Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Representing Subcultural Identity: A Photoessay of Spanish Graffiti and Street Art

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media

  • 975 Accesses

Abstract

Graffiti is a universal and ubiquitous feature of the modern urban experience. It is both signifier and material object of a creative street culture. This chapter, using the author’s own photographs, explores and analyses the ways in which graffiti writers and street artists represent themselves and their identities, the methods and practices they use, and the meanings and values associated with their sense of belonging to a subcultural community of shared interests and experiences. These are both individual and collective responses to and engagement with the urban as a lived experience and practice that reflects a commitment to know, colonise, decorate and adorn the public arena of city’s streets, places and spaces with an alternative urban aesthetic.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abel, E. and Buckley, B.E. 1973. The Handwriting on the Wall: Contributions to Sociology, Greenwood, Westport, Conn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Art Crimes: The Writing on the Wall https://www.graffiti.org/

  • Austin, J. 2002. Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City, Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banksy. 2002. Existencillism. London: Weapons of Mass Distraction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banksy. 2006. Wall and piece. London: Century Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banksy. 2012. You are an acceptable level of threat. London: Carpet Bombing Culture.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benavides-Venegas, F.S. 2005. “From Santander to Camilo and Che: Graffiti and Resistance in Contemporary Colombia”, Social Justice Vol. 32. No.1 (2005) pp. 53–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bengsten, P. 2013. “Beyond the Public Art Machine: a critical examination of street art as public art”, Journal of Art History, Vol. 82 Issue 2, pp. 63–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bengsten, P. 2014. The Street Art World, Almendros de Granada Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bengsten, P. and Arvidsson, M. 2014. “Spatial Justice and Street Art”, nordic journal of law and social research (NNJLSR) No.5 pp. 117–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Best, C. 2003. “Reading Graffiti in the Caribbean Context”, Journal of Popular Culture Vol. 36 Issue 4, pp. 828–852.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowling, B. 1999. The rise and fall of New York murder: zero tolerance or crack’s decline? British Journal of Criminology 39 (4): 531–554.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brighenti, A.M. 2010. “At the Wall: Writers, Urban Territoriality and the Public Domain”, Space and Culture, 2010 13: pp. 315–332.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, Scott. 2010. The call and response of street art and the city. City 14 (1–2): 137–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calvin, L.M. 2005. “Graffiti, the Ultimate Realia: Meaning and Standards through an Unconventional Cultural Lesson”, Hispania, Vol. 88. no. 3 (Sept. 2005) pp. 527–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catterall, B. (ed.) 2010. “Graffiti, Street Art and The City”, City: analysis of urban trends, culture theory, politics, action, 14: 1–2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalfant, H. and Prigoff, J. 1987. Spraycan Art, Thames & Hudson, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chmielewska, E. 2007. “Graffiti and Place”, Space and Culture, 2007, 10, no.2, pp. 145–169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Civil, Tom. 2010. Learning the city. City 14 (1–2): 160–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. and Chalfant, H. 1984. Subway Art, Henry Holt, New York, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. 2009a. Tag Town: The Origins of Writing, Dokument.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. 2009b. Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition, Thames and Hudson, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. 2013. Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979–1984, From Here to Fame Publishing; Revised edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coverley, M. 2010. Psyhcogeography, Pocket Essentials, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Desa. 2006. Million dollar vandal: The life and crimes of Desa. New York: AKA Projects.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickens, L. 2010. “Pictures on Walls? Producing, Pricing and collecting the street art screen print”, City: analysis of urban trends, culture theory, politics, action, 14: 1–2, 63–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dickinson, Maggie. 2008. The Making of Space, Race and Place. Critique of Anthropology 28 (1): 27–45

    Google Scholar 

  • Felisbret, E. 2009. Graffiti New York, New York, Abrams.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. 1993. “Moscow Graffiti: Language and Subculture”, Social Justice, 20:13 (Fall Winter 1993) 188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. 1995. “Urban Graffiti: Crime Control and Resistance”, Youth and Society 1995: 27 pp. 73–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. 1997. “Youth, Crime and Cultural Space”, Social Justice 24.4 (Winter 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. 1996. Crimes of Style, Boston, Northeaster University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. 2001. Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy, Basingstoke, Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ford, S. 2005. The Situationist International: a user’s guide, Black Dog Publishing, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gastman, R. and Neelon, C. 2011. The History of American Graffiti, London HarperCollins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halsey, M., & Young, A. 2006. Our desires are ungovernable: Writing graffiti in urban space. Theoretical Criminology, 10(3), 275–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt, B. E. 2005. Illusion of order: The false promise of broken windows policing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt, B. E., & Ludwig, J. 2006. Reefer madness: Broken windows and misdemeanor marijuana arrests in New York City, 1989–2000. University of Chicago Public Law & Legal Theory Working Paper No. 142. Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=948753.

  • Harper, D. 2012. Visual Sociology, Routledge, London.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hebdige, D. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iveson, K. 2010a. “Graffiti, Street art and the City, Introduction City: analysis of urban trends, culture theory, politics, action, Vol. 14, nos. 1–2, February–April 2010, pp. 26–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iveson, K. 2010b. “The Wars on Graffiti and the new military urbanism”. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action. Vol. 14, nos. 1–2, pp. 115–134.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaka, 2012. The Mammoth Book of Street Art, Constable and Robinson, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knabb, K. (ed.) 2006. Situationist International Anthology, Bureau of Public Secrets, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ley, D. and Cybriwsky, R. 1974. “Urban Graffiti and Territorial Markers”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 64 No 4 (Dec. 1974) pp. 491–505.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovata, T.R. and Olton, E. (eds.) 2015. Understanding Graffiti: Multidisciplinary Studies from Prehistory to the Present, Routledge London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Madrid Revolutionary Team, 2013. Madrid Revolution: The History of the Capital, Hardcore/MTN, Madrid.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manco, T., Lost Art, and Neelon, C. 2005. Graffiti Brasil, Thames and Hudson, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, L.A. 2009. Textura: Valencia Street Art, Mark Batty Publishing, Brooklyn, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAuliffe, C. 2012. “Graffiti or Street Art? Negotiating the Moral geographies of the Creative City”: City Analysis of Urban Trends: Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 2012, 34, no 2 pp. 189–206.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, N. 2001. The graffiti sub-culture: Youth, masculinity and identity in London and New York. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonough, T. (ed.) 2009. The Situationists and the City, Verso, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monsa. 2013. Urban art: Made in BCN. Barcelona: Instituto Monsa de Barcelona.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nandrea, L. 1999. “Graffiti Taught me everything I know about space: Urban Fronts and Borders”, Antipode, 31.1 1999, pp. 110–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, S. 1999. Wallbangin’: Graffiti and Gangs in L.A. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pink, S. 2013. Doing Visual Ethnography, Sage, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puig, R. 2008. Barcelona 1000 Graffiti, Gustavo Gill, Barcelona.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz, M. 2008. Graffiti Argentina. New York: Thames & Hudson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schacter, R. 2008. “An Ethnography of Iconoclash: An investigation into the Production, Consumption and Destruction of Street Art in London”, Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 13(1): pp. 35–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schacter, R. and Fekner, J. 2013. The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, London, Aurum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schacter, R. 2014. Ornament and Order: Graffiti, Street Art and the Parergon, Farnham, Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scholz, A. 2003. Scenes, Graffiti in Barcelona, B Index Books, Barcelona.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, G. J. 2009. Graffiti lives: Beyond the tag in New York’s urban underground. New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, J. 2009. Graffiti Kings, Melcher Media/Abrams, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spanish Graffiare http://www.spanishgraffiare.com/

  • Uys, S., & Uys, D. 2013. Street art of Santiago: Walls that talk. Kindle Electronic Book, Amazon Media EU.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valencia Street Art http://www.uv.es/fvillar/graffiti/

  • Valjakka, M. 2011. “Graffiti in China—Chinese Graffiti?” The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 29(1) pp. 61–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ward, K. (ed.) 2014. Researching the City, Sage, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waquant, L. 2006. The “scholarly myths” of the new law and order doxa. Socialist Register, 42, 93–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, J. Q., & Kelling, G. 1982. Broken windows: The police and neighborhood safety. Atlantic Monthly, March, 29–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, Alison. 2010. Negotiated consent or zero tolerance? Responding to graffiti and street art in Melbourne. City 14 (1–2): 99–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, A. 2012. “Criminal Images, The affective judgement of graffiti and street art”, Crime, Media, Culture, 2012, 8(3): pp. 297–314.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, A. 2014. Street Art, Public City, London, Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zieleniec, A. 2016. “The Right to Write the City: Lefebvre and Graffiti”, Urban Environment, Vol. 10. http://eue.revues.org/1421

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Keele University, Newcastle-under-Lyme, UK

    Andrzej Zieleniec

Authors
  1. Andrzej Zieleniec
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Keele University, Keele, UK

    Nick Bentley

  2. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Beth Johnson

  3. Keele University, Keele, UK

    Andrzej Zieleniec

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Zieleniec, A. (2018). Representing Subcultural Identity: A Photoessay of Spanish Graffiti and Street Art. In: Bentley, N., Johnson, B., Zieleniec, A. (eds) Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media. Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73189-6_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73189-6_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73188-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73189-6

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation