Yearly Archives: 2013

Graffiti in Rome: vandalism or beautiful stuff?

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Each and every ground-level wall in Rome carries some scratching, scribbling, scrawling or spraying. Suffering enough from lack of public spending, the Italian capital is made only shabbier and sadder by the ubiquitous graffiti. This is vandalism on a grand scale.

But, up close, individual pieces are fascinating. Is this beautiful stuff? You don’t know who the “perpetrator” is. (Interestingly, one assumes that it is a young male!) What he is saying and to whom may not be obvious either. It may be a targeted insult, a statement of “this is our patch,” a declaration of love or support for a political movement. The media vary and may even date their application. Obviously, the older and more durable involve chipping or scratching into the wall whilst the newer and less durable are paint and chalk. Old and new alike submit to the flaking and crumbling of Rome’s backstreet walls. The result is something raw, mysterious, time-sensitive and even elegant. There is such a concentration of these pieces that they overlap and a chronology can be deduced. At the end of a long hot day and having walked the city for kilometres, I feel these walls proffer a glimpse into the soul of today’s Rome.

Graffiti in Rome 1

“PACE” is scratched deep into a repaired wall: a plea for peace dating back to World War II? A bizarre red and orange cockerel-like figure with an undecipherable thought-bubble is painted after the faded white spray paint and after a poster has been torn down. Blue spray last? Oops!

Graffiti in Rome 2

The clean beige paint on this section of wall without doubt covers other graffiti. The opportunistic wielder of a blue spray-can chooses to attack this fresh surface but meticulously respects the margins given by the cactus pot and the marble ledge. Is the Dilbert-like character with tie, spotty left ear and rectangular lips an uncle, a neighbour or a politician?

Graffiti in Rome 3

This hammer and sickle was probably painted during the cold war. Does the red tip of the sickle signify a bloody revolution to come? Or Mussolini’s blood?

Recently (February 2013), a purported Bansky “mural” in London has been taken – on its wall – for sale in Miami for US$ gazillions.

Smaban Abbas’s Cairo airport sculpture

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I arrive home from Cairo. Exhausted.  Half an hour with my laptop reveals nothing about Smaban Abbas. I’d like to meet him or her. He has nailed Cairo with one simple sculpture. I don’t even know when the work was done. It must be recent though. Perhaps he’ll see this post and contact me.

Smaban Abbas's Cairo airport sculpture

Cairo is the craziest city I’ve visited. To get to the new airport on time one needs a good three hours. The traffic is autogeddon-gridlock-grind. The taxi driver is constantly weaving, dodging, hooting and appealing to his God. The heat, noise and fumes are together overpowering. As we slowly leave the city proper, the traffic thins enough to get into a hopeful third gear. Tens of kilometres of unfinished luxury apartment blocks line the main road. These jutting rectangular monstrosities, like a jungle of teeth needing urgent dental work, stretch to the horizon. The only other things on the ground are red / brown rocks: just like the two rocks of Abbas’s statue.

The total environmental, social, political and financial madness of the city is summed up by this sculpture. You glimpse it as you drive into “Departures.” I walk away from the main building to have a closer look. How did he or she do it? Is it real? Should I caress the rope? Can it be rope? Have I got the courage to tap on the rocks to see if they are indeed rocks or maybe fibreglass? Dare I risk the disappointment? A policeman is approaching. I step back, smile and leave with my trip to Cairo complete; the statue a kind of teasing “au revoir.”

Anna King’s Tui brooch

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The cover of a New Zealand hunting manual published in the 1990s has a photo of an adolescent Anna King. With rifle in hand and flaming red hair she poses near her trophy beast. A decade on, she meets her unshaven prince-in-camouflage. She embarks on jewellery-making wanting to combine ornament with a fervent love of things natural. Her self-designed silver brooch is the only output before family life takes over. It is a work suffused with love.

Anna King's Tui Brooch

The Tui is New Zealand’s second iconic bird. Its plumage is metallic blue-green. Its white feathery throat bobs characteristically as it chimes and cackles. The circular Tui triad of Anna’s brooch is completely balanced. It speaks to nature’s great cycle and whispers celtic silver. (A link to the red hair?) This is beauty.

When I first meet her, she is wearing the brooch at her throat. Surprised by my magpie-like interest in things beautiful, she tells me of its provenance. I ask what else she has made. “Nothing really” she replies. Her young son watches her prepare for the next hunt. “Got to feed the family” she says.