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Meaning upon meaning, mediating space and place  

Review by David Fazzino 

 

Understanding Graffiti: Multidisciplinary Studies from Prehistory to Present  

Troy Lovata and Elizabeth Olton, editors  

Left Coast Press, 2015 

 

Understanding Graffiti: Multidisciplinary Studies from Prehistory to Present utilizes a variety of case 

studies to explore the various techniques and meanings behind graffiti and opens up spaces to further 

explore this phenomenon, in essence building a theoretical case against Glazer’s “broken windows” 

theory. Understanding Graffiti resonates with my own work on development and dispossession of 

property and place in the context of towns taken through government action in the Ukraine (Chernobyl, 

Pripyat) and the United States (Pennsylvania: Centralia, and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation 

Area (DWGNRA)). In each of these sites, graffiti is ubiquitous although the way I interpret its impacts 

and meanings varies depending upon the context. 

 

Figure 1 Reviewer's photo of abandoned highway Centralia, Pennsylvania 

 

While I read graffiti in DWGNRA in a manner akin to Glazer’s 1979 “broken window” theory of decay 

(discussed in Understanding Graffiti on pp.124, 174, 197, 219-220). In contrast, I view graffiti in 



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Pripyat as a space of play and social commentary. In the space between is the graffiti in Centralia (see 

Figure 1). 

 

The contributors and editors to Understanding Graffiti seek to highlight the agency and artistry of those 

who produce graffiti highlighting the importance of studying the phenomena of graffiti production, 

interpretation, and commodification from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives. Graffiti serves as a 

sometimes preserved, oft fleeting visual and visceral record of contesting claims. As the editors 

maintain, graffiti is produced for a variety of reasons with the intent that it will be viewed and hence 

communicate specific messages to a particular audience or all of society. The volume provides a solid 

review of the reasons, uses, and interpretations of graffiti in a variety of multicultural and temporal 

contexts. The editors begin with an overview and provide subsequent introductions to the four sections 

of Understanding Graffiti: Section I Understanding the Function of Graffiti, Section II Understanding 

the Form & Context of Graffiti, Section III Understanding Graffiti as a Witness to History, and Section 

IV Understanding the Politics of Graffiti. Below, I briefly highlight the contents of these four sections 

and fifteen chapters before concluding with some specific questions and my overall impression of 

Understanding Graffiti. 

 

Section I considers the various functions of graffiti as an exchange of ideas, historical record, and site 

of resistance. Rodriguez (Chapter 1) and Meade (Chapter 2) note that, “inscriptions from bathroom 

walls transform a private and anonymous environment into a meeting place mediated by a wall, where 

often-serious concerns are honestly expressed” (p. 18). While graffiti on contemporary bathroom walls 

is relatively short lived, those appearing on the frescoes of an Italian church have endured over 

generations and serve as a source of historical information about every day happenings, as well as 

events of greater consequence (Plesch, chapter 3). Lennon (Chapter 4) considers the reach of ‘conflict 

graffiti’ appearing during the Arab Spring, engaging not only those passing by on the street, but also a 

global audience through images of the graffiti circulating over the internet which reflected the passion, 

humor, and determination of the Egyptian protesters.” (p.63). 

 

Section II delves into the importance of the form (style) and context (how and where it was created) of 

graffiti (p.73). These are important elements in ascertaining the graffiti artist’s intention in their 

attempts to appeal to the aesthetics of a particular audience. These elements were utilized in a 

comparative analysis of art styles to decipher the intended message of a horseman carved in Carpathian 



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rock at Cetăţeni (Măndescu, Chapter 5) and through a phenomenological approach to Rocky Mountain 

arborglyphs (Lovata, Chapter 6). Beaton and Todd (Chapter 7) highlight their contributions to the 

heritage work at Evergreen Brick Works that is “…inspired by the industrial, natural, and geographical 

landscape of a former brick works” (p.105) including the graffiti, which is “…the only surviving 

artifact of the site from 1989 to 2008” (p.106). This is a part of City of Toronto’s work to distinguish 

between “graffiti vandalism” which must be removed and “graffiti art” which must remain 

(commissioned and sanctioned, or approved by Toronto’s Graffiti Panel). 

 

The political climate for graffiti in New York City during the 1980s was less than welcoming as NYC 

authorities worked to eliminate graffiti production; despite this, artists produced 'wildstyle' on subway 

cars that further defied efforts by rendering a public text as unreadable by those in mainstream society 

(Gopinath, Chapter 8). 

 

 

Figure 2 Detail of wildstyle burner by KASE 2 (from chapter 8) 

 

 

Figure 3 Details of Wildstyle Graffiti (from chapter 8) 

 

The centrality of context is highlighted in considering the various locations where “Zevs’” work 



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appears; on the street, its appropriation of corporate logos to critique marketing is lost once it is 

displayed in Manhattan galleries (Duncan, Chapter 9). 

 

 

Figure 4 Zevs’s Liquidated Version exhibition at the De Buck Gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan, 2011 (from chapter 9) 

 

The contributors to Section III read graffiti as a supplement to the historical record based on more 

conventional sources. Specifically, the editors frame graffiti “as witnesses to a historical moment that 

reveal a certain agency or desire.” (p.140). The location of graffiti at key sites in the Casma Valley of 

Peru from 2100BCE to 200BCE demonstrate continued resistance to the Sechín Alto polity (Pozorski 

and Pozorski, Chapter 10). Similarly, Olton (Chapter 11, p.159) suggests that graffiti use in Classic 

period Maya at Tikal, Guatemala, is a “politically transgressive commentary.” In a more recent 

example, Beck, Falvey, and Drollinger (Chapter 12) go inside the tunnels at the Nevada Test Site to 

document 164 panels of art produced by peace activists as a means to come to a greater understanding 

not only of the events at the Site, but also the larger political implications of nuclear testing. 

 

Section IV explicitly discusses issues of power implicit in the earlier sections by focusing on the 

politics of defining graffiti. Mitman (Chapter 13) describes how criminalization of graffiti on the 

problem-riddled New York City subway system in the 1970s and 1980s galvanized an antiauthoritarian 

counterculture and, subsequently, amplified the desire of young artists to get their work up on subway 

cars. Daniell (Chapter 14) works to define graffiti by distinguishing it from permitted inscriptions or 

“calliglyphs” at two English military establishments. The final chapter (15) by Sheinman considers 

how Mexico creates a space for graffiti near the Zócalo, which simultaneously contributes to 

gentrification and creates “an aesthetic dialogue with graffiti from the periphery” (p.231). 

 



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As with any thought-provoking piece, this volume left me wanting more. First, many of the chapters 

are well-illustrated and provide the visual context for the contributor’s claims, some of which would 

have been bolstered by incorporation of color photographs. Scheinman contributes the sole color photo, 

appearing on the book’s cover. Second, the contributors primarily document the counterhegemonic and 

anti-authoritarian meanings of graffiti as sites of resistance. As with all media, mixed and multi-media 

graffiti serve to mediate relationships in a variety of social settings which talk to, talk past, and talk at 

its intended audiences. As many of the contributors point out, graffiti can also be appropriated by the 

State as public art that needs to be preserved. The general question I am left with is, how has this 

process played out over time? Specifically, what are the potential impacts on the agency of those 

opposing graffiti through top-down designations, such as Toronto’s Graffiti Panel? Further, how has 

expert analysis of objects and subsequent reinterpretations of the past altered readings of place? In the 

examples given, context certainly provides evidence that can aid in interpretation. This would be 

further enhanced in some instances with a greater consideration of the various actors involved in the 

process of graffiti production and interpretation. Nevertheless, the volume successfully situates the 

cultural and artistic elements of graffiti from diverse perspectives. Overall, the editors and contributors 

to Understanding Graffiti provided me with the historical examples and theoretical perspectives to 

more thoroughly reflect on and refine my own understandings of graffiti. The volume provides fodder 

to consider graffiti in one’s everyday environment, as a guide to students and scholars exploring 

graffiti. In this sense, the editors have achieved what they set out to do, that is, provide an easily 

accessible, theoretically grounded text, appropriate to utilize in undergraduate classrooms. 

 

David Fazzino, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, is a 

cultural anthropologist trained in law and agro-ecology. His research interests include environmental 

anthropology, structural violence, intellectual property rights, food and energy policy, and medical 

anthropology. https://bloomu.academia.edu/DavidFazzino 

 

 

 

© 2017 David Fazzino 


