, 47; Stefano Bloch, “Challenging the Defense of Graffiti, in Defense of Graffiti,” in Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art, ed. Jef- frey Ian Ross, Routledge International Handbooks (London: Routledge, 2016), 443, https://ezp.sub.su.se/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1194354&site=ehost-live&scope=site;

Ulrich Blanché, “Street Art and Related Terms,” SAUC - Street Art & Urban Creativity Scientific Journal, December 2015, 34, doi:10.25765/SAUC.V1I1.14;

Rafael Schacter, “The Invisible Performance/The Invisible Masterpiece: Visibility, Concealment, and Commitment in Graffiti and Street Art,” in Anthropology, Theatre, and Development, ed. Alex Flynn and Jonas Tinius (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), 204–205, doi:10.1057/9781137350602_9. 41 See e.g. Heather Mac Donald, “Graffiti Is Always Vandalism,” The New York Times, December 2014, sec. The Opinion Pages, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/11/when-does-graffiti-become-art/graffiti-is-always-vandalism.

42 Merriam-Webster, “Vandalism,” Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary, accessed February 23, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalism. : willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property

19 only vandalism. It is an act of crime and therewith illegal and it can get charged.43 The exact elements of crime and according punishments heavily depend on the context and extend of the crime. Graffiti’s illegality is an aspect that scholars and practitioners attach with great importance. Therefore, within the following, graffiti practices will be examined in relation to their illegality.

Traditionally, graffiti practitioners hold on to one name they spread throughout time and space. Of course, it can come to divergences. Some might have several names or change it regularly. Usually however, there is a continuity. Despite the name, the style of a practitioner is a recognition factor as well. Most practitioners continually develop their writing and painting style, yet do not too often vary in style. Examples for such development are the practitioners ZONKE73 (Image 1.1-1.4) and TRIEB (Image 2.1-2.4). While their works all vary in color and detail, a recurring aesthetic is clearly recognizable. Exceptions, such as the Berlin based practitioner Takhi68 (Image 3.1-3.4), who have as many styles as they have painted works, prove the rule. Due to the anonymity within the practice and among the practitioners, it is difficult to establish exact patterns. Nevertheless, it is safe to state that linked works of graffiti can to a certain extend be identified as such.

If a practitioner walks down a street and paints their name with a marker – also called tagging – about thirty times, distributed on walls, doors, roller blinds, electricity boxes, fences, bus stops and any other sufficient surface, each tag’s illicitness grows with every following one.44 If the writer sets only one tag, the illicitness is exhausted in that single one. The more works of graffiti can be connected to each other, the more elements of crime are accumulated and the heavier weighs the illicitness and the potential charges upon revelation.

Apart from the amount of linked works, it is graffiti’s production process that potentially carries illicitness. It gets generated already ahead of the actual creation of a work. Huge and complex works at prominent locations illustrate this phenomenon well. As such spots are usually not reachable from an easily accessible position, elaborated plans are forged in order to reach the spot of desire. Their execution involves further violations of the law. Works that

43 Polizeiliche Kriminalprävention der Länder und des Bundes, “Vandalismus,” Polizei Für Dich, accessed June 13, 2020, https://www.xn--polizeifrdich-3ob.de/deine-themen/sachbeschaedigung/vandalismus.html; dejure.org Rechtsinformationssysteme GmbH, “Sachbeschädigung,” Besonderer Teil (§§ 80-358), 27. Abschnitt Strafgesetzbuch § 303 (2005), https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/303.html.

44 See also: Javier Abarca, Andrea Brighenti, and Orestis Pangalos, eds., “Tagging,” LoSquaderno, Explorations in Space and Society, 54 (2019), http://www.losquaderno.net/?p=1956.

20 spread over entire house walls of apartment buildings usually get painted by graffiti practitioners abseiling themselves from the roof. One way onto an apartment building’s roof is through its entrance or back door, up the stairwell and then across obstacles such as further doors and falling boards into the building’s attic or straight through hatches onto the roof. An- other option is to take the same route through a neighbor or close by building and reach the actual spot walking across several roofs. In order to overcome this route, break-ins can usually not be prevented. In any case, trespassing is unavoidable. The graffiti crew BERLIN KIDZ is well known for the abseil method and is said to have established new practical standards within the Berlin graffiti scene.45 Their works are recognizable through their unique characters which usually are colored in red and blue or black and written top down over surfaces measuring roughly fifteen times twelve meters and more (Image 13).46 The BERLIN KIDZ crew have documented many of their graffiti actions. Several films, documentaries and col- lages can be found online, showing not only the act of painting but also everything that hap- pens before. The documented material displays how the crew gains access to attics by lock- picking and violently breaking down doors using crowbars and body weight. Such material is accumulated in the movie Paradox – Und Seine BERLIN KIDZ Crew (Paradox. And His Ber- lin Kidz Crew) from 2018.

Other crews and single practitioners use this method as well. While the visual output might differ from the BERLIN KIDZ style, every illegal graffiti work within roof top area has a similar history as the one described previously. Other tools might come into action and the practitioners often do not abseil themselves but paint in a 270° angle over roof edges, onto chim- neys or onto the gap that opens between two adjacent roofs of different height. Even in less spectacular locations on ground level in backyards of housing blocks or around their entrance doors, trespassing is often part of graffiti actions.

Another popular and traditional target of graffiti practitioners are public transport trains. As they move throughout the city, so does what is painted on them. Graffiti practitioners that aim to paint on trains operate comparably to the above described methods. They do not trespass and break into apartment buildings but onto the property that the trains are parked on. Usu- ally, trains are kept in garages, on railyards, within tunnel systems, on side tracks or in other

45 arte Tracks, Paradox – Und Seine Berlin Kidz Crew, Documentary, 2018, sec. 0:45min, https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC- 014037/tracks/RC-016380/visuelle-kunst/.

46 The original style that the Berlin Kidz crew borrowed theirs from is called Pichação. Pichação was invented by an internationally known painting crew from São Paulo called Pixadores.

21 depot like facilities, some of which are guarded with security or surveillance cameras or both. The graffiti practitioners have to adapt to the situation. They walk pass plot boundaries, they sneak into train tunnels on foot or by hiding in trains driving further than the final station or they enter the tunnels through trapdoors, they use stolen keys and they climb over fences or cut them open with bolt cutters among other tools. During the entire process from the unauthorized entrance until they leave the property again, the practitioners have to look out for guards that potentially could appear.

Many practitioners record the history behind their work and reveal it online. Endless video material circulates online, which depicts such proceedings and the circumstances under which works on trains are generated. The professionality of the uploaded material varies. The Ger- man-French tv channel Arte features a series called 5 MINUTES, which provides very well documented and processed examples of train writers in action.47 The cinematic montage 5 MINUTES with Wegas is an example that stands out because of the detailed documented background noises which transport some of the tensed atmosphere.48 The viewer witnesses how Wegas tries to find entrances into train depots and carefully observes the chosen spots lurking around the trains and checking the drawn-out interspaces before he steps into action (Image 5). An example for less polished up video material is included in the short film DART by Johan Ribe, a Swedish film director. DART is the name of the graffiti practitioner depicted in the film. The film uses video recordings DART once took in a train yard in Toronto. He had positioned the camera to capture himself painting a train (Image 6). In Ribe’s film, parallelly to the video recordings from the train yard, DART narrates in detail what happened in these moments. His narration complements what the viewer can witness in his recording. Ap- parently, security guards had become aware of DART and were waylaying. He had to flee and got chased by the guards. This unfeigned moment got indirectly recorded by his camera which he grabbed and ran away with. DART managed to get away.49

The here described proceedings, methods and techniques are only a fraction of what graffiti practitioners do for the purpose of creating their works. The overarching approach can rak- ishly be summarized with: Whatever it takes – which ranges from spontaneity, nerve, frivo- lousness and courage to time and patience – and: There will be a way. The consequences triggered by such an approach include besides the actual vandalism caused through the graffiti

47 Train writers are graffiti practitioners that paint a lot or solely on trains.

48 René Kästner, 5 MINUTES with Wegas, 2018, https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/080614-001-A/5-minutes-with-wegas/.

49 Johan Ribe, DART, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkz3xUHnaLA&t=69s.

22 work further illegal actions such as trespassing or break-ins. For an outsider that primarily encounters the terminated work in urban space, the previously mentioned elements are rarely relevant. However, as will be proven within the next chapter, they are important for an understanding of graffiti in urban space.

Graffiti’s Subversiveness Conventional graffiti practices and the therewith connected illicitness have been laid out. The illicitness is rooted within the work itself, within the linkable amount of works and within the process and the attempt behind it. The question remains, how exactly graffiti’s illicitness is related to its subversive constitution.

Subversiveness through the Illicit Appropriation of Urban Space As already established, the claim of the right to the city can be outlaid as the right to participate in the production of urban space. This right however is not a given. Claiming in this case means not only to demand something but to become active in the implementation of the demand. As Mayer states: The right to the city “is a right that exists only as people appropriate it, and the city itself”.50 By painting a graffiti onto a surface in urban space, the graffiti practitioner makes themselves part of the production process of urban space and contributes to the momentary product with their visual output. In order to participate, the graffiti practitioner appropriated a part of the city. A chalk game drawn onto a pavement has a similar impact. Both, the chalk game as well as the work of graffiti challenge urban rulesets. The chalk game and the graffiti work are evidence of their originators’ appropriation and usage of urban space in favor of their own ideas and demands. Those demands differ from the appropriated spaces’ actual function. The chalk drawing however will get washed away with the next rain, while the graffiti work will remain, which is intended by its originator. The claim to urban space represented by the graffiti work gets amplified through its visual manifestation and presence beyond the moment of production. In fact, the German law reacts specifically to modifications of surfaces that are not simply temporary.51 The actively made decision and taken step to vio- late urban norms and laws turns the creation of the graffiti work into a subversive statement

50 Mayer, “The ‘Right to the City’ in Urban Social Movements,” 71.

51 dejure.org Rechtsinformationssysteme GmbH, Sachbeschädigung.

23 against such rule sets.52 The statement indirectly expresses that the practitioner does not shy away from breaking the law or social norms, in order to appropriate urban space.

Prof. Tim Cresswell, chair in Geography at the University of Edinburgh wrote about graffiti’s impact on urban space in his publication In Place/out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression. In the chapter “Heretical Geography 1: The Crucial ‘Where’ of Graffiti” he condensed the interdependence between graffiti and its illicitness as follows: “Much of the meaning of graffiti lies in its subversion of the authority of urban spaces. This is also the source of its criminality.”53 And further:

Its criminality lies in its refusal to comply with its context: it does not respect the laws of place that tell us what is and what is not appropriate. Graffiti is a crime because it subverts the authority of urban space and asserts the triumph (however fleeting) of the individual over the monuments of authority.54

Subversiveness through the Appropriation of Knowledge on Urban Space Beyond the visible inscription into urban surfaces, graffiti practitioners appropriate and sub- vert the city in other ways as well. As already stated, especially the production of bigger graffiti works have to be planned ahead. As Taps of the graffiti duo Moses&Taps™ states: “Do- ing Graffiti spontaneously – No chance.”55 Graffiti practitioners need to identify or create a space and a time window that gives them enough time to produce their work without being seen or worse caught. The required knowledge for those plans can usually not get generated while passing by a potential spot on the route from one place to another. More effort runs into forging the necessary plans. Therefore, practitioners ramble urban space and observe their elected venues over longer periods. Kikol names methods such as the installation of hidden cameras, the observation with drones or the observation from a hideout by the practitioner themself. Sometimes they dress up as guard or low-key pedestrian to inconspicuously get as close as possible to the chosen location.56 Consequently, after long and repeated observations of their targets, the graffiti practitioners comprehend the entire system behind it, including its weaknesses. The better the system is probed the easier and more elaborated it can get eroded.

52 Merriam-Webster, “Subversion,” Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary, accessed June 19, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subversion.

53 Tim Cresswell, In Place/out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 58.

54 Cresswell, 46–47.

55 Translated by the author: Moses & TapsTM and Larissa Kikol, “Im Graffiti Gilt Eine Andere Währung Als in Der Kunst (Interview),” KUNSTFORUM International, May 2019, 134.

56 Kikol, “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt,” 51, 54.

24 Kikol argues that many graffiti practitioners have a very developed and advanced sense for space, architecture and effect which they develop by scouting the best spaces for their works.57 In an essay within the publication The Death of Graffiti, a collection of essays mainly written by graffiti practitioners active in Berlin, one of the authors and either former or still active graffiti practitioner HIDDEN INDEXES confirms Kikol’s assertion. To him the invasion of systems through their gaps and the processes of planning, capturing and interact- ing with objects, architecture, urban and free space constitute the core of graffiti practice.58 Thus, graffiti practitioners appropriate knowledge of urban space by investigating it and ob- taining detailed information, which they then exploit for their personal purposes. As this appropriation of knowledge on a system is not only used divergent from the official intention but counter the system, the process at the bottom of the appropriation emerges with subversiveness.

Subversiveness through Independence and Anti-Institutionalization Within graffiti practice, further methods and techniques, than the one described above, are at least partwise illegal. They are not necessarily directly connected to urban space. However, they indicate graffiti’s core and help understand the phenomena better. Therefore, another important aspect of graffiti practice will be examined in relation to graffiti’s illicitness and further to its independence and renouncement of the capitalistic system. Within the following different formats of tool acquisition within graffiti practice are outlined and analyzed.

One tradition within graffiti practice is the acquisition of tools such as markers and cans through theft. Among graffiti practitioners, this method is called racking or paint racking. Moses&Taps™ admit in an interview that the first markers they obtained were stolen from a local stationery shop, while the first attempts to steal cans went awry.59 Another example for theft within graffiti practice can be observed in the production processes of ADAMS’ and E. B. ITSO’s works. In 2003 they secretly built and furnished a room within the tunnel system of Copenhagen’s Central Station.60 In the documentary Inside Outside ADAMS expounds his method of creation. He explains that it is about “an ideology of working with things you find.

57 Kikol, 51, 54.

58 Hidden Indexes, “Doppelte Marginalisierung. Plädoyer Für Eine Kritische Auseinandersetzung Mit Dem Politischen Und Ästhetischen Im Graffiti,” in The Death of Graffiti, ed. Jo Preußler, Menetekel (Berlin: Possible Books, 2017), 222.

59 Moses & TapsTM and Kikol, “Im Graffiti Gilt Eine Andere Währung Als in Der Kunst,” 128.

60 Schacter, “The Invisible Performance/The Invisible Masterpiece,” 208.

25 And refine those things. And not to be an active consumer”.61 Parallelly to ADAMS’ elaborations the viewer can observe either him or his colleague E.B. ITSO gathering wood poles from construction sides close to Copenhagen Central station during nighttime. They transport one by one pole on a bike and throw them onto the lower laying tracks leading into the station. From there the two artists probably carried them to their own construction side.62 It can be assumed that those materials were taken without the rightful owner’s knowledge.

That theft is a common component of graffiti practice is most visible online. On Bombing- science.com for example users share their tips and experiences under a page-filling thread titled “Racking Tips” starting in 2014 – still active today (2020) – with contributions such as: “You can stuff small items in your butt crack. Markers work perfectly with this, just stuff them vertically in your crack and try not to walk weirdly.”63

The racking tradition is related to another form of tool acquisition. Javier Abarca, graffiti and street art researcher and founder of The Tag Conference (an annual conference solely dedi- cated to the graffiti discipline of tagging) explicates that self-designed and self-built devices and tools are understood as part of graffiti practice.64 According to ADAMS “[there] is a special craftsmanship tradition within the graffiti movement”.65 Tools for painting are built in a do-it-yourself manner processing only available material. Items used can be ketchup bottles, deodorant sprays, shoe-polish containers or soda cans. For his project King Size ADAMS picked up on that tradition. He designed and constructed twenty markers integrating sponges possessing a diameter of five centimeters as a nib. The markers where even though build in a do-it-yourself manner of high quality. ADAMS sent them to a group of six graffiti practitioners. He had picked and chosen them “because of their notorious relationship to the [tagging] activity itself”.66

Today, graffiti practitioners still tinker their own tools. One example are manipulated fire ex- tinguishers. The in Berlin active artist JUST mainly works with such. The fire extinguisher needs to be emptied, refilled with liquid color and set under pressure again. With this highly

61 Nis Boye Rasmussen and Andreas Johnsen, Inside Outside, Documentary, 2005, sec. 12:00min.

62 Boye Rasmussen and Johnsen, sec. 10:57min. 63 SKUNKone, “Racking Tips,” Bombingscience.Com, Toys Forum, 2014, https://www.bombingscience.com/graffitiforum/threads/racking-tips.22075/.

64 Javier Abarca, “Curating Street Art,” Street Art & Urban Creativity. Scientific Journal, Knowledge Transfer, 3, no. 2 (2017): 112.

65 Adams, ed., King Size: A Project about Tags, DIY-Craft & Subcultural Globalization (Stockholm, 2004), 6.

66 Adams, 6;

Tobias Barenthin Lindblad and Adams, “Legal Loopholes Give Space (Interview),” OVERGROUND, 2006, 13.

26 potent color canon heights of several floors can be reached from the ground.67 Another often used technique is carried out with telescope bars in combination with paint rollers.68

Schacter identifies the tradition of racking as “the refusal by many artists to ever pay for materials”.69 He connects it to “anti-establishment” and “anti-capitalist ideals” and states that it “stresses a way of living outside conventional means”.70 Hence, methods such as racking materials and crafting personalized tools can be interpretaed as indicators for an independent, anti-institutional and anti-capitalistic practice.

To summarize this important interlocking of graffiti’s illicitness with its subversiveness it can be stated that graffiti practitioners appropriate urban space with their graffiti works and therewith claim the right to partake within the production process of urban space. Given the work’s illicitness, consisting in the permanence of the color, the illicit pre-actions such as trespassing and the full awareness of such, the appropriation of urban space and the claim to the right to the city are charged with subversiveness. Prior to the actual appropriation of space through graffiti works, knowledge on the targeted spaces is appropriated as well. Given that the knowledge results in subversive works, the process of generating it becomes subversive as well. In order to guarantee as much independence within those processes, the materials and tools worked with are sometimes appropriated subversively as well. The subversiveness generated through graffiti addresses the dynamics, norms, and laws the graffiti practitioners break with as well as the bigger complex that unites all of the violated rules.

67 Ilovegraffiti.de, 5 MINUTES with JUST, 2017, https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC-014235/5-minutes/.

68 See e.g. TOY Crew, Das Schöne Haus, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoLKmGF9Eg8.

69 John Fekner and Rafael Schacter, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 234.

70 Fekner and Schacter, 234.

27 Graffiti’s Audience: The Urban Dweller As previously established, works of graffiti can usually be linked to each other by the written name or by the style. Sometimes, the letters are designed in a way which makes it difficult to decipher them. But even if the letters are readable, to the urban dweller they often only add up to a name or a word that can hardly be correlated to something specific.71 One might remember having seen the name before. More versed urban dwellers might be able to draw connections due to a concentration of a name within a certain area or due to names that repeatedly appear together. In general, only those that are part of the scene follow the succession of the graffiti game. And only those that are privy to inner circles are able to connect the footnotes in shape of graffiti works to the original source. If the urban dweller cannot take part in the urban game of graffiti but if at all observe it from the far, how else effects graffiti in urban space the urban dweller?

In his previously mentioned essay Cresswell not only crystalizes the “subversion of the authority of urban space” as “the source of its criminality” but further that “the criminality of graffiti, unlike most crimes, lies in its being seen, in its transgression of official appearances”.72 Cresswell points towards an important aspect of graffiti in urban space, which is its visibility for urban dwellers. If the existence of a graffiti work would remain unknown, its illicitness would not have further consequences. In Germany, a prosecution around damage to property and trespassing only takes place, if the damaged person lodges a complaint or if the public prosecutor see the public’s interest affected.73 Independently of dynamics inherent to the graffiti scene, a graffiti work on an abandoned factory will probably neither come to a lot of juridical nor public attention. The work’s subversive statement would not be perceived by many people whereby it loses significance. The subversiveness would be reduced to the illicitness rooted in the practitioner’s awareness of their unauthorized action. Hence, in parts graffiti’s subversiveness depends on its perception and its direct or indirect negotiation. As Brighenti summarizes: “For inscription to take place, witnesses are needed”.74 Beyond the

71 Gabry Vanderveen and Gwen van Eijk, “Criminal but Beautiful: A Study on Graffiti and the Role of Value Judgments and Context in Perceiving Disorder,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 22, no. 1 (March 2016): 108, doi:10.1007/s10610-015-9288- 4.

72 Cresswell, In Place/out of Place, 46. 73 Alexandra Braun, “Vorladung zur Polizei wegen Graffiti,” anwalt.de, 2020, https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/vorladung-zur-polizei-wegen-graffiti_096986.html.

74 Andrea Mubi Brighenti, “At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban Territoriality, and the Public Domain,” Space and Culture 13, no. 3 (Au- gust 2010): 325, doi:10.1177/1206331210365283.

28 consequence of graffiti’s visibility for graffiti itself, the question remains, which impact graffiti has on its perceiver – the urban dweller.

The impact graffiti has on urban inhabitants goes further than deeming graffiti unwanted because of associated unlawfulness, criminality or subjectively sensed ugliness.75 While graffiti might be vandalism, it is not the same as other acts of vandalism such as demolishing a bus station, setting a car on fire or smashing a window. Without doubt, those actions and their results communicate messages as well. Yet, they remain destructive in their operation. Graffiti attacks and destructs but also creates. The works communicate and transport new content. This content is not only rooted in the specific letters and aesthetics of graffiti works, which for the average urban dweller are negligibly anyhow. There is further content written and readable interlined. Zieleniec asserts that the originator of a work as well as its perceiver, hence urban inhabitants of a city as a whole – Zieleniec writes “we”, which is here interpreted as such – “exist as a social collectivity by recognizing and understanding the signs and symbols, meanings and messages that our shared urban existences and experiences engender.”76 Such can be anything from traffic lights and street signs to less obvious signs such as arm-rests on long benches indicating not to lay down. Graffiti is part of these “signs and symbols, meanings and messages”. Hence, graffiti communicates something that can affect everybody who is part of that “social collectivity”.

Further, Zieleniec describes graffiti as an “embodied creative colonisation of public space”.77 Accordingly, graffiti communicates content and knowledge that is perceived through the body. The perception of a graffiti work becomes a bodily experience. In her essay “Graffiti as Spatializing Practice and Performance” Tracey Bowen contends that graffiti works are “texts to be read” as well as “experienced haptically and bodily.”78 She considers graffiti mainly a spatializing performance, thus the graffiti practitioner a performer. Between the graffiti performer and perceiver, Bowen identifies a tension in which she distinguishes a form of identity enactment. Each work carries an “I am here-ness” and can be read as evidence for the existence of the practitioner.79 The notion of the I am here-ness can be expanded by a statement from Brighenti, whom Bowen cites numerously within her essay as well: “making graffiti is a

75 Vanderveen and van Eijk, “Criminal but Beautiful,” 121.

76 Zieleniec, “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti,” 11.

77 Zieleniec, 11.

78 Tracey Bowen, “Graffiti as Spatializing Practice and Performance,” Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, no. 25 (2013): para. 6.

79 Bowen, para. 13.

29 research one does in the first place on oneself.”80 According to Bowen, the perceiver then ac- tivates the I am here-ness of a work simply by perceiving it. In doing so the viewer “re-performs the encounter between writer and surface […]” which is a bodily one.81 Hence, Bowen stretches the identity performance beyond the creation of a work towards its perception. She summarizes the relation between the graffiti practitioner, the graffiti work and the urban dweller as follows: “Graffiti writing begins with the body in space, defining the space through physical performance, and then leaves space for other bodies to experience through incidental encounter.”82 Graffiti then turns into a spatializing practice not only through the actions of the practitioner but just as much through the perception of the viewer.83 Beyond the enactment of identity, Bowen further asserts that graffiti’s spatializing practice communicates social resistance. The activity itself, independently of the visual result is connotated with risk, resistance and indifference.84 It can be assumed, that the practitioner’s awareness of infringing the law through the production of their work and the possibility of getting caught do not pass by without leaving their traces within the bodily experience of the practitioner, therein influence the execution of the work and hence are inscribed into the work itself. That means that graffiti’s illicitness has an impact on the executing body as much as on the perceiving body. In his essay “The Invisible Performance/the Invisible Masterpiece: Visibility, Concealment, and Commitment in Graffiti and Street Art” Schacter focusses on that specific impact. He termed what is being triggered through the encounter of an illegally applied graffiti work “a sense of corporeal illicitness”.85 The term corporeal illicitness he defines as follows: “a bodily knowledge that the performative process which these images went through was filled with risk and danger, a visual embodiment of an outwardly taboo act.”86 Thus, the perceiver of a graffiti work holds a bodily awareness of the fact that the work represents a violation and challenge of urban and social norms and therewith an awareness for its subversiveness.

Schacter’s concept of the corporeal illicitness and Bowen’s interpretation of graffiti as a spatializing practice approximate to Lefebvre’s theory of moments. In her essay “Bodies, Sensa- tions, Space and Time: The Contribution from Henri Lefebvre” Simonsen elaborates on that

80 Brighenti, “At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban Territoriality, and the Public Domain,” 327.

81 Bowen, “Graffiti as Spatializing Practice and Performance,” para. 16. 82 Bowen, para. 11.

83 Bowen, para. 20.

84 Bowen, para. 10.

85 Schacter, “The Invisible Performance/The Invisible Masterpiece,” 204.

86 Schacter, 204.

30 theory. According to her, Lefebvre “interpreted the moment as fleeting, but decisive sensation implicating a double recognition of the ‘other’ and the self.”87 This double recognition can be applied to the perception of a graffiti work. It corresponds to Bowen’s concept of the graffiti- perceiver’s re-performance of the encounter between practitioner and surface. In the moment, the work is perceived, the other is the identity behind it, subverting urban rulesets. If there is an other there also is a counterpart to it – the self. The self naturally has to relate to the other. Consequently, in the case of encountering a graffiti work, the self has to locate itself within the subverted urban. Without the encounter of the other, this self-reflective positioning might not even be triggered and the urban ruleset and boundaries not recognized as such.

This process of self-reflection can be illustrated with the examples of the BERLIN KIDZ. If a person walking through Berlin or riding the S-Bahn encounters a work of the crew on a house wall, they encounter the aesthetic, the I am here-ness and the illegal act the work constitutes. All these associations are part of the other. The perceiver might like the work because of its aesthetics, however, dislike the fact that it is unauthorized and illegal, reject it entirely because of its illicitness, ask themselves how it was created or simply not care because of disin- terest. In any case, the reaction is a positioning of the self in relation to the work and its chal- lenged context. This assertion of the other and the self harmonizes with Simonsen’s further elaborations on Lefebvre’s theory of moments. She states:

For Lefebvre, the moment was also characterized by its orientation towards the realization of a possibility; the possibility is given, stands there to be both uncovered and achieved, and the realization implicates a constitutive action.88

Zieleniec specifies Lefebvre’s notion of the possibility as the “possibility of refashioning, rec- reating, reclaiming the city […]”.89 Turning to the example of the BERLIN KIDZ and the person encountering their work once again, the realization of a possibility within the person’s encountering of a graffiti work is their understanding, that getting on top of a building and painting one’s mark all over the building’s wall and therewith going against the urban ruleset is actually within the range of the possible – practically also for the self. The person’s achieved realization lies beyond that moment of encounter. It does not have to be materialized with a graffiti work but can consist in an entirely personalized form of appropriation or subversion.

87 Simonsen, “Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time,” 8.

88 Simonsen, 8.

89 Zieleniec, “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti,” 4.

31 In fact, whether the person follows up on the possibility at all remains an open end. Yet, the possibility remains given within the person’s awareness.

That Lefebvre’s theory of moments applies well to graffiti becomes even more obvious in Si- monsen’s highlighting of “‘the moments’ that arise from everyday life” according to Lefebvre.90 In a city like Berlin in which the urban surfaces are covered in comparably much graffiti, yet another graffiti work might not come across as a disruption of everyday life. How- ever, next to “love, […] rest, knowledge, poetry […] justice, [and] activities that […] tend towards a unification of the festival and everyday life”, the game constitutes an outstanding moment as well.91 Considering graffiti’s playful momentum it nevertheless can be considered something that breaks with the repetitiveness of everyday life and hence, subverts it.

Previously, the relation between urban inhabitants and graffiti has been examined. The perception of a graffiti work through somebody impacts the work itself, which is why its visibility is connected to its constitution. However, the perception does not necessarily constitute the recognition of a name, a style or the dynamics of the graffiti game but primarily in a bodily experience. Enrooted within that experience is the recognition of an identity behind the work as well as an interdependent personal positioning towards that identity and towards the context within which it appears. Further enrooted is an awareness of the work’s subversiveness, termed corporeal illicitness by Schacter. The bodily encounters and the processes a graffiti work in urban space triggers can be understood as a moment that stands out from everyday urban life. According to Lefebvre such moments bear a possibility for change. The question remains what exactly graffiti within urban space addresses and reacts to.

90 Simonsen, “Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time,” 8.

91 Simonsen, 8.

32 Graffiti’s Scope in Urban Space. Examples around Four Symptoms of Neoliberal Urbanism The phenomenon of graffiti has been deconstructed into practical aspects such as common methods and procedures and into a conceptualization of such in relation to its perceiver. The focus was put onto the illicit and subversive nature of graffiti. Now, specific urban dynamics in connection to graffiti can be expound. Within the following four specific symptoms of neoliberal urbanism and how graffiti behaves towards them will be illuminated. Neoliberal urbanism is a term adapted from Mayer’s essay “First World Urban Activism”. It can be summarized as a format for a city that is dominated and informed by annexation which expresses itself in privatization, securitization, surveillance and sanitation of urban space, deregulation in the housing market and gentrification as well as international marketization of the city as a whole.92 The isolated symptoms of neoliberal urbanism are derived from Mayer’s and Schmid’s implementations of Lefebvre’s theories within contemporary urban contexts. The urban conditions chosen are a) the privatization, b) the securitization, c) the decentralization of urban space as well as d) the isolation of urban inhabitants. Graffiti can of course be laid out in relation to more dynamics within urban space. This selection serves to establish patterns of interpretation of graffiti which can be applied beyond this thesis. The examples used to illustrate graffiti’s relation to symptoms of neoliberal urbanism differ in their conceptual depth as some are works by contemporary artists and others by graffiti practitioners.

Privatization of Urban Space In 1979 in his essay “Space: Social Product and Use Value” Lefebvre described what he called “capitalist and neo-capitalist space” as the opposite of space that is inhabited by its inhabitants.93 A high use-value of a space allows a self-determined appropriation of it. The anti- pode to use-value is exchange-value, which lays within the interest of a capitalist domination of urban space. Spaces with a high use-value are for collective users while such with a high exchange-value are for capitalist consumers.94

92 Margit Mayer, “First World Urban Activism: Beyond Austerity Urbanism and Creative City Politics,” City 17, no. 1 (February 2013): 9–10, doi:10.1080/13604813.2013.757417.

93 Lefebvre, “Space: Social Product and Use Value,” 192;

Zieleniec, “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti,” 7.

94 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 356, 359;

Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 56.

33 Lefebvre’s description of “capitalist and neo-capitalist space” equals what today is called neoliberal urbanism. Mayer characterizes the overall “modus operandi of the form of neoliberal urbanism […] as one of enclosures”.95 This means, as Mayer establishes, that huge parts of urban space and life have been and still are being privatized. A typical example of privatized spaces are venues such as shopping malls. They might be open for everybody to enter, however, they are not owned publicly but privately. Hence, the rules of the house are in force. That gives the owner the right to for example ban people from their property who are perceived as obtrusive and displeasing for others and their shopping experience or in Mayer’s words of “whoever might threaten to devalorize its [city space’s] exchange value or disrupt the exclusive business and consumption meant to take place there.”96 The owner is not obliged to justify such actions. Oftentimes targets of according censures are homeless people or loafing and lounging teenagers. Hence, these groups of people are not and possibly do not feel welcomed, stay away and are consequently not represented in privatized places like shopping malls.97 Schmid calls such places “quasi-public spaces”. Examples are “entertainment centers, or private railway and metro stations”.98 He describes them as follows: “Their raison d’être consists exclusively in generating added value. Accordingly, they are designed to channel urban life into commercially exploitable avenues and to prioritize market-oriented and consumption-oriented practices.”99 Besides shopping malls, the purposes Schmid identifies apply to less obvious privatized spaces as well. As they seem like normal public space such as squares or shopping streets, they are sometimes referred to as pseudo-public spaces.100 Lefebvre observed this development already in 1970, when he wrote in an essay:

The deployment of the world of commodities now affects not only objects but their containers, it is no longer limited to content, to objects in space. More recently, space itself has begun to be bought and sold. Not the earth, the soil, but social space, produced as such, with this purpose, this finality (so to speak).101

95 Mayer, “First World Urban Activism,” 9.

96 Mayer, 10. 97 Mona Linke, “Die Verkaufte Stadt,” Zitty, February 2020, https://www.zitty.de/die-verkaufte-stadt/.

98 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 56.

99 Schmid, 56. 100 See e.g. Jack Shenker, “Revealed: The Insidious Creep of Pseudo-Public Space in London,” The Guardian, July 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-pseudo-public-space-pops-london-investigation-map.

101 Henri Lefebvre, “The Urban Revolution,” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970), 154 cited according to Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 55–56.

34 Examples for pseudo-public spaces in Berlin are the Sony Center, the central station and the Mercedes Platz.102 In the case of the central station, an entire security network with surveillance cameras is in place to ensure that every drunk or otherwise misbehaving visitors can immediately be removed by a security guard, which gets alarmed by staff that is observing the surveillance footage live. Further, the house rules of the Deutsche Bahn AG forbid any kind of unapproved trade which includes begging and selling street newspapers.103

An example of how graffiti methods can refer to the privatization of public space and life is a work by the German artist duo Wermke / Leinkauf consisting of Matthias Wermke (*1977) and Mischa Leinkauf (*1978). In 2014 they came to much international attention after they had installed white versions of the Flag of the United States of America on top of the columns of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, which caused a huge outcry in the American media.104 Both artists have a background as graffiti practitioners.105 While they nowadays do not em- phasize their graffiti history, it becomes obvious that they transferred some topics and methods inherent to graffiti to their artistic practice. The duo often works in and with urban space within which they occasionally cross legal boundaries. Media used in a lot of their works are video material and photography taken by Leinkauf, depicting Wermke in action. An example is their artwork Die neonorangene Kuh (The neonorange Cow) from 2005. It is a short film, that consists of several sequences all similarly organized: Each sequence depicts a different cut-out of a location in Berlin. Sometimes the location is recognizable and sometimes no specific indications for the area are given. At each location a swing is installed and Wermke is rocking on it. He swings for example above the suburban railway tracks, hanging from a huge yellow billboard proclaiming the logo of Berlin’s public transportation agency, BVG (Image 7.1). This spot is well-known among Berlin’s inhabitants. But the artist also sways at more anonymous spots such as from a signboard across a highway (Image 7.2), underground in the sewerage system just above the reflecting surface of the drain (Image 7.3) or in the tunnel system next to a passing by subway train (Image 7.4). Another location shown in the film is the Sony Center. The swing must have been fastened to the massive pipe construction that holds

102 Guido Brendgens, “Vom Verlust Des Öffentlichen Raums. Simulierte Öffentlichkeit in Zeiten Des Neoliberalismus,” UTOPIE Kreativ 12/2005, no. 182 (2005): 1088, https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/182Brendgens.pdf;

Linke, “Die Verkaufte Stadt.”

103 See e.g. Jana Treffler, “Obdachlose Am Hauptbahnhof,” Zitty, May 2019, https://www.zitty.de/obdachlose-am-hauptbahnhof/.

104 See e.g. Michael Kimmelman, “German Artists Say They Put White Flags on Brooklyn Bridge,” The New York Times, August 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/arts/design/german-artists-say-they-put-white-flags-on-brooklyn-bridge.html.

105 Fekner and Schacter, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, 218.

35 the awnings of the Sony Center’s iconic roof. Roughly, thirty meters above the ground between fully illuminated high-rise buildings, in front of the dark night sky, the swing must have hung and swayed with Wermke sitting on it (Image 7.5).

The images transported with each sequence of The neonorange Cow appear unusual and per- plex the viewer. The depicted actions go, even though localized within everyday urban space, beyond everyday urban life. Wermke / Leinkauf move playfully within this interstitial space between visibility and awareness and invite the viewer of The neonorange Cow to enter it as well. As Leinkauf explicates: “I believe that there are many locations which per se maybe don’t seem interesting if one only walks by. But if one really engages with them, one discovers many things.”106 Such things do not have to be pleasing and joyful. Once an awareness of an object is present, the object can be put into question. Upon engagement with the Sony Cen- ter one discovers its pseudo-public constitution. The absurdity, the childlike playfulness and harmlessness of the swing-scenario expose the system that forbids such activities.

No paint was used for this work and no name got inscribed into an urban surface. The permanence of the work is not held within urban space but within Wermke / Leinkauf’s artwork. However, the duo availed themselves of typical methods of graffiti practice. They probably had to scout the spots for their undertaking and elaborate how to reach them ahead of shoot- ing. Hence, they subversively appropriated knowledge on them. They probably knew exactly onto which properties they trespassed while doing so. With the swing as a recurring object they even refer to graffiti’s playful and repetitive nature. Rafael Schacter summarizes their oeuvre as “projects and films that try to recreate the intimate understanding of the city that graffiti facilitates, rather than producing a graffiti aesthetic in itself.”107 With The neonorange Cow Wermke / Leinkauf subversively appropriated urban space after all.

In fact, classical graffiti in shape of letters are rarely to not at all present within pseudo-public spaces in Berlin. This circumstance can presumably be traced back to a high density of surveillance in form of cameras as well as security guards. The risk of being detected and caught while doing graffiti rises. In the case of Berlin central station measures are taken in order to quickly remove graffiti once it finds its way onto the surfaces of the pseudo-public space. A patented coating has been developed which enables washing off graffiti without chemicals but only with water. For 2.500 Euros per thirty square meters it can be purchased and applied –

106 Translated by the author: Deutsche Welle, Illegale Poesie: Kunst von Wermke/Leinkauf, 2014, sec. 1:47min, https://www.dw.com/de/illegale-poesie-kunst-von-wermke-leinkauf/av-17757356.

107 Fekner and Schacter, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, 149.

36 something which the Deutsche Bahn AG apparently considered advisable.108 Hence, the risk of doing graffiti in these spaces is comparably high for an outcome which will probably be erased before anybody could ever perceive it. In a city like Berlin, where entire streets are covered in graffiti works, not only their presence but also their absence in urban space can indicate something about its constitution. The absence of graffiti in the Sony Center and the central station is a sign of an active decision made by the majority of Berlin’s graffiti practitioners to keep their distance from such strictly guarded pseudo-public spaces. Meanwhile the innocent urban inhabitant visiting them keeps on sharing their data and privacy with the implemented security systems and the institutions behind them.

Securitization of Urban Space Not only urban public spaces of Berlin have been privatized and securitized within recent years. During the 1990s and 2000s the Berlin Senate sold more than 300.000 social housing units to private investors.109 According to Mayer and as exemplified by the analyzes of The neonorange Cow, processes of privatization come along with more surveillance and securitization. The previously described excluding sanctions, especially against less privileged people, are an indicator of the installment of such. Within everyday life of the private realm this installment has left its traces as well, which becomes visible upon a closer look at common graffiti practices. As pointed out in the example of the BERLIN KIDZ, a lot of graffiti can be found on roof top level. In order to appropriate such spaces, the practitioners have to claim access to private property. Consequently, they either trespass onto or, if necessary, break into it. In an interview Wermke juxtaposed this status quo with earlier circumstances. Apparently, until the 1990s in East-Berlin and presumably in some parts of West-Berlin as well, one could enter every apartment building simply through the unlocked front doors. Bell systems were not implemented, the yards were not disconnected and the roofs were easily accessible. Such was not considered problematic or dangerous but rather commonplace.110 In Sweden a similar

108 Hildburg Bruns, “Mit Diesem Mittel Wird Jetzt Gegen Sprayer Vorgegangen!,” Berliner Zeitung, October 2019, https://www.bz- berlin.de/berlin/bvg-kaempft-mit-neuem-mittel-gegen-graffiti-sprayer.

109 Mayer, “First World Urban Activism,” n. 22; Ralf Schönball, “Was Aus Den Landeseigenen Wohnungen Wurde,” Der Tagesspiegel Online, 2019, https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nach-der-privatisierung-was-aus-den-landeseigenen-wohnungen-wurde/24025260.html.

110 Mischa Leinknauf Und Matthias Wermke, 2015, sec. 1:20min, https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/060101-002-A/mischa-leinkauf-und- matthias-wermke/.

37 development is recognizable. Karin Grundström, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Urban Re- search in Malmö has contributed to Brighenti’s publication Urban Walls: Political and Cul- tural Meanings of Vertical Structures and Surfaces with her essay “Gating Housing in Swe- den. Walling in the Privileged, Walling out the Public from Public Places” in which she re- searches tendencies towards gated housing in Sweden. According to Grundström, until the 1990s courtyards and passages were freely accessible for everybody in Sweden as well, until key codes and locks were implemented. This tendency towards gated housing appeared together with the privatization of Sweden’s housing market.111 Considering that open access to private property has once been commonly accepted, the question arises, who actually profits from the security measures in place today. To be fair, graffiti practitioners aim to – in juridical terms – damage private property. Trying to prevent such damage is understandable by the standpoint of an estate’s owner. Nevertheless, locked off doors and yards effect all inhabitants that simply want to explore their neighborhood. According to Grundström, before the 1990s anyone could cross through blocks, take shortcuts and discover and appropriate the city at his or her own pace and according to his or her own interest, very much in line with Lefebvre’s concrete utopia. Today, more in favor of the counter-alternative, “the use-value of public urban land is reduced”.112 For the urban dweller, a rooftop graffiti work and the claim to gain access to private property that is enrooted within it, is a reminder of the circumstances before the 1990s when the urban housing units were not as securitized – as Wermke says – “Condi- tions, that once were given and […] completely normal.”113 Yet again, with its subversive appropriation of urban space, graffiti exposes and makes aware of its dynamics and norms and further demonstrates and reveals to its perceiver the possibility of engaging within the production of urban space.

The securitization of urban space becomes visible in other aspects of graffiti practice as well. A common move within graffiti actions that take place in monitored spaces is to cover surveillance cameras with spray paint upon entering the scene that has been chosen for the action. This precaution against the perceptibility of the practitioners, their actions and their exits is often taken upon entering train stations for short actions.114 Even if the surveillance cameras

111 Karin Grundström, “Gating Housing in Sweden. Walling in the Privileged, Walling out the Public from Public Places,” in Urban Walls: Political and Cultural Meanings of Vertical Structures and Surfaces, ed. Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Mattias Kärrholm, Classical and Contemporary Social Theory (London, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019), 176.

112 Grundström, 178.

113 Translated by the author: Mischa Leinknauf Und Matthias Wermke, sec. 1:14min.

114 TOY crew, TOYLESSONS VOL. 1, 2016, sec. 11:42min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoMqE-WubvM.

38 do net get covered and record the entire graffiti action, the practitioners, usually wearing a mask to cover up their faces, can often not be identified. In fact, graffiti practitioners responsible for damage done to the BVG in Berlin mostly can avoid prosecution. Only seldomly do they get caught and held responsible.115 This inefficiency raises questions: Which functions do the surveillance cameras serve, other than collecting data on mostly harmless clients of public transportation services, if they do not keep perpetrators from committing a crime. If a dense surveillance in pseudo-public spaces such as the Sony Center prevents graffiti practitioners from painting there, is that effect applicable to other crimes as well? Are pseudo-public spaces generally safer? Is the payment for safety the inhabitants’ private data? Previously established, anything that disturbs the exchange-value of pseudo-public spaces is banned from it. In privatized spaces which run under high surveillance such purposes are easily implemented. However, even if those spaces are safer, they do not change anything about the source or the reason of potential danger. Whatever or whoever those might constitute in is simply pushed out of these spaces and consequently moves to others. These processes are not primarily implemented in favor of the collective users of urban space – if they are at all – as it might appear on first sight but in favor of all those that profit from the exchange-value of these spaces.

Graffiti works on spots that lay beyond privatized and securitizes borders have been identified as reminders and representations of possibilities. They remind their perceiver of less regulated urban circumstances as well represent the perceiver’s real possibility to claim urban public space, maybe even establish those less regulated circumstances themselves. Summarized, the works question and challenge the rules and norms they break with in order to come into existence. Further, graffiti’s absence has been identified as an indicator for pseudo-public spaces. Its absence however might not have an as strong effect on the urban dweller as its presence. Here, graffiti cannot directly make aware of urban dynamics and rulesets.

115 Ulrich Kraetzer, “Graffiti Und Vandalismus: Die Täter Kommen Meist Davon,” Berlin Morgenpost, April 2020, https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article228931303/Graffiti-und-Vandalismus-Die-Taeter-kommen-meist-davon.html.

39 Decentralization of Urban Space According to Schmid, centrality is one of the most important concepts to Lefebvre’s approach to theoretically grasp the urban.116 As already mentioned, Lefebvre differentiated his call for the right to the city to “the right to centrality”.117 In Lefebvre’s understanding, centrality is however not to be understood geographically. Schmid states, that “its logic represents the syn- chronicity of objects and people that can be assembled around a given point.”118 And hence, “Centrality as a form does not entail a concrete content, but merely defines the possibility of an encounter.”119 The content can then be negotiated and produced through the encounter of differences – another right, Lefebvre differentiated from the right to the city.120 Today however, as already discussed, huge parts of urban space are privatized, including centrality’s dynamics of encounter and difference. As Lefebvre stated, it is not only “the earth, the soil, but social space, produced as such,” that is being sold to private parties.121 Lefebvre diagnosed that this form of centrality would “concentrate wealth, means of action, knowledge information and ‘culture’.”122 The counterpart to such centrality is the periphery, which Schmid explains once again not geographically, but rather as spaces of dispersion or demarcation that are excluded from urban life.123

An artist that repeatedly focused on the issue of centrality in his work is ADAMS. Likewise the artist duo Wermke / Leinkauf, ADAMS works are rather conceptual and only rarely appear in the conventional shape of colored letters. Meanwhile, he clearly applies traditional graffiti techniques and methods and investigates and develops specific components of graffiti. This has already been laid out in the chapters above, referencing his King Size project and his method of gathering materials for the house in the Copenhagen Central station he built together with E.B. ITSO. The house was accessible via one of the station’s platforms from

116 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 46.

117 Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution, 194;

Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49. 118 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 47.

119 Schmid, 47–48.

120 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 64; Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49.

121 Henri Lefebvre, “The Urban Revolution,” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970), 154 cited according to Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 55–56.

122 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 332–333;

Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 53.

123 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 57.

40 where the artists sneaked unseen into the tunnel system heading towards the house’s ad hoc assembled secret entrance. Only in 2007 when the central station was renovated the room was found by the local authorities. During those four years between 2003 and 2007, the artists had kept the room in usage. Even though the house was not visible for the most time of its existence, its location was central. The works’ subversiveness was not so much enrooted within its visibility but within its centrality. In the moment it was detected, the entire subversiveness that had been secretly built up discharged. It seems absurd, that it did not get detected throughout those years as it was located in a central, highly frequented and secured institution. The fact that the duo managed to identify a lack within the security system of the central station – or as ADAMS calls it: a loophole – was a reaction to the securitization of urban space as well.124 As ADAMS stated: “This house proves it’s possible to build a house right under the state’s nose.”125

In 2008 an edition in the format of a small paper box holding six folded papers titled Text on Train got published. On the papers several train wagons are depicted. White text segments are applied on each wagon. The publication indicates that ADAMS and E.B. ITSO applied the text onto a train running in or through Copenhagen. The text reveals the secret around AD- AMS’ and E.B. ITSO’s house and that the artists have implemented a new house within or close to the central station.126 With both houses, the artists have appropriated space in one of the most central institutions of the city – the central station. The house represents a different concept of centrality than the one favored by neoliberal urbanism. The new house is free of rent and withdraws itself from the common set of urban rules. That means that the new house is not subordinated to the commodified centrality that Lefebvre and Schmid criticize. It has no exchange-value.

The secret houses appear like small islands within spaces of centrality which aim for added value rather than encounter and difference. Graffiti works as undesired scribblings are not designated to be part of such formats of centrality. They belong to the periphery, preferably

124 Tobias Barenthin Lindblad and Adams, “Legal Loopholes Give Space (Interview),” OVERGROUND, 2006, 12. 125 Translation taken from subtitles of Boye Rasmussen and Johnsen, Inside Outside, sec. 10:49min.

126 The white text fragments on the train combined read: “For four years we kept a secret under the Central Station in Copenhagen – A little house next to Track 12. // It was a simple home. We each had a bed and a chair. A table, fridge, oven and stovetop. From the window we watched life on the street. // The house was discovered and demolished one year ago. During this past year we built another. A new home in a new place. // 11 m³ – One bunkbed, two chairs, a stove, a heater and a sink with a limited amount of running water. // A clandestine room for refuge, without rent and with different rules to play by – A secret shelter by the tracks. // Adams & Itso, February, 2008”, cited from “Adams & E.B. Itso – Text on Train,” 2020, https://getwelldaniel.de/shop/adams-e-b-itso- text-on-train/.

41 excluded from the central everyday life. Thus, graffiti present in spaces of centrality carries the periphery back into those spaces. Yet again, graffiti functions as a reminder. In this case, it reminds of everything and everybody that has been banned to the periphery. Despite remind- ing of the periphery’s existence, graffiti drags it into everyday centrality.

Isolation within Urban Space The importance of difference for Lefebvre’s concrete utopia of urban space has been mentioned previously. He advanced his idea of the right to the city and specified it introducing “the right to difference”.127 Schmid identifies Lefebvre’s concept of difference as a major component within the process of creating something new and negotiating the content of the urban.128 Difference might entail conflict. However, in Lefebvre’s concept, difference is not the opposition to unity.129 Rather, through the vocalization and encounter of difference a compromise can be formulated and collectively established. Instead of a unity through homogeneity, Schmid stresses a “specific quality of urban space [that] arises from the simultaneous presence of very different worlds and value-systems, of ethnic, cultural, and social groups, activities, and knowledge.”130 For a productive process of confrontational encounter to get initiated, a willingness among urban inhabitants to engage with each other needs to be given. As stated by Schmid: “Transformed by the confrontation, the elements no longer assert themselves in isolation from one another.”131 However, smartphones and headphones likely lead to urban inhabitants’ isolation. A confrontation can hardly be triggered.

Specific practices within graffiti mirror this isolation. While graffiti practitioners are often active during dark hours, they sometimes seek their own visibility and perform openly within the midstream of urban life. An example is the internationally known graffiti crew 1UP (One United Power) active in Berlin. The crew painted a wholecar – a train car entirely covered in paint – while the subway was on duty. On New Year’s Eve 2018 the crew took advantage of the chaotic circumstances in the Berlin district Kreuzberg. 1UP could be certain that the po-

127 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 64; Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49.

128 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49, 52.

129 Schmid, 59.

130 Schmid, 48.

131 Schmid, 48.

42 lice brigades were occupied on many urgent missions and that the passengers were busy cele- brating and in a rather jolly mood. Since a video of the action was taped and uploaded online every step can be revisited.132 About six practitioners executed the graffiti. They had chosen the elevated and open subway station Schlesisches Tor as the setting for their action. Two people were filming. One of them moves within immediate range of the practitioners and another one must have been within or on top of an apartment building close to the station. The group waited downstairs across the street from where they could see the trains approaching on the elevated tracks. Probably, the group wanted neither to be documented on too much security footage nor wait hooded for too long on the platform as that might have drawn suspicion. The platform was crowded with people that either wanted to get on or off the train. The subway consisted of several wagons. Covering the last one at the far end of the platform with color took the crew only a couple of minutes. They painted their crew’s name 1UP. Not only did people remain on the platform in order to watch the performance before heading further, from the inside of the wagon passengers were filming how the windows got quickly covered in paint. Once the work on the train was finished, the group ran off into the night. The fact, that 1UP got away with their wholecar action might be the result of the witnesses’ endorsement. However, other examples indicate, that its rather the witnesses’ passiveness that make such actions possible.

Graffiti practitioner IGIT, active in Berlin, initiated a performance in 2016 which made this passiveness visible. Within his short film IGIT’S WORLD a scene is included in which he sets up a large and visible installation within the very central underground station Weinmeister- straße. The scene begins overground. On the sidewalk close to the station IGIT prepares a fire extinguisher filling it with white paint. It must have been winter when the scene got shot as snow covers the ground. Next, together with a companion he carries at least ten Christmas trees down the stairs into the station. They arrange them on the floor that is located in between the underground platform and the overground. Pedestrians are continuously passing by. In a next step, IGIT releases the fire extinguisher and shoots the white color across the space aiming at the Christmas trees.133 Throughout the performance some passersby curiously or con- fusedly even suspiciously observe what is going on. Yet, apparently only one person really sought a dialogue with IGIT – an elder man telling him that he was having a hobby he termed

132 1UP, Happy New Year 2018 Whole Car, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsPjvw_32UA.

133 IGIT, IGIT’S WORLD, 2016, sec. 4:18min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGftOPfXzsM.

43 “shitography”.134 IGIT might have cut out the sections of the recording in which people approached or even confronted him. Nevertheless, he managed to complete his performance. Before the performance, when IGIT is preparing the fire extinguisher upstairs, a man stops and asks what he is about to do. IGIT answers the question truthfully, leaving out no detail. The man reacts surprised, does not believe IGIT: “Are you bullshiting me?” and “And nobody cares? The whole mess and stuff?” and further “You have to watch out that nothing goes wrong.” IGIT: “It will be fine man.”135

A more radical example of a graffiti practitioner who seeks the encounter with witnesses is Swedish graffiti practitioner SANO. The short documentary Bombing with Sano shows the practitioner spraying very openly in locations in Stockholm where the risk of being seen is high and the means of escape complex. Oftentimes such locations are within the public transportation system. According to his own statements, SANO is curious about his witnesses’ re- actions even though the documentary depicts him behaving hostilely towards approaching or reacting people.136 Within one scene a staff member sitting in a service lodge confronts him and asks him to stop. SANO replies: “Shut up.”137 The documentary shows several scenes in which SANO either alone or with a companion paints parked commuter trains and is being detected by the staff. They communicate with the two over loudspeakers telling them to leave, that what they are doing is illegal and that their actions are being reported to the police and that they should go to hell. SANO and his companion react with laughter. However, the staff, probably superior in number remains deedless beyond calling the police and trying to chase off the practitioners with words.138

Previously, getting to know a system and its weaknesses in order to accurately infiltrate it has been identified as an important part of graffiti practice and as a subversive appropriation of knowledge on urban space. Subverting dynamics of urban space does not solely happen by targeting and infiltrate concrete elements such as properties. According to Lefebvre, urban space is socially produced. Hence, it constitutes in its inhabitants and their actions maybe even more than in its buildings and streets. Thus, the inhabitants as a whole can be subverted as well. Practitioners like 1UP, IGIT and SANO have obviously appropriated enough

134 Translation taken from the subtitles of IGIT, sec. 6:19min.

135 Translation taken from the subtitles of IGIT, sec. 5:05min.

136 Thomas OKOK Gunnarsson, Bombing With Sano, sec. 2:00min, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucnXWdOzU4k&t=91s.

137 Gunnarsson, sec. 1:29min.

138 Gunnarsson, sec. 8:55min.

44 knowledge on urban inhabitants and possible witnesses as to know how far they can push their limits in their presence. They know that nobody is actively going to try to stop them from their illegal actions. In regard to urban inhabitants this mirrors not only a lack of willingness to engage and confront hence, to encounter difference. It even indicates a lack of readi- ness for moral courage.

The German Federal Police Prevention for Crime (Polizeiliche Kriminalprävention der Län- der und des Bundes) initiated a campaign titled Aktion-Tu-Was (transl. Mission-Do-Some- thing) in order to promote moral courage. The campaign advises witnesses of different kinds of crimes on how to act. The crimes are separated into seven categories. Graffiti is specifically listed as a form of vandalism. Further, the S-Bahn Berlin – the agency administering Berlin’s local overground public railways – offers a reward up to a thousand Euros for hints on observed vandalism. Hence, it indeed would be welcomed by the authorities if witnesses of acts of graffiti would report such immediately. That witnesses do not deem it necessary to immediately inform the local authorities about a graffiti practitioner might be understandable. How- ever, that people avoid the encounter and confrontation as a whole is alarming. After all, they witness a single person or a small group of people taking the right to vandalize the space they themselves are moving and living within. How would they react in a situation in which somebody actually is being threatened and in need of help? Surely, the willingness to intervene would be higher than in the situation of encountering a graffiti practitioner illegally painting on a wall. Yet, so would be the risk and danger connected to interfering the conflict.

At the Max Plank Institute for Research on Collective Good Prof. Dr. Anna Baumert together with her research group investigates the phenomenon of moral courage following the research questions of when and why people show it. Introducing her research, Baumert states, that a huge discrepancy exists between what people say they would do in a situation in which moral courage is needed versus what they actually do in that situation. Broken down, while nearly a hundred percent of experiment respondents assert that they would show moral courage in a specific situation, in a reconstruction of that situation, only a third of the same group of respondents actually did show moral courage.139

It appears that encounter let alone conflict is being avoided by urban inhabitants – a loophole that graffiti practitioners know how to use to their benefit. As stated in the beginning of this chapter, conflict and difference result from encounter. They carry the possibility to creat new

139 Max-Planck-Institut, Anna Baumert, 2018, sec. 1:03min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuVzWL_gkw8.

45 urban content.140 However, without any encounters, negotiations upon how urban space shall be produced will not be triggered. In the meantime, graffiti practitioners will audaciously and painlessly continue demonstrating their witnesses how powerless and passive they behave.

Graffiti’s Practitioners Up until here, graffiti has been conceptualized on the basis of Lefebvre’s theories and therewith in relation to urban space. Throughout the conceptualization the focus was laid on graffiti’s illicitness and subversiveness. Basic procedures and methods were illuminated, such as trespassing, breaking in, accumulating knowledge on urban spaces and spots, stealing and tinkering tools and slipping through loopholes. With these actions graffiti practitioners appropriate urban space. The illicitness of these actions generates subversiveness, which resonates within the appropriative processes. The actions advance from mere temporal appropriation to critical comments on the context within which they take place. Hence, graffiti is a reference to its direct context and deeply connected to it. Part of this context are further components of which neoliberal urbanism, the graffiti practitioner and the perceiver have been focused on. Hence, on the basis of this trinity, graffiti can be conceptualized as a subversive comment within urban space that opens up the possibility of other versions of the urban. Or in other words: Graffiti is a claim to the right to space, to centrality, to difference, hence, to the city. This is however only an interpretation of graffiti that is constructed externally. It is not generated by graffiti practitioners themselves, although some might share the outcomes of this research and were already previously aware of them. Despite analyzing graffiti practice, the works and their impact on urban space it seems appropriate to take a look at graffiti practitioners as such.

Graffiti has been depicted as a movement that thrives for independency and anti-institutionalization. However, upon a closer look, many institutional dynamics and structures become visible. One pillar within graffiti is its rule set.141 It enables a more complex communication. The

140 Schmid, “Henri Lefebvre, The Right To The City, And The New Metropolitan Mainstream,” 49, 52.

141 The here employed definition of social institution reads as follows: Roughly speaking, an institution that is an organisation or system of organisations consists (at least) of an embodied (occupied by human persons) structure of differentiated roles […] These roles are defined in terms of tasks, and rules regulating the performance of those tasks. Moreover, there is a degree of interdependence among these roles, such that the performance of the constitutive tasks of one role cannot be undertaken, or cannot be undertaken except with great difficulty, unless the tasks constitutive of some other role or roles in the structure have been undertaken or are being undertaken. Further, these roles are often related to one another hierarchically, and hence involve different levels of status and degrees of authority. […] The constitutive roles of an institution and their relations to one another can be referred to as the

46 ruleset is not documented in a manifesto. However, online several attempts have been taken to summarize a general ruleset and terminology.142 For example, going over – which means drawing on top of – or crossing – which means striking through – somebody else’s work is “one of the most serious offences” within graffiti practice.143 The degree of delinquency depends on further aspects such as who has crossed whom and what kind of work has been gone over with what. Going over somebody not only sends the message “I was here” but further de- stroys and degrades the same claim by the other practitioner. The idea of claiming space on surfaces which are not one’s own property and to then forbid others to do likewise subverts the idea of subversive appropriation and instead pushes a hypocritical egoism. Further, legal walls for graffiti practitioners are often claimed by a crew which reserves it for their own members’ exercise.144 Even train yards are sometimes guarded by graffiti practitioners to ensure that nobody unwanted paints there. Holding on to those rules usually leads to “retaliation”.145 These dynamics appear rigid even resemble institutional structures.

The punishment for rule breakings deserves a closer look. On first sight, it might not be as apparent, but after investigating the graffiti scene and taking in a lot of different material rang- ing from academic essays to blog posts, podcast interviews and YouTube comments, it becomes evident that retaliation in this case clearly means violence. Several articles confirm the rumors around knife attacks and a rise of propensity for violence among the scene towards ri- vals especially in Berlin where many active practitioners clash.146 Obviously, not every graffiti practitioner carries a knife. Nevertheless, even those practitioners that try to avoid violence, actively take the decision to be part and to move within the same space as those that do not resile from violence. Thus, severe violence among the scene is not simply a negligible

structure of the institution. From: Seumas Miller, “Social Institutions,” ed. Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2019), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/social-institutions/.

142 See e.g. koper, “The New To Graffiti Thread,” Bombingscience.Com, Toys Forum, 2012 2007, https://www.bombingscience.com/graffitiforum/threads/the-new-to-graffiti-thread.2185/.

143 Brighenti, “At the Wall: Graffiti Writers, Urban Territoriality, and the Public Domain,” 326.

144 Brighenti, 326–327. 145 See e.g. Good Guy Boris, Unfollow the Leader. Part 2, 2012, pt. 1:05min, https://www.y- outube.com/watch?v=a9iqm6t2Fuk&t=201s.

146 See e.g. Katharina Frank, “Krieg mit Messern und Pistolen,” FOCUS Online, 1995, https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/sprayer-banden-krieg-mit-messern-und-pistolen_aid_151247.html;

Carola Padtberg, “Graffiti: Ich Spraye, Also Bin Ich,” SPIEGEL Online, 2006, https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/graffiti- ich-spraye-also-bin-ich-a-416204.html;

Tanja Buntrock, “17-Jähriger Graffiti-Sprüher Lebensgefährlich Verletzt,” Der Tagesspiegel Online, 2009, https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/polizei-justiz/messerattacke-17-jaehriger-graffiti-sprueher-lebensgefaehrlich-verletzt/1433168.html;

“Inside Berlin’s Graffiti War,” The Local, September 2008, https://www.thelocal.de/20080909/14209.

47 side effect of graffiti practice. Within academic writing on graffiti, this aspect has not come to much attention. Furthermore, it often gets neglected in public conversations between graffiti practitioners. Therefore it is emphasized here because in fact, violence is a part of graffiti.

Another indicator for a gradual institutionalization of graffiti is the rise of stores offering only graffiti gear. Apparently, nowadays racking seems to be not as common anymore. This might have several reasons such as the changing demography of practitioners among others. Selling graffiti equipment seems to be profitable. These stores sell high-end tools by brands such as KRINK – KRINK offers a fire extinguisher called Krink Extinguisher for 1500 US-Dollars – or ON THE RUN.147 Hence, the craftmanship around tools might have become unnecessary and fallen into oblivion. Some graffiti practitioners promote branded tools themselves. KRINK for example was developed by the American graffiti practitioner KR, who in the beginning traded his ink personally among his circle of acquaintances before a graffiti store of- fered to trade his product.148 The 1UP crew and their collaboration with the HAND MIXED marker brand is another example. On the occasion of fifty years of LGBTQ+ pride, 1UP developed a marker consisting of the six rainbow colors that was sold for ten Euros per pen.149 This marker institutionalizes and commercializes the do-it-yourself practice as well as the 1UP crew. It appears, as if parts of graffiti got institutionalized and commercialized after all and hence, part of its subversiveness got forfeit. A statement contributed to a flickr thread on the topic of racking seems to be linked to the described development. The user with the nick- name F. Swift wrote:

[…] Racking is essential to Graffiti, […] without racking graf isn't whole...without Racking, Graffiti would loose a large essence which had helped define the art and shape the culture around it. Racking is an In Your Face reminder of what Graffiti is: Illegal, Vandalism and a raw dog commitment to Do Damage.150

Beyond this specific development around graffiti tools, similar dynamics are observable in other commercial segments, for example the fashion industry. Mentionable is Swedish artist NUG’s collaboration with Nike for a promotion of the Nike Air Force 1 Sneaker. Considering the scandal around NUG’s degree project Territorial Pissing, this promotion event appears

147 Krink Inc., “Buy Krink K-8000 Paint Fire Extinguisher,” shop.krink.com, 2020, https://shop.krink.com/products/k-8000.

148 Boye Rasmussen and Johnsen, Inside Outside, sec. 35:57min;

Krink Inc., “History,” shop.krink.com, 2020, https://shop.krink.com/pages/history.

149 “1UP Pro,” HAND MIXED PERMANENT PAINT STICK, 2020, https://handmixed.lat/products/pro-1up.

150 F. Swift, “Racking,” Flickr.Com, 2008, https://www.flickr.com/groups/426469@N25/discuss/72157603453442909/72157603734375119.

48 like a sellout on the side of NUG and a perfect institutionalization of an enfant terrible to the benefit of Nike.151

Independently of deeper discussions concerning the motives and realizations of all the previously mentioned collaborations, brandings and trading, it can clearly be observed that the graffiti practitioners did not play a passive role in them. Rather than getting institutionalized, they – to a certain extend – institutionalized themselves. On the part of graffiti practitioners this development speaks of a certain lack of self-reflective and self-critical evaluation of their methods, behavior and contributions to their own community as well as an unawareness of the role they play within it.

This lack of awareness appears in other subject areas as well. Slightly unthinking seems for example BERLIN KIDZ’ appropriation of the Pixação writing style from São Paulo. The practitioners painting Pixação are called Pixadores. Pixação originated in the 1950s but started getting comprehensively executed around the 1980s. The lettering style is inspired by heavy metal record labels. The letters add up to an alphabet of its own, which is only de- codable for an inner circle of people. Originally, the practitioners wrote their crew names but also political messages which were directed against Brazil’s military dictatorship.152 Today, Pixação has spread beyond the city of São Paolo to other Brazilian cities.153 In its origin city, the Pixadores are actively targeted by the local government. According to an interview with two Pixadores, they can get punched and beaten up even forced to drink the color they are painting with, if they get caught by the police.154 Reports from São Paolo on the murder of Pixadores through the police confirm such assertions.155 In the interview the Pixadores further state that understanding Pixação needs to start with an openness and awareness for its context and for the people that are executing it and that one should see how the Pixadores live in the Quebradas at the precarious outskirts of São Paolo.156 The BERLIN KIDZ clearly copied the Pixação style, however, use more decorated decipherable letters. In regard to their style’s background, PARADOX’ statements “We paint for realness […]” and “One is angry” appear

151 Jacob Kimvall, “Scandinavian Zero Tolerance Graffiti,” ed. Eliza Bertuzzo et al., Kontrolle öffentlicher Räume: unterstützen, unterdrü- cken, unterhalten, unterwandern, Perspektiven Europäischer Ethnologie, 12 (2013): 103–104. 152 Fekner and Schacter, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, 112.

153 Suman Gupta, “Pixação and Tourist Appraisal,” Wasafiri 30, no. 2 (April 2015): 40, doi:10.1080/02690055.2015.1011394.

154 Antonia Lilly Schanze, Graffiti Als Protest - Unterwegs Mit Berliner Sprayern, 2019, sec. 17:04min, https://www.y- outube.com/watch?time_continue=1044&v=ZTZEBcIMOpg&feature=emb_title.

155 See e.g. Phillips, “São Paulo.”

156 Schanze, Graffiti Als Protest, sec. 16:35min.

49 slightly flat and speak of little awareness upon the responsibility that comes along with an implementation of contents like the Pixação style from Basil within a Western European context.157

Another conspicuous structure within the demography of graffiti practitioners is the majority of men and an absence of women and further genders. In 2006 ADAMS reacted on that imbalance as follows:

I dream of a brutal female bomber who puts everyone in their place! Graffiti has become a macho culture, with the pen as penis extension and the tag as a kind of squirt – an orgasm. […] I’m frustrated by the fact that graffiti culture today is a patriarchy. As soon as a girl shows up, she is expected to use certain colors or do cute characters. [...] Graffiti can be chauvinistic and homophobic.158

Within her publication The Graffiti Subculture. Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York Nancy Macdonald researched the phenomenon using ethnographic methods. Among her informants were 29 graffiti practitioners with whom she conducted interviews.159 Among other findings Macdonald identifies the role of the girlfriend to be the most common role assigned to women within a graffiti context. Being identified as a practitioner’s girlfriend even appears dismissive.160 Macdonald concludes the publication stating that “By writing their [male graffiti practitioners] name, they earn fame and respect. By doing it illegally, they build a masculine identity. By excluding girls, they protect this identity.”161 In 2016 Macdon- ald again wrote on graffiti’s demography within her essay “Something for the Boys? Explor- ing the Changing Gender Dynamics of the Graffiti Subculture”. Meanwhile, more women had found their way into graffiti. Nevertheless, as Macdonald concludes: “For male writers, at least, masculine construction would appear to continue to define graffiti’s deeper role regardless of any gender related changes that may be occurring.“162

Listing the previously mentioned dynamics of institutionalization, commercialization, violence, unawareness and sexism observable within the graffiti scene does not aim at evaluating them. Such discussion would need to be unfolded within a different scope. Surely, the here outlined aspects could be advanced as well as further included and critically discussed. This

157 arte Tracks, Paradox – Und Seine Berlin Kidz Crew, sec. 1:20min and 3:29min. 158 Barenthin Lindblad and Adams, “Legal Loopholes Give Space (Interview),” 9.

159 Nancy Macdonald, The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity, and Identity in London and New York (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 50.

160 Macdonald, 135.

161 Macdonald, 228.

162 Nancy Macdonald, “Something for the Boys? Exploring the Changing Gender Dynamics of the Graffiti Subculture,” in Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art, ed. Jeffrey Ian Ross, 1st ed. (Routledge, 2016), 192, doi:10.4324/9781315761664.

50 thesis, however, rather provides space for such dynamics to come to attention and into awareness. In fact, highlighting these dynamics shall prevent graffiti’s romanization. It should be acknowledged that next to the conceptualization conducted previously, these aspects constitute graffiti as well.

51 Graffiti within the Art Institutional System

Graffiti in urban space has been outlined in regard to several aspects. Common practices have been described. The urban context graffiti refers to has been examined on the basis of urban theories by and connected to Henri Lefebvre. The impact on urban inhabitants has been elaborated on. Further, as far as possible, the practitioners’ reflectiveness around their own practice has been accentuated. Based on the established knowledge, the following chapter focusses on curatorial approaches towards graffiti. It will continually refer to the content generated within the first part of this thesis, in order to elaborate to what extend the curatorial approaches take the discussed aspects into consideration. First, an overview of graffiti’s history within art institutions will be outlined. Secondly, graffiti’s and street art’s relation will be examined as it constitutes a great part of graffiti’s art institutional past and still effects graffiti’s image today. In the light of the findings, singular practical formats for graffiti will briefly be accentuated as well as the encounter between graffiti and the curator discussed theoretically.

Graffiti’s Entry into the Art Institution or from Ur- ban Surfaces onto Canvases In order to outline the relation between graffiti and curatorial practice, the beginnings of graffiti in New York of the 1970s need to be illuminated. Dynamics that are present until today got established during those early days of graffiti. When graffiti came about and steadily grew bigger, its participants did neither shy away from bringing their work into institutions, nor from establishing material as well as virtual spaces within which they could create a community around their practice. Following Jacob Kimvall’s essay “Mapping an institutional Story of Graffiti and Street Art”, already during the early 1970s two collectives were founded. The first one came about in 1972 and was called United Graffiti Artists (UGA). The founder Hugo Martinez was a sociology student who did not do graffiti himself yet pursued a rather elitist selection of members strictly sticking to a pure graffiti practice. UGA counted at least twelve members who were graffiti practitioners of name and rank.163 The second group followed the

163 Among those core members were Stitch 1, Snake 1, Cat 87, Coco 144, amrl (Bama), Flint 707, Lee 163, Mico, Phase 2, SJK 171, T- Rex 131 and WG (Wicket Gray). This listing and further detailed information on graffiti’s institutional history during the 1970s and

52 example of UGA and got founded in 1975 under the name Nation of Graffiti Artists (NOGA) yet allowed a more diverse group of graffiti practitioners as their members. The two institutions operated similarly. Their members shared workshops, exhibited together and met regularly.164 UGA participated in several exhibitions. The collective opened the autumn season at Artist Space in Soho, a space which at that time featured artists like Barbara Kruger, Hans Haacke and Robert Morris and invited theorists like Rosalind Krauss for panel discussions. Before founding UGA, Martinez had already curated an exhibition featuring graffiti practitioners. This exhibition although little is documented about it, is said to be the first of its kind. It took place at Razor Gallery in 1973. Mainly works on canvas got exhibited.165 Hence, already during these early stages of graffiti, the transfer from the train or other urban surfaces onto the canvas and therewith the step from the street into the art institutional system had been arranged. In her extensive dissertation Reclaim the Streets. Die Street-Art-Bewegung und die Rückforderung des öffentlichen Raums (The street art movement and the re-appropriation of public space) art historian Monja Müller has in detail examined the origins of street art. Under the subheading “Gründe für das Scheitern von ‘Graffiti Art’ in Kunstkontext”166 (“Rea- sons for the failure of ‘Graffiti art’ within the art context”) she casts light on graffiti’s parallel and intersecting development during the 1970s and 1980s. On a timeline she locates the failure in 1982, shortly after the participation in the Documenta 7 exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Lee Quinones. Müller points out that none of these three participants emerged within the art context but within the graffiti context and later tried to transfer from the latter to the first. However, within the art institutional system, what was needed in order to catch and 0/0/00 0:00:00 AMinclude graffiti adequately and productively could not be provided. No art experts were present who had the capacities to properly analyze and me- diate graffiti works.167 The curators of the exhibition Backjumps. The Live Issue #3. Urban Communication and Aesthetics which took place in 2007 at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin comment on that decisive moment:

In the early 80s, a number of “street urchins” of the New York subway graffiti scene, formerly prosecuted and despised, were suddenly discovered by the art scene and declared the community’s new “darlings”.

1980s can be found in: Jacob Kimvall, “Mapping an Institutional Story of Graffiti and Street Art,” in Lisbon Street Art & Urban Creativ- ity: 2014 International Conference, ed. Daniela V. de Freitas Simãoes and Pedro Soares Neves (Lisbon: Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa, 2014), 93.

164 Kimvall, 94.

165 Jon Caramanica, “Phase 2, an Aerosol Art Innovator, Is Dead at 64,” The New York Times, December 2019, factiva, http://global.factiva.com/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=NYTFEED020191220efck007pt&cat=a&ep=ASE.

166 Müller, “Reclaim the Streets!,” 197.

167 Müller, 198.

53 Globally marketed and passed around, these artists of the “post graffiti” hype were transfigured into the role of a new “pop art” movement. As such, robbed of their own substance, most of them were just as quickly discarded by the art market.168

The referred to substance surely constitutes of several aspects. The findings of this thesis indicate that urban space and graffiti’s illicitness are significant parts of graffiti’s substance. Hence, what went lost within the process of merging graffiti into the art institutional system was urban space.169 Regardless, presentation formats such as the one for the first graffiti exhibition at Razor Gallery have been chosen for showing graffiti repeatedly throughout time. During the 1980s graffiti artists kept on transferring their street style onto canvases which at that point was “regarded as the new vanguard”.170 Later, at the end of the 1980s, art critic and art historian Jack Stewart commented on that transplantation stating:

These graffitiists didn’t realize that when they moved from public walls to their own canvases in a studio environment they ceased to make graffiti and began making paintings of graffiti. Graffiti simply became their subject […].171

Today, this format of presentation for graffiti and meanwhile for street art as well is still common. Andrea Baldini reviews this conversion rather directly using the example of known street artist Shepard Fairey: “If we look at Shepard Fairey, his street art has largely been compromised, and his studio and poster work is banal in comparison with contemporary Chinese artists like Wang Guanyi.”172 Even if the medium is not a canvas but the exhibition space’s wall, a sculpture or an installation, graffiti works within an exhibition space still appear as something brought along from another context that struggles to be confident and authentic within the art context. In fact, the crucial point is not necessarily the surface or the altered aesthetics. Decisive is the circumstance under which the works are produced. Graffiti works within exhibitions have usually been produced under legal circumstances. Those circumstances change the entire production process around the works and therewith the works themselves. Within the first part of this thesis, the illicit production process of graffiti in urban space has been highlighted and identified as an important component of graffiti’s constitution. It triggers further aspects of graffiti most importantly its subversiveness. The practitioner’s awareness of their criminal acts as well as graffiti’s – for the urban dweller uncompromising –

168 Adrian Nabi et al., “Preface,” in Backjumps - the Live Issue #3: Urban Communication and Aesthetics (Ausstellung “Backjumps - the live issue #3,” Berlin: Frome Here to Fame Publishing, 2007), 9.

169 Müller, “Reclaim the Streets!,” 198.

170 Kimvall, “Art in the Streets,” 253–254. 171 Jack Stewart, “Subway Graffiti – an aesthetic study of graffiti on the subway system of New York City,” 1070-1978. (Diss, New York University, 1989) cited after: Kimvall, “Mapping an Institutional Story of Graffiti and Street Art,” 92.

172 Andrea Baldini, “On Exhibit: Street Art Without Heart,” Sixth Tone, March 2019, https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003698/on- exhibit-street-art-without-heart.

54 visibility has been analyzed as enforcing that subversiveness. As for legally produced works within an exhibition context none of these aspects are given. The works are not implemented illegally hence, the practitioner does not have to worry about prosecution. The corporeal illicitness is neither bodily produced nor bodily perceived. The work is prevented from imposing itself and the identity behind it upon random urban dwellers anyways. A moment in Lefebvrian terms cannot occur. The connection and immediacy between graffiti and its urban context is not only bypassed and absorbed but entirely cut off any legally produced work within a legal exhibition context. The work is reduced to its aesthetic – an element of graffiti, which has nearly not at all been mentioned so far. Of course, graffiti’s aesthetics are not insig- nificant. However, they are not fundamental in its conceptualization. Nevertheless, of all of graffiti’s elements the aesthetic is what is left within an exhibition context. Examples for exhibitions with such poor implementation and integration of graffiti are Né dans la rue – Graffiti (Born in the Streets – Graffiti), which took place from 2009 to 2010 at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, Art in the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles in 2011, Bundeskunsthall of Fame at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, which took place in 2015 and the exhibition series Beyond the Streets which premiered in 2018 in Los Angeles and continued in 2019 in New York. In all of these exhibitions the works of the graffiti practitioners as well as street artists were produced on canvases or directly onto the walls of the institutions. The works must have been produced legally. Generally, the aim of those exhibitions was to shine “a much-needed light on” the graffiti and street art movements, to offer it a place among the contemporary art scene and to provide “insights of practices and techniques”173. Presumably, within those institutions the visitors were farther away from graffiti’s core than they had been during their journeys through urban space in order to get to those exhibitions.

Summarized, legally produced graffiti as found within most institutional contexts can only but refer to the subversiveness of illegally produced graffiti, which it might look alike, yet conceptually has not much in common with. The production process of exhibited legal works of graffiti limits the works’ meaning and therewith its perception. Or with Stewart’s words: “The

173 BEYOND THE STREETS LLC, “About”;

Rein Wolfs, “Vorwort,” in Bundeskunsthall of Fame (Bonn, 2016), 12.

55 first loss in their [graffiti practitioners exhibiting their work in galleries on canvases] work was freshness and the highly charged sense of excitement […]”.174

Graffiti and Street Art Maybe, graffiti’s art institutional death in the 1980s could have simply been the end of graffiti’s and the art world’s shared history. Graffiti would have simply returned to the streets and the two would have gone separated ways. However, the exhibitions briefly referred to within the last chapter happened quite recently between 2009 and 2019, about twenty to thirty years after Müller’s attested “failure of ‘Graffiti art’ within the art context”.175 The shows have in common that they exhibited street art along with graffiti. It might have become apparent that the term street art is unavoidable when examining graffiti in an art institutional context. Therefore, the next chapter will outline street art as well as street art’s relation to graffiti in context of their shared institutional history.

Graffiti Disparate Street Art Apparently, graffiti’s entry into the art institutional system during its early development amounted to its misplacement. Today, within those institutions graffiti usually shares the stage with street art. Scholars writing about graffiti tend to simultaneously write about street art. Within press coverage the terms graffiti and street art are mostly used synonymously or grievously confused. A mere superficial look at the online documentation and residues of the exhibitions that above have been mentioned as examples of bad implementation of graffiti within an art institutional context, reveals how negligent and undifferentiated the two terms and practices graffiti and street art are thrown together. Even though the title of the exhibition Né dans la rue – Graffiti at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain clearly emphasizes graffiti, one of the most strongly promoted exhibited artists is street artist Shepard Fairy. Fur- ther, street art is framed as a movement that developed out of graffiti.176 However, graffiti and

174 Jack Stewart, “Subway Graffiti – an aesthetic study of graffiti on the subway system of New York City,” 1970-1978. (Diss, New York University, 1989) cited after: Kimvall, “Mapping an Institutional Story of Graffiti and Street Art,” 92.

175 Müller, “Reclaim the Streets!,” 197.

176 Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, “Born in the Streets—Graffiti,” October 2017, https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/exhibitions/ne-dans-la-rue-graffiti.

56 street art have developed parallelly. The exhibition Art in the Streets at MOCA featured graffiti practitioners that emerged in the USA during the 1970s and 1980s – often referred to as graffiti legends – TAKI183, LEE, Fab 5 Freddy and Barry McGee. Further, among others Banksy, Shepard Fairy, Jean-Michael Basquiat and the duo Os Gêmeos were exhibited all of which are mostly referred to as street artists. The listed artists and practitioners stem from different movements, periods and areas. However, according to Jacob Kimvall, who reviewed the exhibition, they were not bedded within a suitable context. Kimvall asks: “Where is the red thread, the conceptual glue that unites all of these works into some kind of whole?”177

Art in the Streets was mainly curated by then MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch. Roger Gastmann, one of the associate curators helped turning Deitch’s “undoubtedly own vision” into Art in the Streets.178 Seven years later, he curated his own exhibition series Beyond the Streets. Scrolling through the artists gathered for the exhibitions one encounters a mix of street artists as well as graffiti practitioners. Forbes Magazine commented on the New York edition: “An astonishingly large celebration of street art dating to its origins in the late 1960s.”179 Yet, many scholars agree, that street art’s first slight appearances are to be dated at the end of the 1970s. Further, there seems to be a consensus among academics that the first modern graffiti writer was called CORNBREAD and spread his name during the 1960s in West Philadelphia. A few graffiti practitioners like TAKI183 appeared in New York shortly before the 1970s.180 However, what they were doing had nothing to do with street art.

For the exhibition Bundeskunsthall of Fame in Bonn a catalogue got published. One of the essays starts with the observation that with the opening of Banksy’s Dismaland the relevance and seriousness of graffiti “and its contemporary companion street art” would have been tac- itly accepted by the professional art world “as well”.181 Counter to this stands Larissa Kikol’s proposition “Graffiti is not Banksy.”182 Kikol listed this assertion as one out of nine declara- tive statements prior to her title story for KUNSTFORUM International. The statements could

177 Kimvall, “Art in the Streets,” 254. 178 Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, “‘Art in The Streets’ at MOCA LA,” Artnet News, 2011, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/drohojowska-philp/moca-art-in-the-streets-4-15-11.asp.

179 David Alm, “In Brooklyn, A Massive Exhibition Celebrates 50 Years Of Graffiti And Street Art,” Forbes, July 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidalm/2019/07/29/in-brooklyn-a-massive-exhibition-celebrates-50-years-of-graffiti-and-street- art/#64d6bec15236.

180 Lindsay Bates, “Bombing, Tagging, Writing: An Analysis of the Significance of Graffiti and Street Art” (University of Pennsylvania, 2014), 2, https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/570/.

181 Translated by the author: Allan Gretzki, “Graffiti & Street Art Im Museum. Recycling, Gatekeeper Und Streetcredibility – Die Zuta- ten Eines Erfolgsrezepts (?),” in Bundeskunsthall of Fame (Bonn, 2015), 17.

182 Translated by the author: Kikol, “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt,” 47.

57 be read as basic facts that should be clarified before a deep going investigation of graffiti can take place. Kikol has observed a “careless” compilation of graffiti and street art in exhibitions as well.183 However, as laid out in the beginning of this thesis, street art and graffiti are not the same. Where exactly the line between the two should be drawn remains a point of discussion among scholars and practitioners. Nonetheless, they all seem to agree, that they differ. Kikol holds that street art mostly consists of kitsch such as murals that depict “five-meter-high sau- cer eyed manga figures in the name of world peace”.184 She puts her comment into perspective though, portending that there definitely is “qualitatively good, smart street art”, yet such should not be equated with graffiti.185 Müller makes a clear distinction between graffiti and street art as well. She pinpoints Jean-Michael Basquiat, Keith Haring and Jenny Holzer as pioneers of what today is called street art. She claims that Basquiat and Haring widened and opened up graffiti’s rather – as Müller terms it – “rigid” rule set.186 They addressed new topics such as socio-cultural issues of urban life and managed to broaden the audience and to bring more attention to graffiti and related practices. In doing so, they paved the way for the street art movement. Basquiat and Haring from the beginning on targeted and addressed a broader audience. The majority of the graffiti practitioners at that time mainly stayed and reacted within their own scene and did not strive for recognition beyond that. Basquiat and Haring even sought to start classical careers as artists. Basquiat actively positioned his signatures near art galleries in Lower Manhattan. Hence, Müller identifies the difference between graffiti and street art in the dissimilar motives and audiences of graffiti practitioners and street artists.187

Ulrich Blanché refers to Basquiat, Haring and Holzer, calling them “single artists who did what we now retrospectively call Street Art”.188 Blanché published the essay “Street Art and related terms – discussion and working definition” as he apparently thought it necessary to in- troduce and discuss the term street art in depth because it “often gets blurred with, for instance, Public Art, Graffiti or Urban art.”189

Interestingly, within the preface of the exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Backjumps. The Live Issue #3, the three artists Basquiat, Haring and Holzer are

183 Translated by the author: Kikol, 48.

184 Translated by the author: Kikol, 48. 185 Translated by the author: Kikol, 48.

186 Müller, “Reclaim the Streets!,” 113.

187 Müller, 112.

188 Blanché, “Street Art and Related Terms,” 33.

189 Blanché, 32.

58 mentioned in influential roles as well. Apparently they were three “[of] only a handful of names […] [that] were able to secure themselves a place in the market that rode this wave [the new ‘pop art’ movement]: however each of them were artists who essentially had little or nothing to do with subway graffiti.”190 The curators continue framing the relation between graffiti and street art: “From this era stemmed the ambivalence which, for a long time since, has dominated the relationship between style writing and street art, fostering a certain compet- itiveness and intolerance; […]”.191

A comment from within the graffiti scene proves the hostile attitude between graffiti practitioners and street artists as implied within the Backjumps exhibition catalogue. The comment appeared in 2005 in Berlin in the format of a simple white paper with a text on it. It was glued onto several urban surfaces. According to the paper, graffiti practitioner SPAIR is the originator.192 SPAIR is still active today (2020) and his works are seen numerously all over Berlin.193 The text carries the title Fuck Street-Art.194 It got uploaded online and debated upon fiercely.195 SPAIR harshly addresses the different perceptions of street art and graffiti among the general public, the different production processes and the different aesthetics. He devalu- ates street art by calling it “sweet” and enjoyable to “the mob”.196 The latter is an argument Kikol includes in her argumentation as well, suggesting that the art institutional system hopes to reach the non-educative population with street art’s craftsmanship and accessibility which is something that the target audience is expected to respond to.197

Independently of subjective positioning within the debate around graffiti and street art, it clearly can be stated, that street artists and graffiti practitioners differentiate their practice and go as far as denouncing the other practice. This distinction, as clearly, even radically as it might be communicated by Kikol, Müller, Blanché and SPAIR seems to neither have arrived within the art institutional system nor within academic research, nor within press coverage

190 Nabi et al., “Preface,” 9.

191 Nabi et al., 9.

192 SPAIR, Das Spair Plakat, 2005, Paper, DIN A 3, 2005, https://ilovegraffiti.de/blog/2010/01/08/das-spair-plakat/. 193 See e.g. @spair_fans, photography feed, Instagram, January 2019, https://www.instagram.com/spair_fans/.

194 “Fuck Street-Art! Ist das schon der Aufstand der Zeichen? – SPAIRS Manifest zwischen gut gemeint und Herrschaftszeit,” Jaeger- zaun (blog), 2012 2011, http://jaegerzaun.blogsport.de/2008/11/16/fuck-street-art-ist-das-schon-der-aufstand-der-zeichen-spairs- manifest-zwischen-gut-gemeint-und-herrschaftszeit/#comment-3068.

195 “Fuck Street-Art! Ist das schon der Aufstand der Zeichen?”

196 Translated by the author: SPAIR, Das Spair Plakat.

197 Kikol, “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt,” 48.

59 and nor among the general public. The confusion was present as early as street art started developing. Basquiat and Haring, who did not actively seek to be associated with graffiti, were continually labeled graffiti practitioners.198 Later, when street art’s popularity noticeably rose during the 1990s and throughout the 2000s, the disarray of graffiti and street art remained for the most part uncovered.199 This inaccuracy translated into academic research as well as into curatorial practice. One might wonder: How could this misunderstanding survive for such a long time? Müller’s outline of the situation in the art world, when graffiti stepped across the threshold, shall be referenced again. Müller writes that no experts on graffiti were present. Presumably, no fruitful debate around graffiti which would have led to more differentiation could be established. Such a discourse might have resulted in the exclusion of graffiti from the art institutions anyways. Nevertheless, such a disunion would have been the result of a re- flected debate and a conclusive process. Instead however, the hype around graffiti within the art institutional system quickly faded out before it had the chance to get acknowledged. Much later, on the occasion of street art’s popularity, graffiti got dug out again and appeared as a dusty version of itself, sufficient for lending street art some edge. It does not come as a surprise that the exhibition Art in the Streets at MOCA attracted harsh criticism by Kimvall who wrote in his review: “[Jeffrey] Deitch’s vast knowledge of street art history doesn’t seem to be paired with the curatorial or theoretical strength one expects from an institution of MOCA’s caliber.”200 In spite of its shortcoming in regard to content, it was one of the three most visited exhibitions in the history of MOCA.201 Kikol’s and SPAIR’s assertion that street art attracts especially the non-educative population comes to mind again. Kikol further asserts that art institutions lower their standards aiming to present themselves as openminded towards urban art. According to Kikol this would result in an institutional paternalism of graffiti, given that it keeps on appearing in the street art context.202 Hence, the curatorial work behind most exhibitions on street art and graffiti is deficient. Researching the topics in depth is apparently not considered necessary. Otherwise, a more differentiated image of the two as well as their relation to each other would have gotten established and communicated. The popularity of street

198 Müller, “Reclaim the Streets!,” 110. 199 Virág Molnár, “Street Art and the Changing Urban Public Sphere,” Public Culture 29, no. 2 82 (May 2017): 385, doi:10.1215/08992363-3749117.

200 Kimvall, “Art in the Streets,” 254.

201 David Ng, “‘Art in the Streets’ Sets Record for MOCA, Sort Of,” LA Times Blogs - Culture Monster (blog), August 2011, https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/08/art-in-the-streets-is-most-attended-show-in-moca-history.html.

202 Kikol, “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt,” 48;

SPAIR, Das Spair Plakat.

60 art exhibitions, evident in the high attendance proves the curators and hosts successful in their approach. Yet, they fail their audience with their presumptuous good-enough modus operandi just as much as the artists and practitioners on display. Moreover, they fail graffiti and street art as practices by not caring enough to put them into perspective. Presumably, the flat images painted of graffiti and street art curtail potential interest of further agents, which would have the means to deeply engage with them. Graffiti remains reduced to its aesthetics, unrecog- nized, misjudged and underestimated.

Street Art’s Bad Influence on Graffiti It has been established that the terms graffiti and street art cannot be used interchangeably. Practitioners as well as several scholars agree on that matter. However, that distinction is by no means established in the public perception of street art and graffiti. How exhibitions contributed to that lack of clarity has been outlined. Further, it has been discussed how this development damaged graffiti’s image and might have prevented further professional curatorial engagement. Nevertheless, the relation between graffiti and street art needs to further be illuminated because – as previously indicated – graffiti’s and street art’s images rub off on each other. As the first research question states, this thesis aims to draw an image of graffiti that lives up to its actual constitution and conception.203 Considering the tension graffiti’s and street art’s entanglement creates, it might be necessary to disentangle the two in order to establish a more refined representation of graffiti. This seems especially appropriate as graffiti’s falsified perception in general and within the art institutional system is partwise routed within past curatorial practices as well as the absence of such. Within the following segment street art’s image will be mapped. Further, to which extend that image matches street art’s actual constitution will be tested. How the findings impact graffiti’s image will be analyzed.

Just as much as graffiti, street art has not and – according to several scholars – cannot be con- clusively defined. Upon this prerequisite Blanché examines the movement in depth in his previously mentioned essay. His working definition of street art reads as follows:

Street Art consists of self-authorized pictures, characters, and forms created in or applied to surfaces in the urban space that intentionally seek communication with a larger circle of people. Street Art is done in a performative and often site-specific, ephemeral, and participatory way. Street Art is mostly viewed online. It differs from Graffiti and Public Art.204

203 How can illegal graffiti in urban space be conceptualized?

204 Blanché, “Street Art and Related Terms,” 34.

61 Blanché highlights the parallels between graffiti and street art which he locates in their char- acteristic of being unofficial. He does not appreciate the terminology of illicit or illegal for street art and instead suggests calling the works and the working ethos “self-authorized”.205 He marks street art’s self-authorization as decisive for its autonomy from consumerism and capitalism as it cannot function as a sellable commodity. Blanché specifies this autonomy and clearly differentiates works that are self-authorized from those that are commissioned by “sponsors, homeowners, or the state”.206 Street art commissioned by the state, often appears in the format of murals. According to Blanché, those murals should not fall under the label of street art.

Another common perception of street art within academic discourse has been formulated by Baldini. He made the following statement during a panel debate on his publication A Philoso- phy Guide to Street Art and the Law:

I define street art as an essentially subversive art kind. […] My argument is that the value that all street art works share is their subversive value. And the subversive value of street art is a function of its capacity to question acceptable uses of public spaces. The idea is that there are certain social norms, laws, habits, that regulate what you can do, and what you can't do, in public spaces. […] Today, the set of norms that regulate public spaces gives priority to advertising transforming public space into a forum for economic transaction. I call this the corporate regime of visibility, which street art challenges207

This statement very much resembles conclusions drawn on graffiti within the first part of this thesis. Graffiti has been conceptualized as an illicit practice that subversively appropriates urban space and comments on its norms and rulesets. Yet, in his statement Baldini did not talk about graffiti but solely about street art. According to Schacter, when street art became a movement in 1998, it conceptually had a lot in common with graffiti. Street art’s aesthetics differed and its relation to the audience was more inclusive and open. However, the artists that formed the street art movement

all held on to the DIY, self-sufficient spirit of Graffiti culture, they held on to the autonomy and independence that gave its artists opportunities that institutions would never have allowed: They retained graffiti’s refusal to be professionalized or standardized, they retained the belief that spontaneity and fidelity would always trump permissibility and legality.208

Hence, the image of street art painted by Baldini and Blanché seems backed for that period. Today however, what is understood as street art goes beyond the scope of the high-quality practices described by the two scholars. In his article “Street Art Is a Period. Period. Or the

205 Blanché, 34.

206 Blanché, 34.

207 “A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law,” 110.

208 Rafael Schacter, “Street Art Is a Period. Period. Or the Emergence of Intermural Art,” Hyperallergic, July 2016, https://hyperallergic.com/310616/street-art-is-a-period-period-or-the-emergence-of-intermural-art/.

62 Emergence of Intermural Art” Schacter coins the phrase “street art on steroids”.209 His exposition on contemporary street art is quite charged:

As such, much of what is called Street Art today should, in my opinion, simply be termed neo-Muralism (or even Creative City Art). Neo-Muralism is Street Art turned professional, Street Art on steroids. En- tranced by the belief that bigger is always better, […] Maximalist attitude has today come to act as the overwhelmingly dominant framing of Street Art. What’s more, […] Street Art has also taken a clear turn toward Kitsch. Mickey Mouse snorting cocaine and seductive female depictions. Colourful caricatures and saccharine sentiments. Surface effects and art as advertising. It is as if the utmost parody of what Street Art once was has become the norm.210

An example that backs Schacter’s assertion is the Urban Nation – Museum for Contemporary Urban Art in Berlin. The museum was founded in 2017 and opened until today (2020) three exhibitions. The residency program FRESH A.I.R. is affiliated to the museum. Beyond that, Urban Nation runs a project space and initiates smaller projects and events.211 Within urban space the museum is mostly present with the murals it commissions. The series is called ONE WALL – one wall, one artist, one message. An online map marks the locations where the ONE WALLs can be found.212 The murals bring to mind Kikol’s comment dressing down street art as kitsch mostly depicting doll-eyed girls or SPAIR’s accusation of street art being sweet. Apart from the mural’s aesthetics, what they have in common is that they, as commissioned works by Urban Nation are legally produced and financed. The murals are applied with the help of cranes. Unsurprisingly, they are more extensive than for example BERLIN KIDZ’ top-down characters. However, even though the commissioned murals are visible in urban space, their production process is very much the same as for works of graffiti or street art produced within a studio for exhibition purposes as previously analyzed. Once again, Stewart’s observation appears most striking: There is neither “freshness” nor “excitement” in those commissioned murals.213 In fact, Urban Nation faced many critical comments on the obvious contradiction of bringing street art into an institution.214

209 Schacter.

210 Schacter. 211 Urban Nation, “About Us,” accessed August 18, 2020, https://urban-nation.com/about-us/.

212 Urban Nation, “Art Map Archiv,” accessed August 12, 2020, https://urban-nation.com/art-map/.

213 Jack Stewart, ‘Subway Graffiti – an aesthetic study of graffiti on the subway system of New York City, 1070-1978. (Diss, New York University, 1989) cited after: Kimvall, “Mapping an Institutional Story of Graffiti and Street Art,” 92. 214 Svetoslav Todorov, “Urban Nation, Das Unmögliche Museum in Berlin,” Goethe Institut. Nahaufnahme (blog), 2017, https://www.goethe.de/de/uun/prs/auf/na2/bs1/21130584.html;

Helena Schäfer, “Museum Für Flüchtige Kunst,” Berliner Morgenpost, September 2017, http://global.factiva.com/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=BERMP00020170915ed9f00019&cat=a&ep=ASE, https://www.morgenpost.de/kultur/ar- ticle211928145/Warum-Street-Art-am-besten-auf-der-Strasse-bleibt.html.

63 A further interesting aspect of Urban Nation is its initiator and financier. Urban Nation is part of the foundation Berliner Leben, which was founded in 2013 by the housing agency Ge- wobag Wohnungsbau-Aktiengesellschaft Berlin. The Gewobag is a housing agency that oper- ates in the interest of the state of Berlin. When the agency buys apartments, those pass into the ownership of Berlin state.215 Consequently, Urban Nation is influenced by state interests. It does not come as a surprise that for its opening in 2017 a speech was held by cultural minister of state Prof. Monika Grütters. The following is an excerpt from her speech:

The works of the artists represented here show: street art, urban art has long outgrown clandestine underground art and that is not only because fortunately there are more and more legal walls and surfaces for it. It is also, and above all, due to its very own aesthetics, with which it turns passers-by into audiences. As a rebellious, subversive intervention in public space, it enlivens the surface of a city and brings "on the street" what distinguishes art: it forces you to look, throws a spanner in the big city gears, questions everyday life and changes perspectives.216

With her terminology, Grütters clearly aimed at framing illegal graffiti as being inferior to the legal street art commissioned by Urban Nation. Meanwhile, she attributed to the latter all the characteristics that are connected to illicit practices described in the first part of this thesis such as trespassing, breaking in and damaging private and public property.

Concerning Urban Nation’s broader function, a representative of the Gewobag stated that it shall constitute a positive counterpart to “criminality, prostitution and vandalism”.217 Thereby, Urban Nation was clearly initiated as a tool of avail for what Margit Mayer terms “sanitation of urban space”.218 According to Mayer, sanitation of urban spaces is a symptom of the creative city. The creative city is a branding format, which cities use in order to “compete for global investors, affluent residents and flows of tourists”.219

Specifically, people that are involved and engaged with the local graffiti scene observed and commented on that dynamic. They term what the Gewobag agency is doing “art-gentrification” with which the estate agency aims for an upscaling of Berlin’s neighborhoods and of Berlin as a creative hotspot.220 Further, they accuse Urban Nation of ignoring the local graffiti

215 Ralf Schönball, “Streit Um Mieterhöhungen Bei Der Gewobag,” Der Tagesspiegel Online, 2019, https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/mietenpolitik-des-senats-streit-um-mieterhoehungen-bei-der-gewobag/25142528.html. 216 Translated by the author: Monika Grütters, Rede Der Kulturstaatsministerin Grütters Bei Der Eröffnung Des “Urban Nation Mu- seum for Urban Contemporary Art,” 2017, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/rede-der-kulturstaatsministerin- gruetters-bei-der-eroeffnung-des-urban-nation-museum-for-urban-contemporary-art--802280.

217 Madlen Haarbach, “Museum ‘Urban Nation’ in Berlin: Ein Zuhause Für Street-Art Und Graffiti,” Der Tagesspiegel Online, November 2017, https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/museum-urban-nation-in-berlin-ein-zuhause-fuer-street-art-und-graffiti/20594596.html.

218 Mayer, “First World Urban Activism,” 9.

219 Mayer, 9.

220 Martin Gegenheimer cited in: Haarbach, “Museum ‘Urban Nation’ in Berlin: Ein Zuhause Für Street-Art Und Graffiti.”

64 scene and context and of intercepting grant money. Hence, Urban Nation holds unacceptable power over Berlin’s graffiti and street art scene.221 These complaints match Mayer’s listing of further symptoms of neoliberal urbanism. She attests the creative classes, cultural producers, artists and activists to play a crucial role within the upscaling of average neighborhoods.222 In fact, the commissioned murals decorate to a huge extend Gewobag’s architectural less interesting and appealing high-rise buildings preferably in some of Berlin’s less popular areas.223 Regarding the impact Urban Nation has on the local graffiti scene the gentrification process has already affected those groups of people, which previously have been instrumentalized to become tools within that exact process.

The newspaper Zeit summarizes the logic Urban Nation is based on with the subheading “Graffiti against Vandalism”.224 In other words: Under the guise of fake subversiveness the implemented mechanisms around Urban Nation oppress anything out of which subversiveness could possibly arise and further anything that does not fit the image of the creative city. In re- ality, supposed street art is used to enhance state owned apartment buildings.

Urban Nation is however only one example of many street art projects and institutions, which have long been corrupted by the interest of agents thriving for a creative city. Schacter stresses that especially street art festivals have become a favorable format of display for street art. Organized by urban planners and public servants rather than curators and critics the festivals have taken on a role within the process of gentrification, lifestyle and place branding.225 As this thesis focusses on graffiti, further examples and expositions in street art cannot be included in detail. Yet, mentioned shall be the project The Haus, which took place in Berlin in 2017. The Haus was a huge office building, which was about to be torn down. Prior to its demolition it was turned into the venue of a large-scale street art project. Street artists and graffiti practitioners were invited to design the eighty rooms according to their wishes and ideas. People could visit The Haus for free. However, taking pictures was forbidden. The project ran for two months. Everyday hundreds of people stood in line waiting to get inside. Most

221 Mode2 cited in: Haarbach.

222 Mayer, “First World Urban Activism,” 9.Mayer 2013, p. 9.

223 Urban Nation, “Art Map Archiv.”

224 Translated by the author: Lars von Törne, “Street Art: Die Straße hat ein Zuhause,” Die Zeit, September 2017, sec. Kultur, https://www.zeit.de/kultur/kunst/2017-09/urban-nation-eroeffnet-in-berlin.

225 Schacter, “Street Art Is a Period. Period. Or the Emergence of Intermural Art.”

65 newspapers reported positively on the project and local political agents supported it.226 How- ever, critique was expressed as well. The property developer was accused of enforcing gentrification with such projects.227 Furthermore, two months after the project was finished yet before The Haus was torn down a banner with a message written on it got hung onto the building. The text was a manifesto for illegal and subversive graffiti and accused the organizers of The Haus to have “surreptitiously obtained [their] advantage on the back of Berlin’s graffiti history”.228 Moreover, the question was posed: “Do you not realize how mendacious, how dis- paraging and primitive this [the project] was?”229 The text finishes with “Graffiti is not an in- gredient for your shit society but three hands of salt, which make your soup uneatable.”230 In summer 2020 however, under the motto of “the digital renaissance of The Haus” the restau- rant The Haus opened in Berlin. Even the Instagram account of the original project was taken over.231

The anger the banner was charged with indicates that corrupted street art is not a new phenomenon. Yet, evaluations as Schacter’s street art on steroids or Kikol’s explicit opinion on street art are not shared by other scholars. Statements by Baldini on Shepard Fairy or by Blanché on a differentiated definition of street art only indicate that a general unease around street art has unfolded. It seems to be too late to rescue the term street art from its decay, which is why Schacter suggests to distinct street art as a period from “Intermural Art”.232 Street art as period then “is something that we must now move past” while its “radical mantle can be seen continued today within the category of Intermural Art”.233 Whether this term will establish and sustain itself remains uncertain. Howsoever, street art as a period did not pass by without leaving a trace on graffiti. One could argue that for too long street art has uncritically been granted high conceptual quality and subversiveness by scholars such as Baldini. Such

226 Olivia Samnick, “Das Ist Kunst Und Kann Bald Weg,” SPIEGEL Online, March 2017, https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/pop- up-galerie-the-haus-berlin-art-bang-eroeffnet-in-berlin-a-1139613.html;

Linda Gerner, “Kunstprojekt ‘The Haus’ in Berlin: Warum liegt hier eigentlich Laub?,” Die Tageszeitung: taz, May 2017, https://taz.de/!5403016/. 227 Charlotte Tornow, “‘Moralloses Entertainment Für Den Pöbel’. Nach Der Schließung Gibt Es Kritik an THE HAUS,” Mit Vergnügen Berlin, 2017, https://mitvergnuegen.com/2017/nach-der-schliessung-gibt-es-kritik-an-the-haus.

228 Translated by the author: Tornow.

229 Translated by the author: Tornow. 230 Translated by the author: Tornow.

231 “THE HAUS – Lecker Chillen in Kreuzberg,” accessed August 20, 2020, https://thehaus.de/;

@thehausberlin, “THE HAUS,” photography feed. Instagram, since 2016, https://www.instagram.com/thehausberlin/?hl=en.

232 Schacter, “Street Art Is a Period. Period. Or the Emergence of Intermural Art.”

233 Schacter.

66 framing made it seem like an agreeable yet edgy alternative to graffiti. A quote from Berlin based journalist Uta Keseling illustrates the twisted perception of street art and graffiti best:

[…] when I ride the subway there is no sun, no beautiful pictures, no peace. Instead: spray “art”. At least on the U7, the trains now seem to be entering our stations directly from the New York Bronx of the 80s – time travelers of bad taste and destruction. I actually really like colorful street art – as long as it is created where it belongs: at neglected house facades and other abandoned places. I don't know how many legally sprayed “Berlin” declarations of love there are for example along the rail routes through Berlin. On garages, shops, electrical houses, walls: "Berlin, I love you" everywhere, I like that. Or Bülowstraße in Schöneberg: the facade art around the "Urban Nation" project is artistically exciting and just puts you in a good mood. But why spray Berlin's BVG trains? Especially with ungainly, loveless smear that just looks hideous? I do not get it.234

Frankly, Keseling’s incomprehension is legitimate. Graffiti’s and street art’s images are misleading. Responsible for this circumstance are not least scholars that have been writing and publishing on graffiti and street art as well as the art institutional system that has not provided suitable conditions in order to adequately exhibit graffiti and street art. Therefore, their relation will finally be summarized.

Street art is to a large extend institutionalized and simplified. This does not only cast a negative light onto those street artists that try to preserve their autonomous claim and that produce highly conceptual and recognized works. Due to the fact that street art and graffiti do not get properly differentiated it also has an impact on the latter. That impact can be split up into two aspects, which both have negative consequences for graffiti. Firstly, street art’s and graffiti’s images rub off on each other. More specifically, street art gets attributed characteristics such as subversiveness, which have previously been identified as applying to graffiti. Meanwhile, street art’s popularity and acceptance is transferred onto graffiti whereby it loses its edge and subversiveness. Secondly, graffiti and street art get compared to each other. With the rise of street art, an alternative to graffiti appeared within urban space upon which graffiti could be revaluated. Hence, not only could graffiti be depreciated in comparison to street art. Street art was also framed as a coequal alternative to graffiti which made it easier to override graffiti. Kikol summarizes this dynamic succinctly: Street art obstructs the view onto graffiti.235

It should be noted though that street art – before it got corrupted and its aesthetic limited to simplified motives – started off as a subversive and promising movement indeed. The previously mentioned documentary Inside Outside from 2005 accumulates and portraits street artists and their practices of which many were exhibited in the Backjumps series in Berlin. The

234 Uta Keseling, “Graffiti an U-Bahnen Der BVG in Berlin - Muss Man Das Verstehen?,” Berliner Morgenpost, September 2019, https://www.morgenpost.de/kolumne/keseling/article227186945/Beschmierte-U-Bahnen-in-Berlin-Muss-man-das-verstehen.html.

235 Kikol, “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt,” 48.

67 American street artist SWOON is featured as well. Pasting up one of her works she narrates: “I had a nightmare the other night, that I had made this thing Jeffery Deitch was selling.”236

Graffiti’s art institutional history has now been laid out. It is marked by many errors starting already during graffiti’s early developments during the 1980s in New York, when graffiti was simply transformed onto canvases and exhibited within art spaces. Graffiti experts that could have detected or that would have cared to which extend graffiti was compromised in that process were not present at the time. Bereft of its natural urban habitat graffiti died away within the art institution. It got however revived about twenty years later on the occasion of the street art hype. Meanwhile, the importance for graffiti as well as for street art to remain within urban space had still not sunken in. Instead, the constitutions of graffiti and street art were inter- twined and unthoughtfully merged until the composite fit the intended context. Within curatorial approach little care was taken to elaborate methods that adapt to graffiti and street art. In- stead, the practices were forced into unsuitable exhibition contexts. Such was mostly induced by people that were graffiti or street art experts, however not professional curators. The latter have shown little interest up until now and the impression occurs that graffiti as well as street art were quickly deemed uninteresting and simply left to others to exploit.

236 Boye Rasmussen and Johnsen, Inside Outside, sec. 49:15min.

68 Final Discussion and Conclusion

Up until here, the thesis has mainly served as an accumulation of knowledge on graffiti. Graf- fiti has been conceptualized on the basis of Henri Lefebvre’s theories on urban space and its art institutional history has been outlined and mainly criticized.

Practical Curatorial Approaches to Graffiti The research shows that illicit urban graffiti can hardly be included within a conventional exhibition. Graffiti’s inherent characteristics demand an adjusted curatorial handling. Luckily, the curator’s role has evolved beyond choosing and displaying artworks within an exhibition space. A formulation of the curator’s role has been delivered by the current director of MoMa PS1, Kate Fowle with her essay “Who Cares? Understanding the Role of the Curator Today” Despite the thirteen years that have passed since her essay has been published, Fowle’s basic framing of the curator’s role remains accurate:

This requires a kind of creative “maintenance,” […] as it involves supporting the seeds of ideas, sustain- ing dialogues, forming and reforming opinions, and continuously updating research. It could also be said that exhibitions are not the first, or only, concern of the curator. Increasingly the role includes producing commissioned temporary artworks, facilitating residencies, editing artist-books, and organizing one-time events.237

In line with Fowle’s exposition, formats that included graffiti or the topic of it will be introduced and discussed in relation to the role of the curator. Most of them do not stem from a curatorial background. They are nevertheless relevant, because as sources of inspiration they might be helpful for advancing prospective curatorial approaches around graffiti

Previously, artists that implement methods and concepts of graffiti within their conceptual works like Wermke / Leinkauf and ADAMS have been introduced. Exhibiting their work within an art institutional context might appear as a possibility to curatorially work with graffiti. In fact, Wermke / Leinkauf have a broad art institutional history enriched by film and art awards, scholarships and gallery representations. Their last solo exhibitions amongst others took place in 2016 at Kunstmuseum Bonn and three years previously at Kunstverein Heil- bronn. Meanwhile, they have been part of numerous group exhibitions mainly in Europe but

237 Kate Fowle, “Who Cares? Understanding the Role of the Curator Today,” in Cautionary Tales: Critical Curating, ed. Steven Rand and Sara Arrhenius (New York: Apexart, 2007), 17–18.

69 also in Iran, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Venezuela, and Turkey.238 However, while they might intertwine their artistic practice with graffiti aspects, that relation does mostly not get highlighted within the art institutional system despite the fact, that Wermke / Leinkauf’s aesthetics strongly differ from conventional graffiti works. Such association might even be unfavorable for the duo – not in general but in terms of their resolution to separate graffiti from their artistic practice.239 Potentially, if the graffiti component within Wermke / Leinkauf’s oeuvre would be emphasized more strongly, their works run the risk of being framed less controver- sial counterparts to conventional graffiti. That juxtaposition can be used to devaluated illicit works within urban space. Conceptual non-permanent graffiti works might then be favored over conventional graffiti. Meanwhile, the latter could be dismissed as redundant. Further, an image might get established, which could falsely present the impression that graffiti practitioners generally approach their works with a comparably sophisticated motivation as Wermke / Leinkauf do.

Nevertheless, in order to include graffiti related topics in an exhibition, inviting artists who let their artistic practice be informed by graffiti directly or indirectly is a possibility. A challenge for the curator will be to detect those artists as they might not too openly share their engagement with the illicit practice to avoid being exposed and possibly prosecuted. For the same reason, suitable examples of artists who are graffiti practitioners at the same time and the exhibitions they participated in cannot be mentioned here. In regard to alarming law enforce- ment, preventative coverage of these artists should not be underestimated. Moreover, it should be noted that not every contemporary artist that does graffiti at the same time, merges the two practice.

A curator who aims to work with illicit graffiti might be affected by legal questions as well. The curator often functions as the intersection between the financial resources for art and exhibition projects and the included artists. Considering graffiti’s independent and subversive nature, it might seem tempting to encourage a graffiti practitioner to incorporate the financial source of a project within their artistical concept. The financial source could become a target that the graffiti practitioner subverts. Depending on the damage that follows on such curatorial advice, the curator perils to be prosecuted for incitement. Especially in cities that employ a Zero Tolerance Policy towards graffiti, the endorsement of and the engagement with related

238 Wermke / Leinkauf, “CV,” accessed August 13, 2020, https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/en/vita.

239 Fekner and Schacter, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, 218.

70 practices can backfire.240 Hence, curating subversive practices demands considering the extend of personal willingness and preparedness to personally operate subversively or to take responsibility for other’s subversive actions.

A rather safe way to exhibit graffiti according to Baldini has been developed by his colleague Pietro Rivasi. In 2016 Rivasi curated the exhibition 1984. Evolution and Regeneration of Writing in Modena, Italy, in which he had implemented his new curatorial method for graffiti. He identifies graffiti fundamentally as performance.241 In consequence, he eliminated canvases and commissioned works from his exhibition and chose photography and video as main media to display graffiti. He communicated the exhibits as relics of actual graffiti perfor- mances.242 In fact, Rivasi identifies the performance as actual work and visual result – what is painted with spray paints and markers onto urban surfaces – solely as relic of the actual work.243 Baldini praises Rivasi to have “set a new standard for exhibitions of graffiti that do not compromise its identity.”244 The two scholars examine and discuss this curatorial method in detail in their publication Un(Authorized) // Commissioned. However, Rivasi’s argumentation reduces graffiti to its performative process. Yet, there is more to graffiti works than the moment in which they are produced. Within the scope of this thesis, graffiti has been conceptualized as a visible and permanent comment that is strongly related to its context also beyond the moment of its production. Graffiti works are influenced by the circumstances under which they are produced or performed. While graffiti might imprint itself into a context, that context is also imprinted into the work. Further, graffiti works have been analyzed as a form of identity performance that stretches as far as the moment in which the work gets encountered and re-performed by a perceiver. Logically, the tension between the graffiti practitioner, the work and the perceiver should be strongest in the space where the three components meet which is right where the actual graffiti work is located. Following this understanding, contra to Bald- ini’s assertion, graffiti’s identity is compromised if exhibited only through photography and video. Moreover, while photography without a doubt might be an important and traditional part of graffiti practice, choosing this static format seems slightly contradictive for a fleeting

240 See e.g. Ülkü Holago, “Fick Sparken För Sin Kritik,” Svenska Dagbladet, July 2009, https://www.svd.se/fick-sparken-for-sin-kritik.

241 Andrea Baldini and Pietro Rivasi, Un(Authorized) // Commissioned (Modena: Wholetrain Press, 2018), 31.

242 Katja Glaser, “From ‘Either/or’ to ‘Both/And,’” SAUC - Street Art & Urban Creativity Scientific Journal, November 2017, 86, doi:10.25765/SAUC.V3I1.67.

243 Baldini and Rivasi, Un(Authorized) // Commissioned, 32.

244 Baldini, “On Exhibit: Street Art Without Heart.”

71 practice such as graffiti. The documentary media can only allow a gaze into the past. Summa- rized, Rivasi’s suggestion for a curatorial method cuts short on graffiti’s phenomenological, direct and intuitive core. Instead of developing a curatorially approach that adapts to graffiti, Rivasi developed a method to force graffiti into an exhibition space after all.

An approach alike Rivasi’s has been chosen by the curators of the exhibition Klassentreffen Ost | Berlin which took place at Neurotian Gallery in Berlin in 2020. On display was a curated collection of images that was supposed to “present all the crews, artists and pioneers that coined East Berlin’ graffiti scene from 1990 to 2000”.245 For this clearly retrospective nearly historical exhibition format photography as main exhibition medium seems suitable. How- ever, retrospectively emphasizing singular graffiti practitioners might seem rather uninteresting for potential exhibition visitors that do not have a relation to graffiti. They are expected to adapt to an already established framework instead of being invited to perceive, understand and re-perform graffiti in their own context.

Within the scope of this thesis the perceiver of a graffiti work has been distinguished as an important component of graffiti’s constitution. Once a graffiti work is completed it crosses over into the realm of public space where it stands at the perceiver’s disposal. As the preva- lence of violence within the scene indicates, practitioners do try to control the duration of their work’s visibility within this space. Nevertheless, at some point they are forced to give up control over their work. Instead of tying the works back to their originators, this exposure could also be distinguished as the potential for continuative alternative appropriation through the perceiver. Developing new content out of graffiti in public space is a strategy activated by the Graffitimuseum. The Graffitimuseum is a project initiated in 2001 and lead by the artist collective Jo Preußler, Aljoscha Begrich and Stefan Reuter. They organize city promenades, events, panel discussions, theater and performance projects, exhibitions and games.246 The core of their approach is to understand graffiti as something that is meant to be read and to adapt its reading to the fleeting, cryptical nature of the phenomenon. Moreover, the collective sees the institutionalization of graffiti through museums and other institutions critically. Fur- ther, the members observe a dynamic of externally projecting characteristics onto graffiti, which they try to confront and contradict. This approach results in a necessity to frequently

245 Translated by the author: The Art Union e.V., “Eine Retro Graffiti Ausstellung,” Klassentreffen-Ostberlin, accessed August 15, 2020, https://klassentreffen-ostberlin.de/.

246 Begrich, Aljoscha, Jo Preußler, and Stefan Reuter. “About.” GRAFFITIMUSEUM (blog). Accessed Au-gust 15, 2020. http://www.graffitimuseum.de/manifeste/.

72 adjust Graffitimuseum’s propositions, positions and assumptions.247 Consequently, the actions happening within the scope of Graffitimuseum are temporary, decentral and often contradic- tory on purpose.248 For the collective “Photographed graffiti is cut out of their habitat – graf- foti [photographed graffiti] are preserved like a pierced butterfly”.249 Within their different event formats they prompt their guests to use graffiti as input and develop something new out of it. One result of that method is the HAMBURGER MENETEKEL. The MENETEKEL is a research project, which mainly was executed by students from seven high-schools in Ham- burg. The students mapped graffiti spread through their neighborhood. They examined and analyzed the data on a meta level in order to generate indications on Hamburg’s future. One could argue that the students ran a data analyzes on Hamburg’s graffiti and mapped the literal patterns they found. The prognosis extricated from the graffiti was rather negative and threat- ening speaking of climate change, antibiotic resistance, distributive justice, nationalism, future wars and the right to the city. The students negotiated their findings in their own orches- trations which took place at Schauspielhaus Hamburg.250 In all their formats regardless of their modus operandi to generate something new out of the given graffiti, the collective around Graffitimuseum manages to recognize and adapt to graffiti’s core instead of forcing it into unsuitable institutional formats.

Reading graffiti has been the initial point for Florian Goldmann’s publication and project flexible signposts to coded territories as well. For one year he investigated Athens’ graffiti, which he read “as a comprehensive, continuous text that traversed, even enveloped the city’s architecture.”251 Upon closer observation he detected that the graffiti works were corresponding not only to proximate works but even beyond single districts. “A mass of parallel conversations with chronologically and territorially deferred responses, a ‘polylogue’ so to speak, had taken place.”252 One of those correlating networks consisted in the vivid and reactive conversations of Athens’ soccer supporters. Goldmann identified several “family of signs” which he

247 Aljoscha Begerich, Jo Preußler, and Stefan Reuter, “GRAFFITIMUSEUM,” GRAFFITIMUSEUM (blog), 2013, http://www.graffitimuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/graffitimuseum.pdf.

248 Begerich, Preußler, and Reuter. 249 Aljoscha Begerich, Jo Preußler, and Stefan Reuter, “Arbeiten,” GRAFFITIMUSEUM (blog), accessed August 15, 2020, http://www.graffitimuseum.de/skripte-unbekannter-autoren/.

250 Martin Tege, “Hamburger Menetekel – Zukunft Aus Der Spraydose,” Szene Hamburg, March 2019, https://szene-hamburg.com/hamburger-menetekel-zukunft-mit-graffiti-aus-der-spraydose/;

Ron Zimmering and GRAFFITIMUSEUM, “Hamburger Menetekel,” accessed August 15, 2020, https://hamburgermenetekel.jimdofree.com/.

251 Florian Goldmann, Flexible Signposts to Coded Territories (Berlin: AKV Berlin, 2012), IX.

252 Goldmann, X.

73 could associate to different soccer clubs.253 Outgoing from there, he mapped the city of Ath- ens using soccer graffiti “as an abstract system of fluid signage, or an alternative to official geographic signs.”254 His mapping represent a fleeting moment within a “constantly shifting border zone.”255 Besides many images of Athens’ soccer graffiti the publication contains several maps of Athens with different emphasizes and purposes. One has been manually drawn by Goldmann. It is split up and scattered throughout the publication.256

Another example for appropriation of graffiti similar to the projects conducted by Graffiti- museum is the publication CALYBA – Gedichte. The authors Joachim Spurloser and Stefan Wartenberg transformed at least three thousand graffiti names into Dadaism-like poems and arranged them in their publication. No other terms were used.257

Approaching graffiti on a meta level, reading it as a territorial practice detached from single originators and using it in order to crystalize indications it might hold on its context appears to generate new content – relevant as well for those that do not necessarily have any connection to graffiti whatsoever but nevertheless, share and inhabit the exact same space within which graffiti is conducted. Still, while assumptions about graffiti might be made, those do not demand to be attributed back to their originators as individuals. An engagement with graffiti can be concentrated on what happened between the work and the perceiver while the originator takes a back seat.

Publications in general are a suitable medium for gathering content and material on and around graffiti. They are not bound to any location and they exist not only for the period of an exhibition. While photography has been deemed suitable only for a retrospective exhibition context, it fits the publication. Especially because of graffiti’s fleetingness, a sustainable and long-lasting format such as a book or zine offers the possibility to catch intermediate moments even episodes, which later on bear evidence to an ongoing process. An example for a publication in which the perspective of the perceiver was chosen is Verehrtes Phantom by Kat Dogtok. Dogtok studied in Birmingham and received her doctor’s degree from the Universität

253 Goldmann, XI.

254 Goldmann, XI.

255 Goldmann, XI.

256 An excerpt of the map can be found here: Florian Goldmann, “Flexible Signposts To Coded Territories,” Florian Goldmann (blog), July 2013, https://florianichibangoldmann.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/flexible-signposts-to-coded-territories/.

257 “CALYBA – Gedichte,” Hitzerot (blog), accessed August 15, 2020, https://hitzerot.com/product/calyba/

74 Leipzig in Germany.258 In Leipzig a recurrent motive caught her attention – a zigzag line. She started investigating the sign all around Leipzig. Alike Goldmann she distinguished patterns in the appearance and denseness of the symbol and was able to draw conclusions on the identity behind the symbol – the phantom. Within her publication, Dogtok displays her entire research that went into her hunt for the phantom. However, the revelation is not the core of the book. Rather Dogtok’s playful yet accurate and thorough process is in focus. The reader is motivated and invited to move through public space with a newly open gaze and to delight in examining it for phenomena alike the zigzag-phantom.259

Regarding the just discussed formats and approaches that deal with graffiti it becomes apparent that highlighting single practitioners might not be the most suitable approach for the practice. Essentially, illegal graffiti are the results of self-authorized actions. Thus, their execution does neither depend on permission nor on commission and specifically not on a curator. The surfaces of a city are curated by those that chose to engage and the ruleset they share and respond to. Trying to curate graffiti in public space or moving it into an art institution is an ac- centuation of singular practitioners by an outside element which could be seen as an interfer- ence or ignorance towards that self-curatorial dynamic. Even commissioning illegal graffiti works by providing graffiti supplies and tools would cede the function of a gatekeeper to the curator.

Summarized, instead of focusing on the graffiti practitioner, this thesis puts forward the graffiti perceiver as initial point for prospect curatorial approaches towards graffiti. Graffiti’s perceiver has been identified as part of graffiti’s constitution. To some extend it is the perceiver that grants graffiti its subversiveness. It is also the perceiver that re-performs the encounter between the graffiti practitioners and the urban surfaces and therein validates the I am here- ness inherent to each graffiti work. Further, the perceiver can draw conclusions on urban dynamics and structures by the presence and visibility of graffiti in urban space. Independently of attitudes and motivations on the practitioners’ part, a potential for creating awareness on urban space and for enabling discussions on the content of the urban is rooted within graffiti’s audience. That potential can be developed within curatorial approaches.

258 Matthias Hübner and Jo Preussler, “Dogtok; Kat,” Autoren, accessed August 16, 2020, https://www.possible-books.com/de/authors/dogtok-kat.

259 Sascha Blasche, “Kat Dogtok – Verehrtes Phantom,” Hitzerot (blog), accessed August 16, 2020, https://hitzerot.com/katdogtok- verehrtesphantom/.

75 Coming back to Kate Fowle’s outline of the curator’s role, one more important approach to graffiti shall be mentioned. Fowle highlights continuously updating and conducting research on the topics of interest as a duty of the curator. For this reason, the research and conceptualization of graffiti has taken up an extensive part of this thesis. Otherwise, no suitable approaches and formats for graffiti could have been motivated. Without knowledge and awareness on the practice of graffiti, elaborating and establishing ways to curatorially work with it run the risk to fail as has previously been shown on the examples of past exhibitions and projects around graffiti and street art. It is therefore, that this thesis constitutes a suitable curatorial approach to graffiti in itself: Research.

Theoretical Curatorial Approaches to Graffiti or the Double Recognition of the Curator Throughout the previous chapter in which examples for a suitable curatorial approach to graffiti are listed it repeatedly has been stressed that a curator should be aware of the dynamics inherent to graffiti. It has become apparent that a well-versed curator should aim to preserve and foster those elements within the scope of an exhibition. A curator should have the ability to adapt to another ruleset dictated by the artform that will differ from an ordinary approach of an art institution. It could be argued that a curator who is interested in graffiti and wants to constructively approach the practice probably has to partially abandon the concept of the art institution and become part of the graffiti institution.

Within the graffiti institution different rules apply and different stakes are at play. The commodity is different. Hierarchies are organized and maintained differently and so are the demography of practitioners, their audience and the fandom around it. The overall motivation of the practitioners is relevant and likewise their relation to their works. The education the practitioners receive is not comparable with a curriculum taught at art schools. Within the graffiti institution there is traditionally no intended role for a curator. This offers the possibility for innovation and rethinking established structures within curatorial practice. After all, only when graffiti is acknowledged in all of its complexity, the curator truly encounters it. This encounter cannot be triggered from afar but only within the graffiti institution or at least by partially adapting to its structure. Since the previous interactions between graffiti and the art institution have for the most part been unproductive – as pointed out previously – there are so far only few resourceful starting points. However, there is a lot of potential for new ideas and

76 the curator should undertake unconventional means in an effort to encounter graffiti. How- ever, a successful collaboration is by no means certain. Engaging with graffiti in depth might result in the realization that the curatorial intention cannot be materialize. Nevertheless, that would be a legit outcome as well.

Regardless of the result, the curator would encounter graffiti as the other and therewith inevi- tably have to position the self. The double recognition that graffiti triggers in urban space among its perceivers applies to the encounter between graffiti and the curator as well. Graffiti has the ability to make internalized dynamics and norms visible and forces the perceiver (and the curator) to position oneself in relation to them. Leaving their own institution allows the curator a more open perspective onto it, especially when they have to orientate themselves within new structures and complexities. A comparison is triggered and a space for critical reflection on the art institution opens up. Some preconceived notions might get readjusted while others might get reinforced. Regardless of an actual curatorial collaboration with graffiti, engaging with it will challenge the curator in the moment of encounter. According to Lefebvre those moments carry the possibility for change. After positioning the self in relation to the other, the curator can decide whether or not they turn their realization of a possibility into an achieved realization within the art institution.

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80 (Online) Newspaper and Magazine Articles

Alm, David. “In Brooklyn, A Massive Exhibition Celebrates 50 Years Of Graffiti And Street Art.” Forbes, July 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidalm/2019/07/29/in-brooklyn-a-massive-exhibition-celebrates-50-years-of-graffiti-and-street-art/#64d6bec15236. “Banksy Mural Protected with Plastic.” BBC News, December 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk- wales-46659409. Bruns, Hildburg. “Mit Diesem Mittel Wird Jetzt Gegen Sprayer Vorgegangen!” Berliner Zeitung, Oc- tober 2019. https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/bvg-kaempft-mit-neuem-mittel-gegen-graffiti- sprayer. Buntrock, Tanja. “17-Jähriger Graffiti-Sprüher Lebensgefährlich Verletzt.” Der Tagesspiegel Online, 2009. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/polizei-justiz/messerattacke-17-jaehriger-graffiti- sprueher-lebensgefaehrlich-verletzt/1433168.html. Caramanica, Jon. “Phase 2, an Aerosol Art Innovator, Is Dead at 64.” The New York Times, December 2019. factiva. http://global.factiva.com/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=NY- TFEED020191220efck007pt&cat=a&ep=ASE. Cascone, Sarah. “Immigration-Themed Banksy Mural Destroyed by Local Council.” Artnet News, Octo- ber 2014. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/immigration-themed-banksy-mural-destroyed- by-local-council-120475. Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter. “‘Art in The Streets’ at MOCA LA.” Artnet News, 2011. http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/drohojowska-philp/moca-art-in-the-streets-4-15-11.asp. Frank, Katharina. “Krieg mit Messern und Pistolen.” FOCUS Online, 1995. https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/sprayer-banden-krieg-mit-messern-und-pistolen_aid_151247.html. Gerner, Linda. “Kunstprojekt ‘The Haus’ in Berlin: Warum liegt hier eigentlich Laub?” Die Tageszeitung: taz, May 2017, sec. Kultur. https://taz.de/!5403016/. Gotthardt, Alexxa. “Banksy and Fellow Street Artists Are Refusing to Fuel the Market for Paintings Taken from the Streets.” Artsy, January 2017. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial- banksy-fellow-street-artists-refusing-fuel-market-paintings-streets. Haarbach, Madlen. “Museum ‘Urban Nation’ in Berlin: Ein Zuhause Für Street-Art Und Graffiti.” Der Tagesspiegel Online, November 2017. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/museum-urban- nation-in-berlin-ein-zuhause-fuer-street-art-und-graffiti/20594596.html. Holago, Ülkü. “Fick Sparken För Sin Kritik.” Svenska Dagbladet, July 2009. https://www.svd.se/fick- sparken-for-sin-kritik. “Inside Berlin’s Graffiti War.” The Local, September 2008. https://www.thelocal.de/20080909/14209. Johnston, Chris. “Banksy Auction Stunt Leaves Art World in Shreds.” The Guardian, October 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/06/banksy-sothebys-auction-prank- leaves-art-world-in-shreds-girl-with-balloon. Keseling, Uta. “Graffiti an U-Bahnen Der BVG in Berlin - Muss Man Das Verstehen?” Berliner Morgen- post, September 2019. https://www.morgenpost.de/kolumne/keseling/article227186945/Be- schmierte-U-Bahnen-in-Berlin-Muss-man-das-verstehen.html. Kikol, Larissa. “Graffiti. Ein Diffuser Nebel in Der Kunstwelt.” KUNSTFORUM International, May 2019.

81 Kimmelman, Michael. “German Artists Say They Put White Flags on Brooklyn Bridge.” The New York Times, August 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/arts/design/german-artists-say- they-put-white-flags-on-brooklyn-bridge.html. Kraetzer, Ulrich. “Graffiti Und Vandalismus: Die Täter Kommen Meist Davon.” Berlin Morgenpost, April 2020. https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article228931303/Graffiti-und-Vandalismus-Die- Taeter-kommen-meist-davon.html. Linke, Mona. “Die Verkaufte Stadt.” Zitty, February 2020. https://www.zitty.de/die-verkaufte-stadt/. Mac Donald, Heather. “Graffiti Is Always Vandalism.” The New York Times, December 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/11/when-does-graffiti-become-art/graffiti-is-always-vandalism. Moses & TapsTM, and Larissa Kikol. “Im Graffiti Gilt Eine Andere Währung Als in Der Kunst, (Interview).” KUNSTFORUM International, May 2019. Neuendorf, Henry. “‘I Had No Idea’: A Bristol Shopkeeper Regrets Accidentally Painting Over One of Banksy’s Earliest Murals.” Artnet News, September 2018. https://news.artnet.com/art- world/shopkeeper-accidentally-painted-over-banksy-bristol-1348595. Padtberg, Carola. “Graffiti: Ich Spraye, Also Bin Ich.” SPIEGEL Online, 2006. https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/graffiti-ich-spraye-also-bin-ich-a-416204.html. Phillips, Dom. “Taggers Killed for Their Art Show Dangers of City’s Graffiti Culture.” The Guardian, Au- gust 2018). https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/01/brazil-graffiti-artist-sao-paulo. Reyburn, Scott. “Banksy Painting ‘Devolved Parliament’ Sells for $12 Million.” The New York Times, Oc- tober 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/arts/design/banksy-devolved-parliament- auction.html. Samnick, Olivia. “Das Ist Kunst Und Kann Bald Weg.” SPIEGEL Online, March 2017. https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/pop-up-galerie-the-haus-berlin-art-bang-eroeffnet-in-berlin-a-1139613.html. Schacter, Rafael. “Street Art Is a Period. Period. Or the Emergence of Intermural Art.” Hyperallergic, July 2016. https://hyperallergic.com/310616/street-art-is-a-period-period-or-the-emergence- of-intermural-art/. Schäfer, Helena. “Museum Für Flüchtige Kunst.” Berliner Morgenpost, September 2017. http://global.factiva.com/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=BERMP00020170915ed9f00019&cat=a&ep=ASE. https://www.morgenpost.de/kultur/article211928145/Warum-Street-Art-am-besten-auf-der- Strasse-bleibt.html. Schönball, Ralf. “Streit Um Mieterhöhungen Bei Der Gewobag.” Der Tagesspiegel Online, 2019. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/mietenpolitik-des-senats-streit-um-mieterhoehungen- bei-der-gewobag/25142528.html. Schönball, Ralf. “Was Aus Den Landeseigenen Wohnungen Wurde.” Der Tagesspiegel Online, 2019. https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nach-der-privatisierung-was-aus-den-landeseigenen-wohnungen-wurde/24025260.html. Shenker, Jack. “Revealed: The Insidious Creep of Pseudo-Public Space in London.” The Guardian, July 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-pseudo-public-space-pops- london-investigation-map. Tege, Martin. “Hamburger Menetekel – Zukunft Aus Der Spraydose.” Szene Hamburg, March 2019. https://szene-hamburg.com/hamburger-menetekel-zukunft-mit-graffiti-aus-der-spraydose/.

82 Törne, Lars von. “Street Art: Die Straße hat ein Zuhause.” Die Zeit, September 2017, sec. Kultur. https://www.zeit.de/kultur/kunst/2017-09/urban-nation-eroeffnet-in-berlin. Tornow, Charlotte. “‘Moralloses Entertainment Für Den Pöbel’. Nach Der Schließung Gibt Es Kritik an THE HAUS.” Mit Vergnügen Berlin, 2017. https://mitvergnuegen.com/2017/nach-der-schliessung-gibt-es-kritik-an-the-haus. Treffler, Jana. “Obdachlose Am Hauptbahnhof.” Zitty, May 2019, sec. Berlin. https://www.zitty.de/obdachlose-am-hauptbahnhof/.

Videos

1UP. Happy New Year 2018 Whole Car, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsPjvw_32UA. arte Tracks, Paradox – Und Seine Berlin Kidz Crew, Documentary, 2018, sec. 0:45min, https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC-014037/tracks/RC-016380/visuelle-kunst/. Boye Rasmussen, Nis, and Andreas Johnsen. Inside Outside. Documentary, 2005. Deutsche Welle. Illegale Poesie: Kunst von Wermke/Leinkauf, 2014. https://www.dw.com/de/illegale- poesie-kunst-von-wermke-leinkauf/av-17757356. Good Guy Boris. Unfollow the Leader. Part 2, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9iqm6t2Fuk&t=201s. Gunnarsson, Thomas OKOK. Bombing With Sano, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucnXWdOzU4k&t=91s. IGIT. IGIT’S WORLD, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGftOPfXzsM. Ilovegraffiti.de. 5 MINUTES with JUST, 2017. https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC-014235/5-minutes/. Kästner, René. 5 MINUTES with Wegas, 2018. https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/080614-001-A/5- minutes-with-wegas/. Max-Planck-Institut. Anna Baumert, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuVzWL_gkw8. Mischa Leinknauf Und Matthias Wermke, 2015. https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/060101-002-A/mischa-leinkauf-und-matthias-wermke/. NUG. Territorial Pissing. 2008. Film. Ribe, Johan. DART, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkz3xUHnaLA&t=69s. Schanze, Antonia Lilly. Graffiti Als Protest - Unterwegs Mit Berliner Sprayern. Documentary, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1044&v=ZTZEBcIMOpg&feature=emb_title. TOY Crew. Das Schöne Haus, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoLKmGF9Eg8. TOY crew. TOYLESSONS VOL. 1, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoMqE-WubvM.

83 Websites, Blogs, Feeds

“1UP Pro.” HAND MIXED PERMANENT PAINT STICK, 2020. https://handmixed.lat/products/pro-1up. “Adams & E.B. Itso – Text on Train,” 2020. https://getwelldaniel.de/shop/adams-e-b-itso-text-on- train/. Begrich, Aljoscha, Jo Preußler, and Stefan Reuter. “About.” GRAFFITIMUSEUM (blog). Accessed August 15, 2020. http://www.graffitimuseum.de/manifeste/. Begerich, Aljoscha, Jo Preußler, and Stefan Reuter. “Arbeiten.” GRAFFITIMUSEUM (blog). Accessed Au- gust 15, 2020. http://www.graffitimuseum.de/skripte-unbekannter-autoren/. Begerich, Aljoscha, Jo Preußler, and Stefan Reuter. “GRAFFITIMUSEUM.” GRAFFITIMUSEUM (blog), 2013. http://www.graffitimuseum.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/graffitimuseum.pdf. BEYOND THE STREETS LLC. “About.” Beyond The Streets, 2020. https://beyondthestreets.com/pages/about. Blasche, Sascha. “Kat Dogtok – Verehrtes Phantom.” Hitzerot (blog). Accessed August 16, 2020. https://hitzerot.com/katdogtok-verehrtesphantom/. Braun, Alexandra. “Vorladung zur Polizei wegen Graffiti.” anwalt.de, 2020. https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/vorladung-zur-polizei-wegen-graffiti_096986.html. “CALYBA – Gedichte.” Hitzerot (blog). Accessed August 15, 2020. https://hitzerot.com/product/calyba/. dejure.org Rechtsinformationssysteme GmbH. Sachbeschädigung, Besonderer Teil (§§ 80-358), 27. Ab- schnitt Strafgesetzbuch § 303, 2005. https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/303.html. F. Swift. “Racking.” Flickr.Com, 2008. https://www.flickr.com/groups/426469@N25/discuss/72157603453442909/72157603734375119. Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. “Born in the Streets—Graffiti,” October 2017. https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/exhibitions/ne-dans-la-rue-graffiti. “Fuck Street-Art! Ist das schon der Aufstand der Zeichen? – SPAIRS Manifest zwischen gut gemeint und Herrschaftszeit.” Jaegerzaun (blog), 2012 2011. http://jaegerzaun.blogsport.de/2008/11/16/fuck-street-art-ist-das-schon-der-aufstand-der-zeichen-spairs-manifest- zwischen-gut-gemeint-und-herrschaftszeit/#comment-3068. Goldmann, Florian. “Flexible Signposts To Coded Territories.” Florian Goldmann (blog), July 2013. https://florianichibangoldmann.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/flexible-signposts-to-coded-territories/. Grütters, Monika. Rede Der Kulturstaatsministerin Grütters Bei Der Eröffnung Des “Urban Nation Mu- seum for Urban Contemporary Art,” 2017. https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuell- les/rede-der-kulturstaatsministerin-gruetters-bei-der-eroeffnung-des-urban-nation-museum- for-urban-contemporary-art--802280. Hübner, Matthias, and Jo Preussler. “Dogtok; Kat.” Autoren. Accessed August 16, 2020. https://www.possible-books.com/de/authors/dogtok-kat. koper. “The New To Graffiti Thread.” Bombingscience.Com, Toys Forum, 2007-2012. https://www.bombingscience.com/graffitiforum/threads/the-new-to-graffiti-thread.2185/. Krink Inc. “Buy Krink K-8000 Paint Fire Extinguisher.” shop.krink.com, 2020. https://shop.krink.com/products/k-8000.

84 Krink Inc. “History.” shop.krink.com, 2020. https://shop.krink.com/pages/history. Merriam-Webster. “Subversion.” Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary. Accessed June 19, 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subversion. Merriam-Webster. “Vandalism.” Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary. Accessed February 23, 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalism. Miller, Seumas. “Social Institutions.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso- phy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2019). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/social-institutions/. Ng, David. “‘Art in the Streets’ Sets Record for MOCA, Sort Of.” LA Times Blogs - Culture Monster (blog), August 2011. https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/08/art-in-the- streets-is-most-attended-show-in-moca-history.html. Polizeiliche Kriminalprävention der Länder und des Bundes. “Vandalismus.” Polizei Für Dich. Accessed June 13, 2020. https://www.xn--polizeifrdich-3ob.de/deine-themen/sachbeschaedigung/vandalismus.html. SKUNKone. “Racking Tips.” Bombingscience.Com, Toys Forum, 2014. https://www.bombingscience.com/graffitiforum/threads/racking-tips.22075/. @spair_fans. Photography feed. Instagram, January 2019. https://www.instagram.com/spair_fans/. SPAIR. Das Spair Plakat. 2005. Paper, DIN A 3. https://ilovegraffiti.de/blog/2010/01/08/das-spair-plakat/. The Art Union e.V. “Eine Retro Graffiti Ausstellung.” Klassentreffen-Ostberlin. Accessed August 15, 2020. https://klassentreffen-ostberlin.de/. “THE HAUS – Lecker Chillen in Kreuzberg.” Accessed August 20, 2020. https://thehaus.de/. @thehausberlin. “THE HAUS.” Photography feed. Instagram, since 2016. https://www.instagram.com/thehausberlin/?hl=en. Todorov, Svetoslav. “Urban Nation, Das Unmögliche Museum in Berlin.” Goethe Institut. Nahaufnahme (blog), 2017. https://www.goethe.de/de/uun/prs/auf/na2/bs1/21130584.html. Urban Nation. “About Us.” Accessed August 18, 2020. https://urban-nation.com/about-us/. Urban Nation. “Art Map Archiv.” Accessed August 12, 2020. https://urban-nation.com/art-map/. Wermke / Leinkauf. “CV.” Accessed August 13, 2020. https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/en/vita. Zimmering, Ron and GRAFFITIMUSEUM. “Hamburger Menetekel.” Accessed August 15, 2020. https://hamburgermenetekel.jimdofree.com/.

85 List of Images

Image 1.1: ZON.Ke.73, spray paint on train, Instagram: @pimpmywagon, uploaded 2020-04-08, https://www.instagram.com/p/B-uzMkwIKnx/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 1.2: ZONKe.73, spray paint on train, Instagram: @pimpmywagon, uploaded 2020-06-14, https://www.instagram.com/p/CBbABI9CdLz/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 1.3: ZONKe.73, spray paint on train, Instagram: @pimpmywagon, uploaded 2020-06-22, https://www.instagram.com/p/CBvxrLoC7AX/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 1.4: ZONKE.73, spray paint on train, Instagram: @pimpmywagon, uploaded 2020-03-04, https://www.instagram.com/p/CBvxrLoC7AX/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 2.1: tRIeB, 2020, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @wuesteneiundluft, uploaded 2020-07-15, https://www.instagram.com/p/CCqYTmYi-Uh/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 2.2: tRIEB, 2020, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @wuesteneiundluft, uploaded 2020-07-14, https://www.instagram.com/p/CCnXpH7iO9T/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 2.3: tRiEB, 2020, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @wuesteneiundluft, uploaded 2020-07-12, https://www.instagram.com/p/CCjFZt8C6tm/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 2.4: tRIeB, 2020, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @wuesteneiundluft, uploaded 2020-06-03, https://www.instagram.com/p/CA8v9suimf1/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 3.1: THAKI68, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @yg_xl_t68, uploaded: 2020-08, https://www.instagram.com/p/CDxx36eC744/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 3.2: THAKI68, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @yg_xl_t68, uploaded: 2020-05-23, https://www.instagram.com/p/CAiPNdlop9H/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 3.3: THaKI68, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @yg_xl_t68, uploaded: 2020-07-25, https://www.instagram.com/p/CDDsDA3COcg/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 3.4: THaKI68, spray paint on wall, Instagram: @yg_xl_t68, uploaded: 2020-03-22, https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Cthz7ISC9/ (Accessed August 16, 2020)

Image 4: BERLIN KIDZ, PARADOX, spray paint on wall, photography taken by Helen-Sophie Mayr, 2019-11-28

Image 5: Still of René Kästner, 5 MINUTES with Wegas, Germany, 2018, video, 6min, https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/080614-001-A/5- minutes-with-wegas/ (Accessed August 18, 2020)

Image 6: Johan Ribe, DART, Toronto, 2019, video, 6:13min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkz3xUHnaLA (Accessed August 18, 2020)

Image 7.1: Still of Wermke / Leinkauf, Die neonorangene Kuh, Berlin, 2005, SD-Video/Audio, 6:30min, https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/de/works/neonorangene#5 (Accessed August 18, 2020)

Image 7.2: Still of Wermke / Leinkauf, Die neonorangene Kuh, Berlin, 2005, SD-Video/Audio, 6:30min, https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/de/works/neonorangene#4 (Accessed August 18, 2020)

Image 7.3: Still of Wermke / Leinkauf, Die neonorangene Kuh, Berlin, 2005, SD-Video/Audio, 6:30min, https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/de/works/neonorangene#3 (2020-08-16)

Image 7.4: Still of Wermke / Leinkauf, Die neonorangene Kuh, Berlin, 2005, SD-Video/Audio, 6:30min, https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/de/works/neonorangene#6 (2020-08-16)

Image 7.5: Still of Wermke / Leinkauf, Die neonorangene Kuh, Berlin, 2005, SD-Video/Audio, 6:30min, photography taken by Eric Strelow, https://www.wermke-leinkauf.com/de/works/neonorangene#2 (20-08-16)

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