But the sense of the start of a real graffiti scene was first felt during the 2006 summer war vs. Israel, and that consisted mostly of Ibrahim, Fish, Kabrit, M3alim, Prime and Horek painting “activist-style” pieces using dollar cans, often with anti-war slogans and cheerful colors. Although it wasn’t completely intentional, this allowed the people’s first real exposure to graffiti to be a rather supportive one – a privilege very few countries have had.
Graffiti, in the sense of “writing on the wall” has a long history with anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-establishment movements, with a proto-graffiti scenes dating back to the riots in the Us and Paris in 1968 where graffiti slogans from the Left popped up everywhere…so its pretty common to find those two scenes overlapping. The action itself…reclaiming private or ignored property and beautifying it for the public…I’ve never met a writer yet that wasn’t at least leaning slightly Left with his politics.
So what came next, after the initial scene in 2006?
Is there a lot of variation in styles from city to city, region to region?
However (on a slightly more positive note) I reckon they do make efforts to try and get better style-wise, albeit at an extremely slow pace and refusing guidance.
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Brian Gonnella is a semi-reformed vandal currently living as a semi-professional artist in Pittsburgh PA. he uses spraypaint now to create superflat sci-fi scenes, equal parts comic book, ukiyo-e print and heavy metal album art. He has a dog named Harley and fantasizes often about living in a desert. Visit his blog and Instagram account.